Alternative Agriculture – Meat

Meat is one topic that  is of great interest to preppers, who by and large are not only meat-eaters but also meat-lovers.

I wrote an article a couple of days ago, and 3BY regular Michael shared some interesting thoughts. I decided to combine those thoughts into this article, so I’m going to let Michael take it away.

Meat is important, not getting shot, burned out of your home or arrested is more important.

If you research nutrition you realize meat until quite recently a scarce foodstuff. In most of the world Today meat is a small side dish to the legumes, vegetables and grain meals (Beans and Rice ring a bell?).

HOWEVER today white rice is fortified by the addition of Vitamin B-1 WHY? White rice stores well but the loss of the bran takes away the B Vitamins. Beriberi is a ugly deficiency disease from the lack of B-1. Dry Beriberi is lower body nerve issues eventually grows into breathing failure.

Wet Beriberi is death by heart failure. You can eat a lot of winter squash, Green Peas, seeds and nuts to get it but just a small amount of meat or fish will provide the daily need.

The Roman Army was the original Army Corps of Engineering building roads, Dams, Aqueducts and Fortresses all over the know world POWERED by legumes and grain supported by a Fermented Fish Paste known as Garum that provided taste improvement and more importantly a storable-transportable supply of B Vitamins.

Before you say eeeewwww fermented fish… Garum today is called Fish Sauce. Wikipedia has an article on how it’s made. Pretty easy, just an acquired taste like all fermented foods. Even tiny bait fish can be used. Ponds will always have tiny fish.

People cannot steal what they don’t know about

Rabbits can be easily concealed and don’t require commercial rabbit pellets. Wild Rabbits BTW do not domesticate as they are a different species than domestic rabbits.

Roosters are needed for chicken Reproduction and yes you can keep them pretty quiet using Rooster Mufflers a Velcro strap around their throats to allow them to eat and breathe but keeps crowing pretty quiet. You can also in SERIOUS situations keep them in a Sound Proofed Room.

Salty’s Note: You don’t need roosters for just egg production, and hens are a LOT more quiet than roosters.

Pigeons & Doves

If you have lost your homestead and you have some rot gut liquor and cracked corn you can use it to live trap pigeons/doves. It’s actually funny to watch drunk birds when your picking them up. Keeping them alive allows you to eat them fresh as needed OR you can build a Dovecote.

The initial birds will have to be restrained until they produce Squabs. Then you eat the original trapped birds. Those Squabs will grow quickly into Domestic Pigeons Returning to your Dovecote after they fly and feed. You get eggs and squabs for protecting them from predators. The manure is prized even today in Middle East for fertilizer.

Their homing ability is natural and two castles allied to each other often sent cages with pigeons to the other castle to allow messages to be sent quickly.

Chinese Aquaculture

First think about what a productive pond looks like. Murky, smells a bit like a swamp Because the edges are a swamp. A deep pond is needed to overwinter the breeder fish yet the young and the main fish food production is in the weedy shallows. Thus you have more than one pond. A deep central pond that allows you to take water from it to fill the shallow edge ponds with water and breeder fish.

The Chinese system has several ponds. One or two shallow ponds is this years fish pond and the others are garden fields to take advantage of the fertility of the pond bottom as well as the joy of the fish next year clearing off the garden residue. This yearly break also destroys both the build up of fish AND plant diseases. 

You know planting nightshades like potatoes, tomatoes and peppers in the same area year after year guarantees Blight and total loss of the years crops. The same can be said of all garden plants. Rotation of fish pond to garden plat prevents that. 

Chinese use local fish for the fish stock, live caught and moved to the ponds. Around here I would use perch but down south catfish would be better.

Water Problems

Water quality is a problem with intensive pond management. Too many fish in too small a pond for too long a time breeds fish diseases and or parasites or lack of O2 issues. Too much vegetation can actually create too low O2 situations due to the need for O2 for decay process. The Chinese system prevents fish diseases by selective Long Handled Net harvesting to keep healthy breeders for the over winter while eating the rest.

Water quality is improved either by falling water (man powered water wheel system) or stirring water (Fixed pivot oar) for O2 addition when you see fish gasping at surface do it now. Excess vegetation is removed with long handled nets and the vegetation is used as fertilizer for the garden plots and fruit trees.

Swamp

A take away is that swamp vegetation is a fertilizer resource for your garden. Nice to know when you cannot buy 10-10-10 fertilizer.

I have seen this system in use in Korea and was amazed just how much food and how little input from outside sources this system needs. Main tools was the shovel to dig the fill and drain ditches and long handled nets.

You could do this system using 245 gallon Totes and set up a fill and drain aquaculture bed if digging a pond is not possible. Could even build a hoop greenhouse to provide food production year round. 

Wrapping it up

When I visited Monticello I enjoyed talking to the staff there. Seems Thomas Jefferson was first a Gardener, second a President and thirdly an avid student of Asian and Middle Eastern farming techniques. An useful example is the shallow fish pond he had in his SHADY tea yard.

Monticello is on the top of a hill but Thomas loved fresh fish. So they would net fish, and transport them in water buckets to that shallow pond to keep for a few days until needed. Someone’s job was to stir the water with an oar or use a bucket to keep the O2 up for the fish. Thomas Jefferson had a Dovecote for fresh squab. 

Meat is important the famous Hatfield and McCoy feud was over a stolen Pig. In subsistence farming stealing the family pig was condemning that family to starvation.

I hope other folks post ideas to deal with this situation. I like winter squash but prefer meat.