Animal Husbandry Doctrine

I am developing a completely new doctrine regarding animal husbandry.  As you are aware, this whole area is seriously controversial and has actually worsened in the past century with the advent of factory farming.  On top of that we also have extremist vegetarian movements which can go to such extremes that we could no longer live on Earth.  This has developed into a spectrum of mostly unacceptable protocols when it comes to animal husbandry generally and the only thing it has produced is a growing consensus that we have to do better.

I want to say one thing first.  We are terraforming Terra in partnership with the animal kingdom and our domesticates in particular.   Our animals are capable of been our most valuable allies who live to solely to work with us and our lands and to also supply food of their own substance.  Yet this has to be seen in terms of the animal’s perspective.

I had this revelation opened to me by an individual who is evolving into a horse whisperer as her life mission.  She had been hired to work at a stable and what she found shocked her to the core.  The animals were been terribly abused.  This overwhelmed her and she sat down and wept.

Astonishingly one of the horses came over to her and mind to mind told her to not weep for them.  They themselves had chosen this path.    That it was also about them and the humans they were interacting with and that they accepted this.  This obviously both relieved her grief and startled her.  I find it is continuing confirmation of a group mind among animals.

What we owe our domesticates is a life free from abuse as that is only a reflection on ourselves.   Their partnership does include passing on and supplying us with meat as well.  Yet they choose this path as a way forward.  Thus we must get over ourselves and accept our part in our partnership and execute our duties gracefully and even mindfully.

Once we accept the doctrine of the group mind and mutual service, it all works.  I have come to understand that horse husbandry needs to be part of our natural exploitation of the boreal forest.  They are key to successful moose husbandry as well as any other animals we bring in.

We need our animals to groom our forests and fields and even reprocess soils to strip out insects and roots.  Other methods are hopelessly costly and damaging.   Examples abound from factory farming which all rely on maximizing a handful of factors while employing a minimum of human input.  Let me demonstrate a single solution.

The natural human community is 150 individuals on one square mile of land.  That community can profitably handle twenty milking cows without depending on external inputs.  That is also enough for internal consumption as well.  Thus there is a specific need to tailor equipment to do just that.  It will still produce a substantial exportable surplus while actively engaging several individuals in shared duties without making any one individual a slave to the cows.

Better yet the animals can graze waste areas as well as the inevitable rotating pasturage and that includes the woodlands although that may be reserved for the steers.  Such a simple operation is contained and produces a huge dairy output for the community as well as at least a dozen carcasses each year.  At the same time it consumes silage and low quality grains as well.

None of this works as well when you decide to simply double that same herd.  You soon discover you have too many people and need to chase food supplies while the manure problem becomes larger than the operation.  In agriculture, it turns out that there is a right size that can be then optimized and perfected.

Thus my doctrine rotates back to my understanding of the natural community and advancing our own integration with the animals to accomplish both economic success and biological success.