So, for this week's preparedness challenge, I thought about the animals on our little homestead. We have a couple dogs that offer protection (and companionship of course). We have chickens that provide us with eggs (and soon, meat). Soon we'll have goats supplying us with milk (and possibly meat). In an emergency, fresh organic eggs & raw milk will be more valuable to us than they already are (as will fresh meat if our electricity should fail & spoil our freezer stores) in supplementing our dry food stores. Animals producing fresh food would also very likely be at risk of theft by those not prepared in an emergency, which is where the dogs come in as a deterent (ok, and also a gun or two). This week I realized that I must not forget about preparing food & water stores for our animals while I work on our own stores. So, I decided that at a minimum, I would strive to have at least a month's worth of extra food for our animals. In addition, I'm in the process of sorting through the recycling, pulling out gallon sized juice jugs which I will work on washing & filling with water for the animals. Its a bit of a blow to the budget though to buy double the amount of feed in one month, so this month I focused on the chickens & ordered extra feed in our co-op order, though given the fact that we've doubled the size of our flock this month, what I ordered probably doesn't quite amount to an extra month's worth.

Next trip to Costco, I'll add an extra bag of dog food. And I plan to work on an animal first aid kit. And, despite the ever rising gasoline prices these days, I'm going to try to make it a habit to keep our vehicles' tanks not less than half full. The reality is that my to-do list grows each week, and while that could easily start to feel overwhelming, I'm determined to feel good about the progress we've made, while staying focused on what still needs to be done.
This week, for the human members of our family, I also added extra pasta & legumes to my co-op order and picked up a dozen gallon sized jugs of water, extra juice, & canned goods at Costco.

Visit Homestead Revival for more tips on preparedness.
Great ideas! Your post gives me some ideas for things to work on during the upcoming week for our animals.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. :) Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you sharing your efforts on this topic. I've had it in mind and haven't yet done anything concrete, so it's good to see examples that help to prioritize, with limited funds.
ReplyDeleteI do have a question though. You said: "despite the ever rising gasoline prices these days, I'm going to try to make it a habit to keep our vehicles' tanks not less than half full." I have to ask "why?" You didn't explain that part, and I'm just wondering what the benefits are (aside from buying the most you can before the next price increase).
Thanks for the insights!
Thanks for commenting. The reason for having gasoline is if there is some sort of natural disaster especially, gas station pumps will likely be shut down for safety reasons or just not accessible due to damage. If we needed to leave our small isolated community for safety reasons, having gas will be essential. Otherwise that gas can be siphoned out to use in the generator to operate our well pump for water or to keep our freezer going in the event of longer term power outage
Delete