I was asked by someone recently to expand on the post about feeding livestock. It seems that post may have been confusing because I didn't talk alot about growing and harvesting grains or any particular special foods for the animals. This post is to clarify what I meant with the previous post.
I DO plan on growing some grains for survival. Part of those grains will be for the animals, part will be for the people to have grains and flour and part of it will be for seed. I don't intend to make grain a huge portion of my farm activities or our animals feed plan. There are alot of reasons but the reality is that I don't have vast areas that I can devote to grains or the modern equipment needed to harvest and process it. Grain requires cutting, drying and threshing to be useable. It takes a large area to devote to the grain if its grown on a large enough scale to make feeding it to animals and people in large amounts feasible. It would also become labor intensive to prepare it in large quantities. Another problem with grains is that they don't all grow well in the humid and sometimes wet south. There is a reason that southerners eat alot of cornmeal rather then wheat flour. It's because corn grows great here but wheat... not so much. We can however grow other grains like millet and milo.
So I focus and plan for the most part to grow our animals vegetables and allow them to forage for things like acorns, leaves and other edibles which I explained in the other post. For the most part all animals eat grass. We have grass in the form of pastures now. It doesn't make sense to me to plow up a viable established feed source (Grass) to plant something that becomes labor intensive and not as easily grown and is basically the same feed source in another form. It may be obvious but grain, grass and corn are all in the same family. Grass grains are difficult to harvest but they are edible to livestock and people as well. In a pinch they can be dried and ground for flour. Almost all grasses have edible grains.
So, I plan to plant different grains in small plots and harvest them by hand. I am working on learning to grow and harvest grains now. The grains will have to be dried, threshed and winnowed BY HAND. They will need to be stored to keep out bugs and ground into flour for people or fed whole to the livestock. The stalks will also be fed to the livestock.
I don't see growing green fodder on a large scale as a viable option for the livestock either. On a small scale it is very interesting and nutritious for the animals but on a large scale I just can't see it being the way to go. It would require massive amounts of water and lighting. It would produce a crop of greens but not seeds for replanting. In the long run it is not sustainable in my opinion unless you have an endless supply of seeds. The only way to get seeds is to grow the plants to completion not to feed them green. While it is a healthy way to feed seeds it just isn't a long term solution to feeding or growing food for animals in my opinion.
Most animals enjoy eating grass and greens and it is a natural part if their diet. Grains and commercial feed is a relatively new concept in feeding livestock. For centuries animals were NOT fed on a mostly grain diet. They were grazed on naturally growing grass and flora or they were fed with vegetables like beets and pumpkins. Grain was reserved for the people or fed in addition to what the animals foraged.
So while the other post is about what I DO plan to grow this post is more about what I DON'T plan to grow and why I don't plan to do it that way. Each Person has to decide how they plan on feeding their animals. My decision is and will be to feed the animals a more natural diet then what modern agriculture feeds them. It is what I do now for most of the animals. Grain is fed more as a treat or for the added vitamins then for the biggest part of their diet. It may seem simplistic to suggest growing pumpkins and Jerusalem artichokes or sunflowers and corn for livestock but its the way it used to be done before Purina was created and I believe it is the best way to feed the animals in the future.
I hope this helps to better explain what I am trying to explain. If not then I am always willing to discuss it or even make a list of what animals can and will eat for printing out. I want people to be prepared for when the feed store is empty.
Southern Wood Elf