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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 4, 2011 10:55:28 GMT -5
Or should that be stalking game - ha hahaha... anyhow.
Just like I prefer my plants to be self sufficient, I've been thinking more about penning semi-wild critters in an environment where they would have sufficient food and water but would need minimal care. Anyhone thought about this or in fact, implemented it?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 4, 2011 12:04:13 GMT -5
Just like I prefer my plants to be self sufficient, I've been thinking more about penning semi-wild critters in an environment where they would have sufficient food and water but would need minimal care. Anyhone thought about this or in fact, implemented it? Out at the ranch: I place bird boxes to attract songbirds. I lay slabs of stone in positions to provide better lizard habitat. I make dens for other animals. I built a rain-water catchment that attracts morning doves. I planted grains and forbs that attract deer and turkeys. etc... In my fields, I place bird boxes and plant some bird attracting plants. At home I feed the birds. I figure that by doing so I am getting a supply of meat in place in case I need it some day. I could target more larger animals like doves, quail, pigeons, coyotes, or deer. I could even do regular introductions of gamebird species, but I figure that they'll mostly just fly away and that the best return on investment is in habitat improvement. If I were brave, I'd plant a few crops just to raise grasshoppers for food. Bleeek... What am I saying I've ate bugs, just never a grasshopper. I could easily raise wild snails for food. (Taste like mussels.) I also plant semi-wild food crops into places that I do not actively garden, such as mint, strawberries, and raspberries in the orchard. Grapes in the hedgerow. Apple seedlings along the canal. Walnuts in the woods. Asparagus and walking onions along the ditchbank. Even if I rarely harvest these crops they are still there waiting to provide food if me or my great-great grandchildren ever get desperate. (I am still eating from plantings like this that were made by my 3-g grandmother's people.) Some of the ranchers around here have built incredible elk fences and are growing elk in the wildlands. |
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Post by steev on Jan 4, 2011 19:59:14 GMT -5
I've established such a facility for gophers and voles. The neighbors think I'm trying to farm, but when the economy crashes, I'm the one who's going to have a reliable, renewable, inexhaustable source of high quality organic protein: the snakes that feed on those rodents. Tastes like chicken and fits on a stick!
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Post by synergy on Jan 4, 2011 21:24:50 GMT -5
I wonder if for calories put in, if insects would be good protein ? Snails sound about my speed.
I am currently raising the finest nut, seed and grain fed squirrels around, in the interest of food security , when there are food shortages, that population will be quickly decimated for stew.
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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 5, 2011 0:55:38 GMT -5
Strange I made a response but it never appeared. To responde again: Steev you sly person you. Synergy - I have thought a fair amount about insect protein: worth another thread. As for squirrels, oh yes, I have a healthy rodent population for sure. Joseph: I wonder how much room Elk need, or other similar game for that matter? I'm trying to imagine snail fencing now.  |
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Post by steev on Jan 5, 2011 16:46:35 GMT -5
Elk will prune hell out of your fruit trees, as they did mine this year; I would so shoot them (tasty), but the state says no and has them all chipped.
Insect protein is fine; the next plague of locusts to hit my farm (this past summer and four years back) I'll send them to you. They tend to kill young, outlying trees, not so much by eating all the leaves, which they do, but by stripping the twigs of all the bark. I have a weed Chinese plum which I ripped up by its roots when a foot tall, kept in a #10 pot a couple years, and planted outback on the farm to fend for itself. It has survived both assaults, but is getting a really weird structure, due to the way they prune it. My kind of plant! The occasional plum it has started producing isn't bad, either; not always the case with these volunteer "bird plums".
Thinking of squirrels: years ago I read an article about eating squirrel brains in Kentucky, which mentioned mad squirrel syndrome and I've never quite been sure it wasn't quite true, sort of like ferret-legging. So yesterday I was watching a dvd about ebola virus in an area where people routinely eat insects, rats, and monkeys (I have no problem with that per se), but this guy popped a cooked rat head in his mouth; that crunch put me right off any enthusiasm I might have had for the local cuisine. Cheeseburger for me, thanks.
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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 5, 2011 19:26:29 GMT -5
No locust plagues here - apparently, we killed off the Rocky Mountain Locust sometime back when people were tilling up the west. Maybe we get the odd locust mini-cloud?? Someone told me that tomato hornworm were edible - I've yet to find one but they sure look fat in pictures. I think eating brains is probably a bad idea disease wise regardless of what cranian it is stored in.
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Post by ozarklady on Jan 5, 2011 19:47:56 GMT -5
Yuck, sorry, hornworms are only good for stomping on, even chickens here look at them in disgust! The ducks won't touch them either, so they must be manually picked and stomped. I know insects and stuff are suppose to be good protein sources... I can think of several veggies that I would choose rather than a bug! Yuck!
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jan 6, 2011 6:27:12 GMT -5
Tomato Horn Worms - I was ignorant of this critter type prior to arriving here. They go from about an inch long and relatively slender (the smallest I've ever seen) to 4" to 5" and as big around as my middle finger. MASSIVE in my opinion.
But most interesting, OL, your chickens won't eat them? My chickens think they are caviar! The kids love to collect them and hand feed them to the birdies. I wonder what makes difference?
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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 6, 2011 9:52:19 GMT -5
As for 'free range' animals, anyone on here:
Forest Fed Pigs
Have a pond stocked with fish
Free range some kind of poultry - I mean really free range (Yeah I don't really know what I mean, just throwing out lines hoping to catch something).
Do something with Rabbits???
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 6, 2011 11:55:56 GMT -5
Free range some kind of poultry - I mean really free range (Yeah I don't really know what I mean, just throwing out lines hoping to catch something). Do something with Rabbits??? Around here, there are lots of free range poultry: wild turkeys, california quail, pheasants, chuckars, etc... Problem is the state claims ownership over them... But if you stocked a species that is not covered by game laws then you should be good. For example here there are no laws regarding: Eurasian doves, starlings, rock doves, spugs. As far as rabbits go, the Australians built a fence to keep rabbits out. I guess there is no reason that a person couldn't build a rabbit proof fence to raise free-range rabbit meat. |
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Post by steev on Jan 7, 2011 21:08:35 GMT -5
I'm not kidding, snakes raised on rodents is the way to go; it's practically a perpetual-motion deal. Hiss-ka-bob; you read it here first. For the time being, I'm keeping a low profile and my ear to the ground, but when comes the time to strike, I'll be bigger than Colonel Chicken. I may trademark snakeskin boots.
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Post by castanea on Jan 8, 2011 2:03:28 GMT -5
In Russia some people have stocked different types of antelope that do well in cold weather and otherwise fend for themselves. Every antelope steak I've ever had was really tasty.
I've always wanted to pick up some of the exotic critters at a game ranch and let them loose on 40 acres and see how they would do.
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Post by castanea on Jan 8, 2011 2:28:52 GMT -5
This is what just one Texas game ranch stocks:
Addax Antelope
Alpine Ibex
Aoudad Sheep
American Bison
Armenian Mouflon
Arabian Oryx
Axis
Barasinga
Blackbuck
Blesbok
Bongo
Cape Buffalo
Catalina Goat
Chinese Water Deer
Common Lechwe
Corsican Sheep
Dama Gazelle
Dybowski Sika
Eland
Eld's Deer
Elk
Fallow Deer
Four Horn Sheep
Gemsbock
Grant's
Hawaiian Black Sheep
Himalayan Tahr
Hog Deer
Hybrid Ibex
Impala
Javelina
Iranian Red Sheep
Kudu
Mouflon-Urial
Markhor
Mouflon Sheep
Muntjac Deer
Nile Lechwe
Nilgai
Nubian Ibex
Nyala
Pigmy Goat
Pere David's Deer
Red Stag
Rusa
Russian Boar
Sable
Springbok
Sika Deer
Sitatunga
Texas Dall Sheep
Thomson Gazelle
Urial Sheep
West Cauasian Tur
Waterbuck
Water Buffalo
Watusi
Wildebeest
Yak
Zebra
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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 8, 2011 14:43:50 GMT -5
Woah! Thanks for the list. It's inspiring though I'm pretty sure Zebra would frown upon me bringing them here. Though it would be cool to see people slow down as they were driving past our acreage.
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