Farm Animal Feed As An Emergency Human Food Source?

[HB of CJ]

This is related to the excellent food shortage post due to regional farm flooding. We understand that cheapo big bag crunchy dog food in a severe food shortage or emergency situation might be acceptable as an emergency food source.

You are looting the store. Only have time to grab one big thing and run like heck. The store owners are on the roof.

What about bulk animal stock feed? Chicken. Pig. Cattle. Etc.. Could some types of farm or ranch animal feed work to feed humans? Is this common farm stuff related to the UN emergency gruel cereal mush? Lots to consider beforehand.

Preparation. Grinding? Harmful additives? Three hours hard boiling? Broken teeth? The whole world wonders.

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[CountryGent]

Interesting; never really thought of it, but worth looking into.

Tangentially, I'd like to increase our supply with the SuperPails. They are put by Emergency Essentials and they contain 40lbs of staples (e.g., rice, beans, wheat, et al.) in sealed pails. The ones I've seen have an inner lining to keep bugs, etc. out of it until opened. Just another option. Cheers.

 

[308]

Why wait until you have to consider raiding the store to ear swine feed?

Bob's Red Mill in Clackamas has tons of long term storable foods with the buckets to put it in. $20/40/100 per pay day goes a long way. We have rice, wheat, breakfast grain cereals, barley, black bean soup mix (yum), vegie soup mix, sea salt, etc, etc....

 

[JustSomeGuy]

Personally, I wouldn't chance it regardless of what the manufacturer or distributor may say. Dietary requirements aside, you never know what's really in them...

My daughter was using bagged food to supplement her horses natural grazing (despite my advice). Both started displaying lethargy after about a month. Vet did blood work on both and found high levels of some hormone that was the culprit. Bag claimed it was hormone free. Took them off it and a week or so later they were fine.

 

[cigars]

I would look into this before you go grabbing the pet chow. If you have to grab it, grab it for the pets.

Find a Home Storage Center

 

[Certaindeaf]

Monkey Chow makes me go ooh ooh, but that's just me.

 

[MannyGlocks]

Ah, this food shortage worry is either a joke or safe space pin heads, i.e. childish irrational thinking.

Move out of the parental basement, get a job and reality will eventually sink in...

 

[CHLChris]

Yes, the reality that, with time and regular investment, it is pretty easy to build up piles of real food you actually eat. I have...

But for the first year or two of being prep-minded I was always reading these types of threads. Oh, but what has 10 years done for me, plus the willingness to buy and store, over and over? Room after room with boxes and cans and buckets in cabinets here and there

Nothing dramatic, and nothing I don't eat right now. Just lots of food I'd be willing to eat for months of a crisis. Or for a month with a little less pay than expected, or for a week that I just couldn't get to the store.

 

[bbbass]

Pet food doesn't even meet the standards for pets! No consistency in protein levels etc, lots of fillers. It's not germaine (sp?) to the thread, but I've heard that U.S. food doesn't meet European standards... surprising considering what the French eat.

I'd have to guess that farm feeds might have some weeds, pesticide residues, etc, that wouldn't really be desirable, but IDK. Doesn't sound worth the risk.

If I'm ever down to looting for food... it's gonna be Safeway I'm raiding, not D&B Supply. Tho they do have some dandy licorice!

 

[thorborg]

I just cant get past the looting part to give it serious thought.
Nonetheless, I'd rather harvest the local terrain for onions, garlic cattails and other tubers (maybe even something I can shoot).
Also, the highways along farm fields many times will have small thin crops from wind blown seeds growing in the state or county "right a way" between the pavement and fence line yielding wheat, oats, barley, less often soybeans (their seeds don't stray much). I used to harvest Alfalfa and oats along Hwy 26 when I raised rabbits albeit I did get a permit. I never really could get a straight answer if I needed one but it was free.
(1970 / 80's)

 

[bbbass]

I just cant get past the looting part to give it serious thought.
Nonetheless, I'd rather harvest the local terrain for onions, garlic cattails and other tubers (maybe even something I can shoot).
Also, the highways along farm fields many times will have small thin crops from wind blown seeds growing in the state or county "right a way" between the pavement and fence line yielding wheat, oats, barley, less often soybeans (their seeds don't stray much). I used to harvest Alfalfa and oats along Hwy 26 when I raised rabbits albeit I did get a permit. I never really could get a straight answer if I needed one but it was free.
(1970 / 80's)

We have lots of onions growing along the highways due to spillage. And Walla Walla has lots of asparagus along it's ditches.

No looting for me... I'm raiding the neighbors and hoping they aren't armed!

We have cattails abounding out at Ladd Marsh. Ducks and geese too, but I don't imagine they'd last very long... same for pheasant. In my neighborhood there is a bounty of feral cats tho....

 

[Koda]

This is such an odd idea but you might get away with dog food.... but you should look up how dog food is made and from what first. 3 and 4D meat and denatured meat... you don't want to eat, and the more expensive quality dog food pricing is on par with human food pricing, no point in prepping except for the dog.
Dogs have a super high acidic stomach and can handle way more bugs than we can, and still the dog food industry has recalls. Dry dog food kibble can contain salmonella, and most of the times dry kibble fatty acids go rancid before the bag is used (technically should be stored in the freezer). You don't want to be sick if SHTF. Perhaps canned dog food would be the safest option. And for all the reasons mentioned, I wouldn't trust other feed like horse or chicken or whatever.

 

[MannyGlocks]

Preppers aka hoarders, will horde almost anything, including dog food for their own consumption.

Yeah, prepping to such an extreme is a revelation of... madness...

 

[bbbass]

Preppers aka hoarders, will horde almost anything, including dog food for their own consumption.

Yeah, prepping to such an extreme is a revelation of... madness...

Well don't sugar coat it!!! Such a sweet talker...

 

[Camelfilter]

Preppers aka hoarders, will horde almost anything, including dog food for their own consumption.

Yeah, prepping to such an extreme is a revelation of... madness...

Nothing wrong with preparedness.

Just like anything else, however, may be taken to extreme.

The sad thing is when folks consider everyone in a particular group to be of the extreme...

 

[Tony617]

Can't help but think of the scene from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior where Max eats dog food...

 

[Camelfilter]

Can't help but think of the scene from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior where Max eats dog food...

 

[jbett98]

Keep an eye out on Craigslist. I bought a whole closet full of top quality brand name dehydrated canned foods for only $275.00 a few years ago.
The guy selling it spent over $3,000.00 for all it and when he and his family were having to move into an apartment, he didn't have room to store it.

 

[Koda]

I don't think the idea has any merit. The idea behind prepping is to take the time to prepare in advance. If your resorting to eating animal feed, you didn't prep enough or were caught with your pants down, so to speak. Do what you gotta do I guess at that point. My hunch is that outside of maybe... maybe canned dog food, a steady diet of animal feed is going to make your nutritional survival risky if not worse.

 

[bbbass]

But haven't you heard or read... A horse is a cow, is a goat, is a sheep, is a fish, is a monkey, is a boy... Yeah, not!!!