# Thoughts on cattle after SHTF



## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

My thoughts on some problems I can see happening, and a chance to brainstorm some solutions on here. Okay, after things fall apart and it doesn't seem that things will get back to normal, I can see a reason to make some changes to my cattle herd. I can see reducing from the 15 cow calf pairs I have now. Probably going down to something like 3 beef pairs, and 1 or 2 milk pairs. The numbers might change a little one way or another, but this is the basic idea. I have a neighbor that is a dairy farmer, and only a couple properties over that I am sure I could pick up a couple milk cows from if needed. I think the problems that I could see starting is the need to protect the cattle. I can see when the day might come that you would have the cattle out in the fields by day, but would want to move them up near the house at night. When the grass is growing good, it would be a hard time to get them to move to the barn yard. I believe if I had grain I might be able to get them to follow me, but once things get bad, I doubt if I would have the extra grain to get them to follow. I guess I should say that I currently daily rotational graze, so they are use to moving to new grass, but once they hit the new grass, it is heads down, and the eating begins. Any one have any thoughts or ideas?


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## farmsteader6 (Dec 19, 2014)

Ive thought a lot about stuff like that as well but the bigger problem i thought of was how to process and keep that much meat at one time with out a deep freeze and fridge. Yes you can smoke it but thats a huge amount of work in current times. Couldnt imagine with out the modern conveniences.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

I figure they would be killed right away by hungry people. Even if you find a way to put them up. You would need to live with them to protect them, because you'd be busy protecting yourself and other provisions.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

As far as processing them, I am trying to finalize plans for a solar setup, that will allow me to run freezers, and a fridge. I should be able to run a meat band saw on a limited usage also. 7thswan, I think you are over doing how quickly things would fall apart, and also getting a little carried away with how bad they would be. Do I think animals will be a target of people, Yes. Do I think every cow in America will be gone in the first few months? No. I believe that those that are easy targets will be a problem.


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## TripleD (Feb 12, 2011)

7thswan said:


> I figure they would be killed right away by hungry people. Even if you find a way to put them up. You would need to live with them to protect them, because you'd be busy protecting yourself and other provisions.


I figure the hungry people will want to find easier pickings after they see a few bodies in the pasture....:stars:


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

I think if it gets that bad , it will be the shepherd life style , keeping watch over them by night , or maybe you want to get a blue healer and break them in with corralling your heard regular for moves to new grass

with milkers you will get a routine for milking will have them in the barn yard at night and returning at dusk for milking , I know some guys that stantion milk will have the girls come in even when dry , they just keep the routine year round , get a little grain and water and they check them over for sores or problems then let them back out


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Heck, all my cows come a running when I start up the lawn tractor. I use a sweeper to give them the fresh clippings when I'm not mulching the garden with them.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

I still have all the tools to butcher and saw up a beef by hand. I have hand grinders as well. It would be a lot of work. You would butcher in the fall or spring (at least around here) you need cool weather 30's to low 40's . You would use 2 pulley blocks to raise up the animal. After butchering it would need to hang a few days, and you could cut it up 1/4 at a time. We can a lot of meat. Canned meat is delicious. You could salt beef (corned beef) My father told of storing it in the granary under the wheat, to keep the bugs away from it. You could make jerky as well. Solar panels and a freezer is a good idea. In the winter around here there might not be enough sun for solar panels but it is cold so the meat would remain frozen. In an ice house, sawdust is used to keep the ice from melting I suspect something similar could be done to keep meat frozen even if the weather warmed for a few days in winter. If you have never butchered a beef it would be good to see it done at least once. It has been several years for me but it would come back to me once I started. It takes about 2 to 3 hours to do a whole beef. 2 if you have help 3 if your alone.

As far as beef in the field, bring them up at night and have dogs to protect them.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

My question is, how to bring them up if you don't have grain to entice them. I don't usually feed much grain except to pigs and chickens. So if things got bad, I doubt if it would be long before I would have no grain to entice them with. So I am looking for thoughts on how a person might get a group of cattle out of green pastures to come up to a barn yard at night?


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## TripleD (Feb 12, 2011)

thestartupman said:


> My question is, how to bring them up if you don't have grain to entice them. I don't usually feed much grain except to pigs and chickens. So if things got bad, I doubt if it would be long before I would have no grain to entice them with. So I am looking for thoughts on how a person might get a group of cattle out of green pastures to come up to a barn yard at night?


How far is your farthest pasture from the barn ?


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

thestartupman said:


> My question is, how to bring them up if you don't have grain to entice them. I don't usually feed much grain except to pigs and chickens. So if things got bad, I doubt if it would be long before I would have no grain to entice them with. So I am looking for thoughts on how a person might get a group of cattle out of green pastures to come up to a barn yard at night?


It doesn't take much more than a handful of feed to reinforce the idea and in most cases if you can figure out who the lead animal is, she's the only one that really needs fed. 

Start conditioning them now. 

Either by bringing them up at night (as was mentioned in the case of dairy animals) or by teach them that good things happen when they follow the red bucket (or whatever color you like - just make sure it is dedicated for the purpose). Eventually the bucket won't even need anything in it, they'll see it and follow.


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

farmsteader6 said:


> Ive thought a lot about stuff like that as well but the bigger problem i thought of was how to process and keep that much meat at one time with out a deep freeze and fridge. Yes you can smoke it but thats a huge amount of work in current times. Couldnt imagine with out the modern conveniences.


Natives used to put up whole buffalo by the gross without modern convenience. If your existence depends on doing a job, and you have no other job to do besides exist, the amount of time and effort to do the job doesn't seem like so much.

Canning, drying and smoking. All can be done without electricity. At my house we are trying to transition away from storing too much in the freezer.


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## hickerbillywife (Feb 28, 2014)

You'll want to get a breed that can survive and produce without much grain. 
We found out the hard way that Jerseys require a lot more dietary supplements than a Dexter. Plus their smaller size will be easier to manage when it come time to butcher and preserve. We purchased a solar set capable of running a deep freeze and a few other things for around 5K.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

TripleD the property is 80 acres. It is probably 1500 feet away from the house the way my rotational lanes are laid out. Hikerbillywife, I have Angus cattle that are already producing off of just grass, hay, and minerals. They still know a grain bag well enough to come when things aren't so green. When things are green and lush, I don't believe they would follow a grain bucket. A grain bucket is also not really the way I want to go anyway, because if things get bad, grain will be one thing I can see running short on. I thought about limiting their water to only at the house, but it is a long way for them to come when they are in the back fields.


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## hickerbillywife (Feb 28, 2014)

I have a half angus half jersey girl that I hope becomes my milk cow. I sure hope the angus in her gives her the strength and stability and she'll make a decent milk cow without a lot of grain. I have read that dexters are a dual purpose cow but have yet to milk one. They are quite tastey though.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

Water, not grain. Put your water tank in the corral and keep the gate locked. Open the gate at certain times of the day and they will get used to coming when you open the gate. We've had to use that technique on cows before. They would disappear into the brush as soon as they saw you so we couldn't catch them. After a week of doing this we could pen them morning and evening when they came to drink.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

Since we moved to the desert we have moved away from cattle and into goats. They don't eat as much and require less space to house. We have meat and dairy breeds. They are easier to protect from predators and easier and safer to handle. I've got 2 LA Mancha dairy does and they each give about 2 gallons a day at their peak. That provides more than enough for our use. We also have 2 Boar does currently bread to a Boar buck but can just as easily be bread to my LA Mancha buck if necessary to produce meat for us.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

I doubt in a real SHTF situation that it will make a lot of difference if you let them out during the day or at night. 

They will still be easy targets, and most humans will be active during the day


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## mustangglp (Jul 7, 2015)

I raise hair sheep as I only have ten acres they would easily provide enough meat for my family if needed and come in a package that's easy to process I did buy a fifty pound bag of salt and have canning supply's
As far as protecting them well that going to be tough. No one could catch one with out shooting it so that would be heard and my eggs will be in more baskets so?


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

thestartupman said:


> My question is, how to bring them up if you don't have grain to entice them. I don't usually feed much grain except to pigs and chickens. So if things got bad, I doubt if it would be long before I would have no grain to entice them with. So I am looking for thoughts on how a person might get a group of cattle out of green pastures to come up to a barn yard at night?


Water. It's not ideal but they can get by on 1 good drink every 24 hours. If the water source is in the barn lot, they will come. But if things get really bad they would need to be watched/guarded anyway.

As far as harvesting, without modern conveniences probably would want to butcher "baby beef". Easier to manage and one less to feed for winter.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Yes, I figure a person would have to guard any animals that are away from the house during the day, if things got real bad. I think if a person could get them up to the house at night, it would make it much easier to keep an eye on them. I think water might be the trick though. I could easily bring them up to the barnyard twice per day if they were to come to the water. It would take a while to get a system down though. Really a person could probably let them out in the morning for about 2 hours, then bring them back up to the barnyard. Then in the evening you could let them back out again for a couple more hours, then back to the barn for water.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

I think you are on target with training. If you whistle or make some other sound (a triangle, for instance) when you go out with grain, you&#8217;ll notice that they will respond to the whistle without seeing a bucket. So, then, you whistle, they start coming, you show them the bucket. After that, they need to walk farther to see the bucket, then they don&#8217;t see it at all. Once you have them on a recall, you can use water as a reward, then start making them wait for the water. If you want them to come inside, you close the gate and they will either start to come inside of their own accord, or when you open the gate to the barn they find a treat.

As someone else mentioned, once they start moving, they all start moving. Could be in response to a dog herding them, but could be to follow you. They will follow you once they equate you with safety.


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Maura said:


> I think you are on target with training. If you whistle or make some other sound (a triangle, for instance) when you go out with grain, youâll notice that they will respond to the whistle without seeing a bucket. So, then, you whistle, they start coming, you show them the bucket. After that, they need to walk farther to see the bucket, then they donât see it at all. Once you have them on a recall, you can use water as a reward, then start making them wait for the water. If you want them to come inside, you close the gate and they will either start to come inside of their own accord, or when you open the gate to the barn they find a treat.
> 
> As someone else mentioned, once they start moving, they all start moving. Could be in response to a dog herding them, but could be to follow you. They will follow you once they equate you with safety.


This ^! It's not so much about the treat or the signal as it. Is about the opperant conditioning.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Anyone planning on using solar panels after an EMP either manmade or natural needs to do some research.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

Cattle are docile, if you get them into the habit of coming up to the barn, they will come fine. I seldom had a problem. We let them out both morning and night. Most of the time they were waiting at the fence in the morning to come up. They got water, and the milk cows got milked. At night we would go down and herd them up, I did it when I was 8 years old, it wasn't a problem. They got water again and the cows got milked. The oldest female is usually the leader of the herd, if she starts up the rest follow. All you need to do is find the leader and just herd her up and the others will come along fairly well. The steers liked to push and butt each other but they weren't nasty to people, you just might have to keep them in line a bit. The only time I had a problem is when they broke out of the fence. They would have a ball running free. I remember at 4am one morning a sheriff came by it turns out my cattle got loose on the bypass, he chased them off the street but he fell into the ditch and got soaked. It was thick fog out. It was quite an adventure going out in the dark with thick fog looking for the cattle. I could hear them thumping along the ground but couldn't see them. We didn't get them collected till about 7am. Fond memories.


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Darren said:


> Anyone planning on using solar panels after an EMP either manmade or natural needs to do some research.


Darren, would you be willing to start, or bump, a thread on this?


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## mustangglp (Jul 7, 2015)

cfuhrer said:


> Darren, would you be willing to start, or bump, a thread on this?


Interested also seems all over the place on what will work and won't a lot of folks say cars won't be effected unless they are running a lot wold dependent on how strong the EMP is.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

Yes, it&#8217;s operant conditioning. You would want to train them to a real recall, not just to come home when they are thirsty. You would want to be able to get them under cover at any time if you thought they were in danger.


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## ksfarmer (Apr 28, 2007)

Get a horse! Depending on how bad the SHTF gets, a horse might be your most reliable transportation and useful to bring in the cows at night.


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