FREE HENNY PENNY!

As America continues to become tangled in the web of domesticated animal welfare, we continue to exacerbate the inhumane results of our efforts. The closing of horse slaughter plants has backfired. Our emphasis on spay and neuter clinics has made just a small dent in the number of feral cats and dogs. Millions of canines and felines are euthanized each year. Feral hogs have become as welcome as coyotes, rats, prairie dogs, wolves and white tail deer in many states. The biggest factor in each case can be traced back to decisions made by people with big hearts and a limited knowledge of nature's way.

The latest example of compassionate, naïve and innocent ignorance backfiring, is the unwanted backyard chicken movement. Urban folks, sincere and serious, want to know where their food comes from. In their mind they have the image of free-range hens laying eggs and pecking around with smiles on their beaks. Roosters welcoming the day, cute little chicks you can hold in your hand.

So far, so good. But as the effort to feed, contain, clean-up after, dust for lice and hose chicken poop off the porch, the swing set, the window sills…the new nervous poultrymen must face reality. They begin to see why farmers using modern practices that prevent disease, increase sanitation, improve their diet, and reduce the muck that goes with raising chickens is important. Reality is not the idyllic farmer-in-the-dell fairy tale they had imagined.

Then the hens quit laying. The neuvo-farmer can't even think about slaughtering such a faithful hen. So, just like dumping unwanted horses, puppies and kittens, they turn their old hens loose…sort of a “Free Henny Penny!”

Is this a serious problem? In Minneapolis, a “Chicken rescue facility” report that they received calls to take 500 abandoned chickens. They are working with Animal Control to find homes to place the steady stream of unwanted chickens.

Those of us in rural America look on this problem dumbfounded. Nigerians in refuge camps, Filipino typhoon victims, North Korean mothers, Laotian immigrants plus 98% of the people on Earth who have some basic understanding of life's cycle, are incredulous.

In megacities, we have isolated a significant percentage of our population from reality. They exist in a cocoon that is controlled by electronic robots that keep them and their children separated from dirt, weather, farming, mining timber, drilling and changing their own flat tires. They might as well be living in a space station on the moon.

We, whose job is to feed, house and comfort these space station citizens make an effort to inform them “Where their food, clothing and shelter comes from.” But most will never become truly knowledgeable enough in the subjects to make an educated decision. So, it will continue to be up to us, the producers, to make the right decisions, for the right reasons.

So with a tip of the hat to you urban chicken raisers, do your homework, be responsible and enjoy your eggs. And remember, that little chick will one day be at the Campbell's soup stage of their life. Have a plan.

In a real SHTF event many will die standing around waiting for authorities to come put things right and some will die with not ever understanding what is happening.

This is something that many expericed surviors of SHTF events report over and over again rationtal normal intellegent people failing to accept that a breakdown is occurring even though they watch are watching it as it happens before their very eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.

It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/

For me its a simple choice you either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’.

Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.

My Preparedness Manual can be downloaded at:

http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf

NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!

For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, cash (I myself have been putting up change for the past few years both for the metal content and the fact that using change to make what purchases you might at the start of an event will move you down the the list of possible marks during shtf), tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.

As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”

Again I like to recomend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom, Where you can get lots of useful information like:

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/

And More

Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:

http://ferfal.blogspot.com/

There is also Daniel Duquenal blog detailing Venezuela’s slide into SHTF

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:

http://shtfschool.com/

“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.”

These are the same people that vacation in our rural mountain region and want to know where they go to pet bears.

Just find a bear and extend your hand. And take pictures.

Not long ago I was driving on SR40 here in Florida when a car in front of me clipped a large Black Bear. The bear, dazed, but very much alive made it back to the shoulder of the road and just sort of sat up trying to regain its senses.

What happened next made my jaw drop. The car that hit the bear had pulled over. A woman her two young children got out and were making there way toward the bear with a cup of water to 'help' the bear. In the brush at the edge of the shoulder I could see a small cub watching the whole drama unfold.

I told my wife to call the Florida Highway Patrol while I ran toward the woman and kids yelling at them to stay the hell away from the bear. Although I had my 9 mm concealed in my waistband I did not feel confident it would have stopped a soon to be very pissed mama bear with a cub.

Luckily a Highway Patrolman pulled up before things got crazy and educated the woman about wild bears. About that time the bear recovered and headed into the woods.

If and when the SHTF a lot of folks are gonna go down real quick.

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