Misc SHTF and....Pets

Cardinal

Cardinal

Chickministrator
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So, has anyone given thought to how they will feed and care fur the furkids?
The shortage of cat food got me thinking about it in a major way.
I actually stockpiled canned meat and pet vitamins for the meowers.
Dogs are easier, they will eat what I eat.

Cats can be finicky. One of mine is. I attribute that to the Pet Food Industry coating the commercial foods with addictive substances to make the cats want to eat that garbage.
Canned tuna cannot compete.
 
Capt. Eddie

Capt. Eddie

Veteran Member
Our dog is much more finicky than the cats. The cats already eat a ton of mice, voles, and birds and have even been known to dig out a mole on occasion. Sometimes their cat food will go untouched for days at a time if hunting is good.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
We only have one dog and I've planned for her food. I have gotten remiss about adding to the dry dog food and I will remedy that this week. I had over a year's worth of dry food last year, I asked DH What the status was of the dry dog food, he's the one that feeds the dog. He said we might have one 50 bag left. He's probably wrong, so I will have to check myself.

Walmart is not delivering 50 bags of dog food anymore. I guess FEDX complained about the weight. I can't pick them up myself.

Viking preparedness (Mongo) talked about pets on a recent patreon video. It was eyeopening.

God is good all the time

Judy
 
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mecoastie

Veteran Member
Cardinal said:
That is one thing I am curious about; how many folks here would eat them if they had no other food choice?
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If my kids were starving I would with no hesitation. Where it would get dicey for me is if we werent starving but I am at the point where I am feeding the dogs out of my people stores having exhausted the stored pet food and scraps. Am I better off feeding the food and scraps to the chickens where I get food back from them. But then the dogs are good companions and do alert us to stuff.
 
Capt. Eddie

Capt. Eddie

Veteran Member
Cardinal said:
That is one thing I am curious about; how many folks here would eat them if they had no other food choice?
Click to expand...
I've actually given this a lot of thought. If the situation was desperate enough to require me to eat my dog doing so would only postpone starvation by a week at best. I would not postpone my demise by a week by eating my dog, the cats on the other hand...
 
Cardinal

Cardinal

Chickministrator
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nomifyle said:
We only have one dog and I've planned for her food. I have gotten remiss about adding to the dry dog food and I will remedy that this week. I had over a year's worth of dry food last year, I asked DH What the status was of the dry dog food, he's the one that feeds the dog. He said we might have one 50 bag left. He's probably wrong, so I will have to check myself.

Walmart is not delivering 50 bags of dog food anymore. I guess FEDX complained about the weight. I can't pick them up myself.

Viking preparedness (Mongo) talked about pets on a recent patreon video. It was eyeopening.

God is good all the time

Judy
Click to expand...
Chewy.com
Over a certain $ limit they deliver free.
 
P

Publius

TB Fanatic
We have two outdoor cats that they eat mice and moles sometimes a bird they managed to catch plus dry cat food we put out for them. Wife has found dry cat food on sale many times and we have a small stockpile I say about 100 pounds may last a year or a longer. We also have canned dog food that we feed them during the winter months and it has a lot of grease and fat content to it as they do live outside all the time.
 
Meemur

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
Yep! Things I've done:

- Limited the household to one cat (small, easy to feed)
- Got her used to several different foods, including whole chicken, and I rotate these foods
- Keep six months' worth of several kinds of canned food and kibble on hand (plus we share the chicken periodically -- she can eat the meat I eat if she has to -- that's the idea, here
- Have current photo, leash, cat carrier, and travel bowls with the emergency equipment in the event we really need to leave (this is kept in the basement due to potential tornadoes)
- Trained her that it's "okay" to sleep in the basement sometimes (I have a roll away bed down there and a purr pad on "her" chair)

I also know that she is a successful hunter and can catch mice. I'm not going to count on that, and she is an indoor cat right now, but she didn't start out that way, and in a truly bad scenario, I'd give her access to the fenced in backyard.

When she's older, I may take in another cat, so she can show it the ropes. I may also take in a friend's pug who has grown up around cats if the friend has to go into assisted living and can't take her dog. I'll see what happens. Pugs don't eat that much, either. What I'm not going to do is take in a 60+ pound dog at this point. They eat more than I might be able to provide and are harder for an older person like myself to handle, unless really well trained.
 
Freeholder

Freeholder

This too shall pass.
Our cats are outside and could feed themselves if they had to. I will feed the dogs as long as I can because they are protection. I sometimes feed them people food (usually cooked rice with a vegetable and a can of jack mackerel, but some combination of starch, vegetable, and protein), and they like it, and seem to do just fine on it. So I store extra for them because those keep better than kibble, at least in this climate.

Kathleen
 
H

hd5574

Veteran Member
We have a great dane who we adopted after his owner a friend of ours passed. He is very old for a dane at eleven and a half years this month. We are seeing the changes in him that tell us we will limited time left with him. It is considered remarkable for a dane to live to 12. We will stock several more bags of dry....we have friends with dogs so if we lose him it will not go to waste...we also have many small cans of people chicken to add to his meal. He is one of the sweetest dogs we have ever known. He got the leftover steak last night. He is a total lover.
 
SouthernBreeze

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Freeholder said:
Our cats are outside and could feed themselves if they had to. I will feed the dogs as long as I can because they are protection. I sometimes feed them people food (usually cooked rice with a vegetable and a can of jack mackerel, but some combination of starch, vegetable, and protein), and they like it, and seem to do just fine on it. So I store extra for them because those keep better than kibble, at least in this climate.

Kathleen
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Same here. We have barn cats that could and do feed themselves along with a little dry food each day. We have one dog. He eats table scraps along with kibble. He pretty much eats what we eat, though. I do have lots of rice stored just for him. Mix a bit of rice with left over gravy, or whatever is on hand, and he loves it. We do keep a 6 month supply of dry food for both our cats and dog.
 
bbbuddy

bbbuddy

DEPLORABLE ME
Cardinal said:
So, has anyone given thought to how they will feed and care fur the furkids?
The shortage of cat food got me thinking about it in a major way.
I actually stockpiled canned meat and pet vitamins for the meowers.
Dogs are easier, they will eat what I eat.

Cats can be finicky. One of mine is. I attribute that to the Pet Food Industry coating the commercial foods with addictive substances to make the cats want to eat that garbage.
Canned tuna cannot compete.
Click to expand...

Let them eat mice....and corpses, or at least the rats that eat the corpses.
 
bbbuddy

bbbuddy

DEPLORABLE ME
My dogs will get home grown food. Beans are actually good for dogs. We have rabbits, chickens, goats, and pigs.
They will get rice,Beans, Garden veggies, some meat, and eggs. And leftovers, if there are any.

Like dogs did for many many thousands of years before dog food was a thing. Probably get less cancer too.
 
M

marsofold

Veteran Member
In a total crash protein supplies may be limited to what can be produced on the property to keep pets alive over the winter. Our cat requires much less weight of protein per day but is more limited in what it can eat than dogs since cats are true carnivores. We are planning for surviving on mostly lamb meat and black walnuts for our protein sources. Our cat is small enough to keep it alive on lamb meat. To keep a dog (great pyrenees) alive, we would have to either double our small flock of sheep (which cannot happen for practical reasons) or feed the dog on mostly black walnut, something I'm not sure it could tolerate. In the book "One Second After", the family ended up eating their dog, something abhorant to me because I consider dogs to be genuine members of the family entitled to their share of the food. So we don't have a dog because we're not sure we could feed him after the crash.
 
Repairman-Jack

Repairman-Jack

Veteran Member
In regards to pets, for us cats, I've always made sure to keep current records for vaccinations along with tags along with having info stored on my One Drive. Each cat (was 5, now 2, and soon to be +1 as one we rescued and re-homed 5 years will be returning to us) has their own crate.

One of our current cats is 18+ years old and diabetic, since she turned a few years ago we've been very mindful of keeping at least 60+ day stash in fridge. She's on a prescription food as well which we keep about 2 months of on hand.

The other cat grazes on Blue Buffalo which is stored in a Vittle vault in the cool/dry laundry room, and we have on hand about 45 days of his preferred canned cat food, which since last year has been one of the ones that seems to be in low qty on the shelves (FancyFeast)


From the EMA perspective pets seem to be an after thought to most families ie: not keeping current records/tags, travel cages etc. Having those items in your preps is a must, if you have to go to a shelter/hotel in the evac you have a temp evac order for a wildfire or hurricane. Most shelters that accept animals do have requirements for crates.

And incident that stands out in my mind was after Katrina and NG and CG were doing rescues of people stuck on roofs but were not taking pets...then they're hovering over a roof with a guy and his dog and he is refusing to go solo...until someone of the flight crew notices they are in the camera crosshairs of a major news outlet...doggo got to fly in the birdy that day.
 
annieosage

annieosage

Inactive
Dux said:
Kibble has a lifespan before going rancid
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I just had to Google this because I have a 33# bag that is unopened but has been in the garage for a while (maybe a year). I forgot to rotate it and planned on using it the next time I need to fill our container.

Google said this:
Typically, dry dog food that has not been opened is good for up to 18 months, while wet canned food is good for two years from that date. Of course, once you open any food, its shelf dwindles down from months to weeks or even days (depending on whether it is wet or dry

I'll make sure to use this next time.
 
annieosage

annieosage

Inactive
nomifyle said:
Walmart is not delivering 50 bags of dog food anymore. I guess FEDX complained about the weight. I can't pick them up myself.

Judy
Click to expand...

I noticed this too. I ordered a 50# bag last year and it was in transit and then it said undeliverable and they refunded me. I thought maybe the bag broke open in transit.
 
M

Marseydoats

Veteran Member
My Akita had no problem bringing down full size deer and was perfectly happy to share them with us. All the cats can hunt and fend for themselves if they have to. I don't currently have a dog.
I would give every crumb of food I've got to the feral animals and foxes in the neighborhood before I would give my in laws one bite. And nobody will be eating my animals.
 
EMICT

EMICT

Veteran Member
The golden rule is pets become food before children if we’re really looking that far ahead and actually considering true SHTF scenarios. Otherwise we’re just discussing inconvenience scenarios.
 
N

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
At 17, the cat is sufficiently scrawny that she wouldn't flavor a very large pot of Stone soup, much less provide eatin' vittles. So she goes as far as our supplies of cat food and then carefully and damn quick she gets deaded and Daddy goes through a LOT of Makers Mark.
 
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summerthyme

Administrator
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marsofold said:
In a total crash protein supplies may be limited to what can be produced on the property to keep pets alive over the winter. Our cat requires much less weight of protein per day but is more limited in what it can eat than dogs since cats are true carnivores. We are planning for surviving on mostly lamb meat and black walnuts for our protein sources. Our cat is small enough to keep it alive on lamb meat. To keep a dog (great pyrenees) alive, we would have to either double our small flock of sheep (which cannot happen for practical reasons) or feed the dog on mostly black walnut, something I'm not sure it could tolerate. In the book "One Second After", the family ended up eating their dog, something abhorant to me because I consider dogs to be genuine members of the family entitled to their share of the food. So we don't have a dog because we're not sure we could feed him after the crash.
Click to expand...
Rodents make excellent pet food, and I doubt the supply of rats and mice will ever run low. The issue is catching them. Dixie (9 year old English Shepherd) is a great mouser... I've seen her catch a dozen mice in ten minutes in the hayfield while I was raking. I couldn't figure out why she wasn't eating her food... it was a super big mouse 6ear, and she pretty well lived on them that summer.

But we also raise beef, lamb, pork and chicken. I've been keeping our dogfood bills down for years by saving all butchering waste, and feeding raw meaty bones and chicken necks and backs. If things went south badly enough that it appeared purchased food wasn't coming back, I'd probably set up a rabbitry again, using a modified tunnel/pasture system. Rabbit meat, supplemented with organs, chicken skins and lard will keep dogs in good shape.

Cats will thrive hunting for themselves... but their lives will be shorter.

Summerthyme
 
F

fish hook

Deceased
Cardinal said:
So, has anyone given thought to how they will feed and care fur the furkids?
The shortage of cat food got me thinking about it in a major way.
I actually stockpiled canned meat and pet vitamins for the meowers.
Dogs are easier, they will eat what I eat.

Cats can be finicky. One of mine is. I attribute that to the Pet Food Industry coating the commercial foods with addictive substances to make the cats want to eat that garbage.
Canned tuna cannot compete.
Click to expand...
Cats will eat what you eat to................when they get hungry.
 
W

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
I'm not worried about the dogs, (indeed, they will eat the same and as often as I eat). I don't keep cats. By preference.

Still..if I had to actually feed a cat - eggs, scrap fish (got a minnow trap?), chicken, beef, game meat and innards (liver, heart, kidney, gizzard). Probably safest still to cook the above, and mix in no more than 1/3 of rice/oatmeal/carb and a few vegetables (especially yellow and orange for Vitamin A).
 
M

marsofold

Veteran Member
summerthyme said:
Rodents make excellent pet food, and I doubt the supply of rats and mice will ever run low. The issue is catching them. Dixie (9 year old English Shepherd) is a great mouser... I've seen her catch a dozen mice in ten minutes in the hayfield while I was raking. I couldn't figure out why she wasn't eating her food... it was a super big mouse 6ear, and she pretty well lived on them that summer.

But we also raise beef, lamb, pork and chicken. I've been keeping our dogfood bills down for years by saving all butchering waste, and feeding raw meaty bones and chicken necks and backs. If things went south badly enough that it appeared purchased food wasn't coming back, I'd probably set up a rabbitry again, using a modified tunnel/pasture system. Rabbit meat, supplemented with organs, chicken skins and lard will keep dogs in good shape.

Cats will thrive hunting for themselves... but their lives will be shorter.

Summerthyme
Click to expand...

No mice roaming around when the snow is 6" deep. Rabbit meat lacks taurine to the extent that dogs that were fed on it exclusively all died young due to heart failure. So rabbit cannot make up the bulk of the meat diet. Chickens cannot live on grass, the only crop available in winter. So it's either stockpile corn for winter or live without chickens.
 
S

summerthyme

Administrator
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marsofold said:
No mice roaming around when the snow is 6" deep. Rabbit meat lacks taurine to the extent that dogs that were fed on it exclusively all died young due to heart failure. So rabbit cannot make up the bulk of the meat diet. Chickens cannot live on grass, the only crop available in winter. So it's either stockpile corn for winter or live without chickens.
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Rabbits CAN make up the bulk of the diet, as long as you supplement with either a taurine supplement, or add enough high taurine foods... here that would be carp, as the pond is loaded. In winter, the mice all move inside... live traps continue to produce. And absolutely, you need to feed grain to chickens... its actually pretty simple to grow a few hundred pounds of corn in a backyard patch.

Except for pets, going back to the old ways would be required... that meant breeding for Spring babies, growing and fattening as many as possible, then butchering all but one or two prime breeders, which are the only animals overwinter.

Also, dog food can be sealed in mylar with 02 absorbers, which prevents it from turning rancid... if you kept it cool, it would be good for a few years.

Summerthyme
 
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