heavy going with no experience between us. Can you offer any general advice and would you recommend some good books on animal treatment ? J.E MT
A: The best brief advice I can give you on raising farm animals is "go slowly." Try only a few head of livestock at a time and experiment with a broad variety. All animals are a lot of trouble to care for, so you'd better find the kind you can learn to love before you take them on in quantity.
One classic reference book is the Merck Veterinary Manual. It is excellent but quite condensed and rather technical . Two very thorough and readable books by practicing veterinarians are: Animal Husbandry by Guy Lockwood, D.V.M., and A Veterinary Guide for Animal Owners by C.E. Spaulding , D.V.M. Also helpful are Raising Small Livestock by Jerome D. Belanger and Carla Emery's compendium on country living, Old-Fashioned Recipe Book. --- Chapter 4. FOOD STORAGE
I invite you to try an experiment . Take a pad of paper and jot down all of the food you have in your house. If you are honest about the quantities you consume and if you are close to the national average, you will probably have something slightly less than a week's supply on hand. Consider how well you might fare if your town were paralyzed by a snowstorm , or if an earthquake , flood or windstorm struck. For that matter, consider the results of even more personal disasters such as a severe accident or the loss of your job.
If you find this awareness of your vulnerability sobering, you will not be cheered by the fact that the food supply of an average U.S. city is only eight days or that the total amount of food in the world has dropped from a tenuous 180 days' ration to less than 84. Couple these emergency conditions with the long-term outlook alluded to earlier and you should have enough information to view your own circumstances in an atmosphere of
reasonable concern.
Although there may be nothing we can do to alleviate these problems or even to prevent them from becoming increasingly acute, we can -- as individuals -- take steps to protect ourselves and our families from the devastation which the contingencies I have outlined are almost certain to provoke.
The obvious answer to the possibility of future food shortages is to buy and store a supply now while it is available and affordable , and to make provision for supplementing or renewing that supply by growing your own, hunting, and bartering with hard goods later. Implementing a sound food storage program is easier than it may sound and it is well
within the means of the average American family. There are some pitfalls, of course, but the information contained here should allow you to tailor a storage program suited to your needs and to avoid the more costly errors.
The amount of food you choose to store should be based upon your own assessment of how severe and long lasting the shortages may be, but even an inadequate supply is better than nothing because it will buy you time. For most people, a one-year program is a barely comfortable minimum and a two-year one is better. If you can afford it, even a five-year supply is not unreasonable since you can almost certainly trade any excess for other items which you may need. And you can, of course, simply eat your food if your concerns later prove to be unfounded .
Buying one of the numerous, preselected , so-called one year or survival food packages produced by various suppliers is certainly the easiest approach to food storage and one which many dealers will recommend or even push. In most cases these package deals are inappropriate and in many, they are dangerously inadequate . For one thing, they often provide no more than 900 or 1100 calories per day -- hardly an adequate ration for an active adult, particularly under conditions of stress. For another, few companies prepare all of their foods equally well, and you may be better off choosing the items you want from several different packagers . Finally, it makes no more sense to purchase a
standardized or prepackaged food storage program than it does to buy your weekly bag of groceries selected and bagged by a supermarket clerk, without regard to your personal preferences . If at all possible, you should sample a variety of storable foods before you make large purchases . One of the most convenient
ways have found to introduce clients to the better quality foods prepared for long-term storage is to have them order the sampler put up by Survival, Inc. (Survival, Inc.,17019 Kingsview , Carson, CA 90746, $47.50 postpaid). It contains generous portions of twelve storage foods, both air-dried and freeze-dried, and from it you can easily build a program which will suit your taste. Take warning, however. Some of the items contained in this sampler -- such as the Mountain House sausage -- are so tasty that you will want to include them in your regular diet.
Ideally, you should counsel with someone knowledgeable in food storage whom you can trust, but you can probably avoid any serious blunders by following a basic plan which I have recommended to many of my clients. First acquire an honest three months supply of "wet pack" or ordinary canned goods and other supermarket foods which you consume on a regular basis. Try to provide about 2000-plus calories a day and a good balance of foods you really like. A mixed case of chili and potato soup is not a true month's supply, even though it may look like a lot compared with what you are used to keeping on your shelves. If you are unsure about quantities , try writing down the type and amount of every food item your family consumes for a week and then multiply by thirteen. It is a good idea to date-stamp Your canned goods and rotate them so that your supply will always be as fresh
as possible in an emergency . Most canned products retain substantially all of their nutritive value for at least
a year and they remain safe to eat-assuming no bulged cans or other evidence of spoilage - - for as long as three years. Both the food value and the shelf life can be extended if you turn each can upside down once a month. These supplies should see you through such short-term emergencies as earthquakes , floods, storms, strikes, temporary shortages , power outages and the like, but they will not last long enough to provide the basis for a major storage program.
Next I recommend a highly portable three-month supply which requires little, if any,