8 Survival Items for Pets

August 4, 2011 By thesurvivalmama 3 Comments

Keeping Fido Safe in Emergencies.

I’ve wanted a mini wiener dog (the opposite of the bulldog above) for a couple years now, and I finally broke down and bought one the end of May (I’m still considering the genius of adding that to two toddlers…)

While we’re working through all the fun training that comes with having a new puppy, I’ve realized I need to make sure the bug-out bags and long-term food storage include prep for the dogs now too. If you have a pet, have you considered their needs if the pet store isn’t available?

8 things to consider:

1. Food. Is your pet on specialty food? Is it necessary or a comfort? How much will you need for 72 hours/a month/a year?

2. Water. Waterdish? While your pet could figure out how to drink out of a 2-liter bottle, it’s important to waste as little as possible. Add a collapsible dish to the amount of additional water storage needed for your pet.

3. Medication. Arthritis meds? Heartworm meds? What are some of the prescriptions you need to have on hand?

4. First Aid. While most injuries can be handled by a human first-aid kit, make sure you have products that will work on their coats, and a large enough supply. What about a “cone of shame” to keep them from biting/chewing on the wound?

5. First Aid Guide. Would you know how to treat major/minor injuries to your pet? Having a quick guide on hand for your animal (especially large ones) may help you save their life.

6. Bed. Does your pet have a special place? Are they crate trained? (we found a collapsible soft-sided crate at Target by Boots & Barkley)

7. Containment. Leash? Halter? Harness? If you had to be relocated, how would you ensure your pet stayed with you?

8. Elimination. Where will your pet relieve himself, and what will you do with it? While you can most likely dispose of their waste with your own, cats may prefer a litterbox, and small dogs may appreciate a pad or other designated area. The most important question is what YOUR pet prefers.

What items have I left off? What kind of pet do you have? Exotics and birds may require an even more extensive list. The key is preparation.

AND PRACTICE!

Stay safe.

Jen

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: Emergency Prep Tagged With: animals, food, jen greyson, prep

Aquaponics – Weeklong Segment (Part 3)

April 6, 2011 By thesurvivalmama 1 Comment

If you’ve been hanging out with me all week, you know I just found out about the most amazing gardening technique EVER!

Aquaponics (do you hear harps when you read that? I do.)

Stay tuned for more aquaponics this week….

Filed Under: Gardening, Organic, Survival Tagged With: animals, compost, gardening, jen greyson

Aquaponics – Weeklong Segment (Part 2) & The Tuesday Train

April 4, 2011 By thesurvivalmama 2 Comments

Yesterday, I introduced the uninitiated (me) to aquaponics.

Today, you get a close-up of the operation over at Growing Power. They’re in Wisconsin. If they can grow year-round like this, anyone can. I’m amazed at how much food they’re growing with this system. Because they took growing vertical, they multiplied the harvest!

Love it.
(I ordered my greenhouse over the weekend, don’t tell anyone I’ve been watching these videos

Take a Ride on the Train!

Tuesday Train is a weekly link-up hosted by My Mad Mind and The Survival Mama and The House on the Corner and With “Faith, Family, and Friends!”. Here’s how it works:

Follow the hostess and co-hostesses (first through fourth spot on the linky)
Leave a comment if you’re a new follower and I will follow back.
Include the link-up button in your post!
Link up your blog post for “Tuesday Train”.
Have fun!

While you’re at it, be sure to swing over and see Boobies and the Follow Me Back Tuesday hop.

Filed Under: Food Storage, Gardening, Organic, Survival, Sustainability Tagged With: animals, aquaponics, gardening, greenhouse, winter

Ducks v. Chickens (ducks win)

February 21, 2011 By thesurvivalmama 23 Comments

Welcoming the awesome Revellie back today with some more love and learning about ducks. (I also have to say, after tricking Rockstar into eating them, he really liked the duck eggs)

After the long chicken blog, the duck blog is going to be quite short…

Let me just start by saying ducks are awesome!

Josh first took ducks seriously as part of our homestead last summer. He had seen some Runner ducks at a friend’s and had heard they were easy to take care of. Josh picked up 2 Khaki Campbell’s because they are the most consistent egg layers in the duck world. To be honest with you, I had no clue about duck eggs and was a bit nervous about even trying them. I even made eggs separately the first few times we cooked with them and then slowly started using them more and more. But to my surprise, you can’t really tell the difference.

Khaki Campbell

Ducks are pretty cool. The Khaki Campbell’s (Lois and Lily) are very quiet. It was really neat to sit our back and read as they would waddle around our middle yard foraging for bugs. Then when we got baby turkeys, it was funny to watch the turkeys follow the ducks around like they were the mothers. Once, I accidently trapped one of the ducks behind a wheelbarrow during a turkey fiasco. It was so sad to watch the other one mope around the yard that I almost went out and got another duck (which is saying a lot because I have a strict no animal rule for my car). Luckily, I found the duck, patiently and very quietly waiting for me to release her from her prison.

Muskovy Duck

Interesting enough, ducks don’t need a pond. They just need fresh water. Our Muskovy ducks are good examples of this, however Lois and Lily (the Khaki Campells) love pools of water of any sort (lid, puddle, bucket, wading pool). Our plan is to build a pond this year for the ducks. I am so excited because I really wanted a pond and I get to have one because Josh got ducks. So…don’t tell your husband’s that ducks don’t need a pond.

Here are a few short points about owning ducks:

1. More neighbor friendly than other homestead type animals (no one is going to think you are homesteading if you have some ducks in a pond).

2. You only have to feed them in the winter. During the summer they will just forage through your back yard.

3. You won’t have to mow as much. Our ducks kept our middle yard trimmed (because of foraging) so well, we mowed maybe 3 times last summer.

4. They are not as personable but I hear if you hand raise them from ducklings they are very sweet and loving.

5. Lay eggs consistently for up to 7 years (chickens only lay for 2 years). So, a duck can actually become a family pet.

6. Egg shells are harder than chicken eggs. They don’t crack as easily. This is better for storage and allows for the little ones to help gather and wash eggs as well.

7. Ducks are hardier than chickens. They are less prone to avian ailments.

8. Not all ducks fly.

So, if chickens seem too far out there to own, ducks may be a better option. Again you can listen to a podcast about ducks at www.thegoatcast.blogspot.com

Revellie

If you can’t wait a month to hear from Revellie, go visit her at http://healingmom.org and http://thegoatcast.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Food Storage, Gardening, Organic Tagged With: animals, food

In the beginning….there were chickens – Guest Post

January 24, 2011 By thesurvivalmama 7 Comments

Revellie is back!

Since I’m hanging out at the Energy Solutions arena this morning collecting canned food for the Utah Food Bank, Revellie was gracious enough to step in and entertain you.

(don’t forget, if you swing by the arena between 6 and 9 am, and bring 10 cans of food, you’ll get a FREE pass to the Disney on Ice show coming in March!)

For my second blog, I thought I would start where Josh and I started…Chickens. Backyard chickens have been a recent hot topic for us hip urban convenience environmentalists (don’t get upset…I am lumping myself in there too). This IS a good thing though on many levels (click on the links below for more information – that was the plan but then I found http://www.mypetchicken.com/backyard-chickens/chicken-care/chapter-1-why-chickens.aspx which pretty much summed it up for me).
    •    Chickens are pretty awesome and personable creatures.
    •    Happy eggs come from happy chickens.
    •    Stickin’ it to the Man.
    •    Grateful gardens.

We started off with 4 chickens and a converted rabbit hutch (basically a rabbit hutch with the front panel cut out and 2 laying boxes attached). We were worried about them flying away and neighborhood cats getting wind of them so we locked them in the hutch at night. We actually did lose a one of our Leghorns one evening. Josh and I wanted to look in the neighbors back yards but did not know how to start that conversation with them. Later we found the chicken in a tree (something we still laugh about today).

Then we found a very inexpensive dog run on our local community ad site (similar to CraigsList). That became our chicken run. We put a piece of variegated metal (purchased at discount from a scrap metal yard) on the top of it for a roof. Ahhh… shelter for our chickens.

But wait! We have done all this work and still no eggs. So, I called Christy at SunnyBrooke farms whom we had purchased the chicken from (we are good friends now but she did not know us from a hole in the wall when I called her that day). I wanted to know what we were doing wrong since our chickens weren’t laying eggs yet. I went through all of our careful preparation. The chicken run, the reading, the saving of the chicken from the tree, the careful measuring of food as specified on the bag… I can’t remember at what point she started laughing at me but I remember feeling not so smart even after all the chicken research I had done. Here are the two things she told me:
• Chickens need to eat every day. If they are hungry, feed them.
• Chickens need to be in a certain weight range before they start laying eggs.

Also, I learned that an egg is…well…an egg just like ours (females) but it gets released everyday not just once a month. So after laughing at ourselves for a few weeks for our naivety, our chickens started laying eggs. We were on cloud nine.

Here are a few other tidbits I have learned about chickens.
    •    When they get use to you, they really perk up when you come around. If you are not going to eat them, then they will make pretty cool pets. I have had one take something right out of my hand. We also had a bantam (tiny chicken breed) that sat on my shoes every time I came out to visit her.
    •    Chickens love dust baths and will dig a hole and just lie in it.
    •    Chickens love digging (they dug up all my strawberries!). We put them in our garden (after seeing what they did to my strawberries) and they prepped it for spring for me.
    •    Chickens love worms and snails. Throw them a snail and watch them chase each other around. We also watched one kill a mouse the other day.

I can see that this is getting quite long and I wanted to talk about ducks as well. I may have to do a part two so I can share with you about how we discovered ducks.

As I close, please know you do not have to get chickens. It’s not a lot of work but it is still a commitment and if you can’t make the commitment, please don’t. If you want to make a difference, consider buying local farm fresh eggs. Not the “organic” eggs from the grocery store. We all know that “organic” and “free-range” are loosely defined for massed produced products (it doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out). By buying farm fresh eggs you will also get awesome eggs, keep your dollars local, and your carbon footprint will be minimal (a semi-truck did not deliver your eggs).

If you can’t wait to hear what I have to say about ducks, you can listen to The Goat Cast (thegoatcast.blogspot.com) for a more in depth approach and hear Josh interview Christy Brown from SunnyBrooke Farms (she has become our in-house expert on all things avian).

Revellie Pope

www.healingmom.org

http://thegoatcast.blogspot.com