I feel that I am lacking in these skills as well. Do you offer courses or just know of courses?
Personally some of the courses are bogus, arm chair experts who decide to set up shop. Some are very learned, so there is a great gab and disparaging there.

you can find lots on the net about tanning hides just make sure you specify narurael tanning..... in shft situation you may not be able yo get a hold of acids used in tanning hides today. there are many good books on cleaning fresh water and ocean going fish as well as processing wild game animals. its not as hard as you think.... Im good at that stuff as I am an avid hunter and fish at least once a week. My family rarley buys meat from a store. I lack in the farming aspect and long term food storage.... I can smoke meat and fish but have no idea how to deal with grain vegtables and fruit. I am in the process of compiling books on things i need to know and information i would like to have on hand from information found on the net. i print it off and put it in a labled binder. i keep 2 copys one at home and one at mu bug out location.

Hope this idea helps.

sorry about spelling..... 😈

you can find lots on the net about tanning hides just make sure you specify narurael tanning..... in shft situation you may not be able yo get a hold of acids used in tanning hides today. there are many good books on cleaning fresh water and ocean going fish as well as processing wild game animals. its not as hard as you think.... Im good at that stuff as I am an avid hunter and fish at least once a week. My family rarley buys meat from a store. I lack in the farming aspect and long term food storage.... I can smoke meat and fish but have no idea how to deal with grain vegtables and fruit. I am in the process of compiling books on things i need to know and information i would like to have on hand from information found on the net. i print it off and put it in a labled binder. i keep 2 copys one at home and one at mu bug out location.

Hope this idea helps.

sorry about spelling..... 😈

PM me your email address and I'll send you some pdf books...

Paul

Will do and thanks for the offer.

Actually, in a SHTF situation, there will be a lot of acid available. My father used to use the acid from old car batteries. I don't remember the ratio, but I do know that there'll be lots of car batteries handy. You just have to make sure the hides are well rinsed afterwards. A good thing to keep in mind is, every animal has enough brains to tan it's own hide.

I would love to learn more about butchering animals. I had to get a friend to do it for me once upon a time. Everyone says "Take it to a butcher" well, in a SHTF situation, there won't be one. The cost to get a butcher to cut up a pig or cow no longer makes it an affordable option.

With animals I'm starting small. I took up hunting again after .. lets just say a long time. Rabbits this winter, deer next fall. I'll get help with the deer the first time but I can't see it being that tough. The thing to remember is all the nasty bits are inside the guts, don't contaminate the meat with them.
Fishing I never forgot.
Gardening is a bit of a learning curve but I try to remember they'll do OK for the most part if left alone. Over 5 years and I'm getting better. I would say the garden is the biggest challenge so you don't get overwhelmed with work.
Permaculture, no till, plenty of mulch, observe, observe.

on deer your gonna want to be carefull arond the urine sack . and make sure the animal is clean ,washed up good, before you hang it. the first couple are a little tricky but once you get the hang of it , it goes pretty fast. my father had my brothers and myself gutting ,and skinning ower own deer at the age of 12 and my son has been doing his since he was 13 . thease are skills that will be needed in the near future.

Look into Outdoor edge knives they have videos and kits with the proper knives you will need to have to fied dress and process your animals

Hi,

I do all my own small critter butchering, plus slightly larger for our own home use, including sheep etc, I do just enough tanning /hide work per year to keep my basic skill level up, but mainly rabbit hides and lamb hides.. Because we do some farm gate sales on the lambs, I do need to send them to the butcher to get that stamp of approval for resale.

Right now, I am learning how to use all the different odd bits that we typically don't eat anymore when we butcher out our critters these days.

is there any money in it....i know its quiet a rude question but my wife wants to by Sheep, Goats and Cows to do exactly the same...just wondered if it's worthwhile going big rather than just getting enough for the family...

thanks, Paul.

Depends, Got a pasture to cut costs, got a bit of extra garden space to grow your own root veggies for extra winter feed or at least to flush them in the fall, Can you cut your own hay, are you buying it, and if so, can you go local ,or are you going to have hauling costs on top of the hay? got the buildings?, got someone who will milk the sheep and can be home to bottle feed the extra or rejected lambs that are sure to part an parcel, got someone who wants to be a un-offical farm vet to keep costs reasonable on that front.. and got a market for no hormone, no growth pasture raised lamb? or beef?

I am close enough to ottawa, and montral (kinda in the middle) that I can get a very good price per pd, but I also have all the of the above, so yes, I can do well at it.. Goats, not so much, the meat market is not there the same way as the lamb, its a stronger meat, and a much smaller market, plus no side income in regards to wool, and you can't sell milk in ontario so its only good for personal use or helping to raise little ones or feeding pigs or chickens etc.

As for the bucket calvies and or a small herd, again you need the things listed above, otherwise, at the moment, yes, the beef market is on the way up, there a number of factors but the prices are climbing and from what I can see, will continue to do so for the next while.. again , private farm gate sales will get you your biggest bang for your buck.. Develop one market for lamb or beef etc, and then let them help figure out where to go next, example, are they asking for beef, pork, rabbit, goose etc, and go from there..

Hope that helps a little.. If it was me, I would go enough for the family plus two and then see if you can sell it for the price you want, my motto is if I can't sell it, I can always eat it 🙂 but so far that has not been the case, I started small and grew with the sales, raither then the other way around, I sell by word of mouth, and have many repeat buyers from year to year.

im fortunate...ive got all the things and the hay i can buy/ get for free towards the end of winter...the building, well id have to put up a large barn, but again im probably going to do that anyway towards the end of summer...