Posted on 03/01/2012 10:29:42 AM PST by blam
No Matter How Much Food You’ve Got Stored, It Will Eventually Run Out in a Full-Blown Collapse
Joe Alton, M.D.,aka Dr. Bones
March 1st, 2012
The following article has been generously contributed by Joe Alton, M.D., aka Dr. Bones, of Doom and Bloom Nation where you can find strategies to stay healthy that include traditional medicine, alternative remedies, and medicinal/survival gardening. For the best in emergency and long-term disaster medical preparedness we encourage you to check out The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook and follow Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy on their weekly podcast.
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To Survive, How Much Land?
Have you ever wondered how likely it is that you’ll be able to produce all the calories you’ll need on that piece of land you have? How much land for livestock? How about those solar panels you were thinking about? How many square feet of panels will provide you with the electricity you’ll need? There are ways to figure this out, and the answers may surprise you.
Let’s start by talking power. In a collapse situation, you’ll probably be able to rely on the sun and wind and not much else, unless you’ve built a watermill. The best answer might be installing some solar panels on your roof. This is a commonly available option that many people are considering nowadays. Let’s say part of your roof is facing south (the best place for a solar panel) and you get 7 hours or so of sunlight, on average. To get the amount of power that an average home uses in a year, you’ll need 375 square feet of panels. These things aren’t cheap, and that much hardware is going to be beyond the average family’s financial reach. This means that you’ll have to make decisions regarding how to ration the power you ARE able to produce. Look around the house, and you’ll probably see lots of things that are plugged in that you can eliminate if the stuff ever hits the fan. This is part of the planning you’ll need to do now, so that you’ll be better prepared for times of trouble.
How about food? If you have a family of four, you’ll want to provide at least 2000 or so calories per adult, more if you’re a big guy, maybe a little less for kids. The formula is simple: At least 30 calories per kilogram of body weight. One kilogram equals 2.2 pounds, so an 80 kilogram adult would weigh 176 pounds. 30 x 80 = 2400 calories/day. Less for kids, of course. All in all, you’ll need to provide 8000-9000 calories a day to maintain your family of four’s weight. So, let’s talk about some hard realities. No matter how much food you’ve got stored, it will eventually run out in a full-blown collapse. For your future success, better get that garden growing. Anyone who’s done it will tell you that there’s a learning curve, and you sure don’t want to plant that first seed in the midst of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Now, let’s separate your garden out into three categories: fruits, berries, and vegetables, then wheat, then corn. If you went totally vegetarian, you would need a little less than half an acre per person to provide all of those calories. That means a family of 4 needs almost 2 acres of farmable land!
The majority of this land will go to fruits, berries, and veggies. You’ll get the most nutrients in terms of vitamins and minerals from these. To decrease the amount of land you’ll need, consider companion planting. Some organic farmers will plant sunflowers, and then plant peas that will grow up the long stalks. The same goes with corn, squash, and pole beans. Squash will grow low to the ground, pole beans will take the intermediate area, and corn up high. Make sure you don’t put plants in the same family together, such as dill and carrots. They will share the same pests and diseases, which could possibly spread from one crop to the other.
If you stock up on wheatberries and use your handy dandy Wondermill, you can cut the land requirement down a bit. A mix of prepared food storage and gardening will keep you healthy and fed for a longer time. Corn isn’t a very land-efficient crop, but you might need it for your livestock. An alternative if you need to trim that acreage down a bit more is to stock up on bushels of corn feed; that’s about 55 pounds of feed for about $9-10. This is a good idea, but you’ll use a lot of it. It takes 10 bushels of corn to get a hog from weaning to slaughter. Btw, corn prices are going higher; they were less than 5 dollars a couple of years ago.
Don’t forget, you’ll need some land for hog wallows, goats, rabbits and chickens. All of these animals can be raised in relatively small amounts of space, and provide important protein. You’ll need a good 200 square feet for 3 hogs, more if they have piglets. You can get away with less for each of the other animals.
You might have to forget about cows; they aren’t land-efficient. If you want milk, think about goats, especially Nubian Goats. This variety can produce 1800 lbs. of milk a year, according to various sources. That’s a lot of milk! How about eggs? The average family of four will eat 1000 eggs or so a year. To reliably get this quantity, you’ll need about 10-15 birds in your henhouse, depends a lot on the breed and the ingenuity of the local foxes and raccoons.
You could probably squeeze this all in with an acre and a half of land. If you don’t have that much property, now you know you’ll need that much more food storage to make up the difference. This is information I thought was important for me to know, and now you know it too.
And my dad knows how to make improvised landmines and all sorts of other fun obstacles that funnel you right toward the barrels......of high powered rifles.
The "SAS Survival Handbook" has some good deadfall depictions. There's also a few good things in "The Poor Man's Munitions Handbook."
A wrist rocket type slingshot is pretty good also. With shot it is very accurate and absolutely lethal. When you run out of shot - rocks work pretty well, and you may well NEVER run out of rocks (although your rubber bands will eventually fray - especially if you leave it out in the sun).
Good for taking out guard dogs and sentries silently - also for small game.
Or just pissing them off..........
He fell like a deflated balloon, and blood came running out his nose.
A lead shot would have been more accurate and more effective.
If you don't think a rock or lead shot fired from a sling is dangerous - you should speak with Goliath - or the Rhodians.
I never said I didn’t think a wrist rocket wasn’t deadly....in practiced hands.
Well there might well be plenty of time for practice - and plenty of rock ‘ammunition’ to practice with.
I know at 17 I was a pretty good shot with that thing - and it was absolutely LETHAL. I also had a compound bow and was well practiced with it also - ever hear a deer scream when hit with an arrow?
An arrow to the head may or may not kill and silence your foe, and if it doesn’t kill - they will be quite loud about getting hit with an arrow.
A high velocity rock to the head, I think, would be more likely to silently fell your foe.
Mileage may vary.
Where I live there is a whole lot of space without a whole lot of people. Our place is just under 500 acres. Over 2000 acres just north of me is completely vacant and overgrown with brush. East of me is about 1500 acres only two people there. South of me is a piece about 360 acres open land maybe 4-5 people. West of me a piece about 200 acres, 1 person there.
The only people close to me are 4 houses on the road in, and each is sitting on over 15 acres. They all have a few cows.
Meat for the table is the least of my worries.
My sister has cows on our property. About 150 head cows and calves together.
I've heard rabbits scream..after shooting them with a shotgun though........Very scary the first time I heard it. I was 10 or a 11....
I've a wrist rocket...and don't shoot it as much as I'd like. Fun to shoot though!!
I bow hunt every year...as well as black powder and rifle. I like to get out and hunt....whether or not I shoot something. Had some good encounters this last season....but never could get it done for the buck I was "looking for in my mind".
Best to you....
See #167
My closest neighbor lives about a mile away as the crow flies.
There’s less than 25 people in a 2 mile circle around me. Maybe 100 in a 5 mile circle.
Be a long time before anyone gets down to where I am.
“Big Rock Candy Mountain - Burl Ives:”
I remember the song. I had the 45 and played it a million times along with the Barry Sadler’s “Green Berets”.
Here’s back at you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y5GDvN9_OE
Nuh Uh! ;o)
Can the snipers be prepared 24/7?
One or two ‘snipers’ are not going to be able to protect a farm 24/7 and at the same time maintain all the stuff that needs to be done to survive.
Uh huh.
I live alone and unarmed in a condo. If a “full-blown collapse” of civilization occurs, a lack of food won’t be what kills me. It will be murdering hooligans roving in marauding packs. They would loot my place and kill me or leave me for dead.
I've heard that from old folks down here in the South all my life.
FReeper The Duke has started a prepper group in the Tampa area. He may offer some insight on how to meet like minded people in your area.
Here is a link to his blog.
Sounds like easy pickins to me
I know you are, but what am I?
All kidding aside: this thread has gone seriously off the rails. There's not going to be any Mad Max apocalypse.
Look to Argentina for our future.
I'll be helping my neighbors feed their kids, and help defend them from predators....
Try it and find out how easy the pickings are.
I think you’re kinda missing the point. One or two people cannot provide adequate security over an extended period of time. Dogs or no dogs.
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