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So, we're homesteader types and will be getting livestock. We're already planning to raise meat rabbits and will be making homemade pet food from those and the chickens (and eating them ourselves). But guinea pigs are also a pretty fast meat animal when raised in hutches like rabbits. I figure if rabbits make good kitty food... would guinea pigs? Seems to make sense since a housecat could, theoretically hunt and kill something the size of our average cavie. Does anyone know if there are any nutritional or disease reasons that they wouldn't work for pet food?
(yes, I know, how could I possibly raise and then kill such cute little critters?! Trust me, it is really hard for me sometimes, and I have to try very hard not to get attached to our livestock animals like pets, but we, and the pets, have to eat and we're trying to be as self-sufficient as possible)
(yes, I know, how could I possibly raise and then kill such cute little critters?! Trust me, it is really hard for me sometimes, and I have to try very hard not to get attached to our livestock animals like pets, but we, and the pets, have to eat and we're trying to be as self-sufficient as possible)
You can always become vegetarians and feed the cats canned food.
LOL - vegetarianism is not an option anymore, can't get enough protein and calories to survive the winter up here without animal food sources. Plus there's that whole B-12 deficiency thing, and I don't want pernicious anemia again. Besides, I feel a lot less squidgy about feeding myself and my critters with animals that I know were raised well and had happy healthy lives before becoming dinner
And I feel bad about ripping up and chowing down on all those beautiful plants that I spent all summer tending as well I'm just a big softy - but it's just a plain fact of life that we have to kill something to survive.
So, we're homesteader types and will be getting livestock. We're already planning to raise meat rabbits and will be making homemade pet food from those and the chickens (and eating them ourselves). But guinea pigs are also a pretty fast meat animal when raised in hutches like rabbits. I figure if rabbits make good kitty food... would guinea pigs? Seems to make sense since a housecat could, theoretically hunt and kill something the size of our average cavie. Does anyone know if there are any nutritional or disease reasons that they wouldn't work for pet food?
(yes, I know, how could I possibly raise and then kill such cute little critters?! Trust me, it is really hard for me sometimes, and I have to try very hard not to get attached to our livestock animals like pets, but we, and the pets, have to eat and we're trying to be as self-sufficient as possible)
People eat guinea pigs in South America. My brother's girlfriend went to Macchu Picchu last year, and one of the photos she took was of a pen full of cute guinea pigs...behind the restaurant that served them. I'm sure they'll be OK for your cats, but . My daughter always had a couple of guinea pigs growing up.
Yes, I've eaten GPs before (not bad actually), and had them as pets when I was a kid. Turns out that DH is almost as allergic to them as he is to horses (like emergency room allergic), so maybe we won't be trying to raise them as a livestock animal after all. I was just thinking they'd be more the right size for fresh homemade kitty chow than a chicken or rabbit... hmmm, back to the drawing board. Wonder if mice or rats would work in a production situation?
Cavy 'n Gravy. Great idea for a restaurant! Maybe it will catch on. Ha ha. My daughter used to raise guinea pigs in 4-H. She had the hutches in the basement. When you opened the refrigerator, did they raise a ruckus! Eek EEk Eek... We didn't eat them, though. She sold the babies to a pet shop at $2.00 each, and they turned around and sold them for $20.00.
Notice where MA4S lives. AK=Alaska! No wonder she needs meat!
You'd be amazed at the sheer amount of calories it takes just to stay warm in the winter if you aren't a couch potato! I lost 15 lbs last winter and I was shoving hash, bacon, sausage, yogurt, cheese and eggs down my gullet every opportunity I got... like every couple of hours if I was out splitting wood or something. You can go out with it's 40 below (or more) or you can work... but you can't do both without a lot of food.
Unless you were gorging on high fat stuff like seeds, nuts or avocados, I just don't think you could physically cram in enough calories (good fatty stick-with-you-for-hours calories) with a veggie diet alone, not even with copious amounts of soy and olive oil. Even a good starchy baked potato (slathered with butter and sour cream, of course) or a big bowl of cut oats porridge (more butter, evap milk, honey and berries) would only stick with you for an hour tops before you'd start getting cold and flaked out again.
And that goes for the pets, too. Charlie normally eats 1/2 to 3/4 of a 5.5 oz can a day in the summer, but nearly two cans a day in the winter... without gaining any weight. We won't even talk about how much Ripley eats in the winter... she rivals my husband, both in speed and quantity of consumption That's one reason that I was hoping to raise a small, fast breeding met animal that produced year-round, indoors if necessary, unlike chickens (up here). Since we're off-grid we can't run a big enough freezer to harvest a year's worth in the spring/summer and keep it frozen until hard winter... I'd have to can it and hope none of jars froze and broke when winter came.
Still wondering if I could set up a mega-HabiTrail city in the corner of the barn for domestic mice/rats... and whether that would be cost effective. I used to feed my roommate's snakes mice and rats, I think I could probably dispatch a few humanely and drop them whole into the grinder if that was the only way Charlie would eat them.
So, we're homesteader types and will be getting livestock. We're already planning to raise meat rabbits and will be making homemade pet food from those and the chickens (and eating them ourselves). But guinea pigs are also a pretty fast meat animal when raised in hutches like rabbits. I figure if rabbits make good kitty food... would guinea pigs? Seems to make sense since a housecat could, theoretically hunt and kill something the size of our average cavie. Does anyone know if there are any nutritional or disease reasons that they wouldn't work for pet food?
(yes, I know, how could I possibly raise and then kill such cute little critters?! Trust me, it is really hard for me sometimes, and I have to try very hard not to get attached to our livestock animals like pets, but we, and the pets, have to eat and we're trying to be as self-sufficient as possible)
cavys have been food in South America for a long, long time. Although I am more inclined to go the vegetarian route myself - any non-predator animal would be fair game (no pun intended), in my book. Cavys included.
Yeah, I don't have too much of a problem with the concept of killing and eating an animal I know as part of a self-sufficient lifestule... it's the actual killing part that gets to me. Ripley routinely hunts and scavenges for herself (she has finally learned not to bring her dead things into bed), but she's a big dog and eats a LOT. Charlie is an indoor kitty, although she still has her claws and is a fearless bug hunter, she's only got one fang left and is just the right size to become a tasty morsel for the many wildlife predators (esp. owls) up here... so I don't really see hunting for herself in her future.
It just means I have to kill more critters for my critters to be healthy, not just to feed me and DH... and just hope the karma balances out in the end. I don't think I'll ever be quite right with killing other things, but I don't think you're really supposed to... keeps you from killing more than you need, and reminds you to always be thankful.
I think cavies would have been ideal if not for DH's allergies... I'll see what I can dig up on the appropriateness of other domesticated small rodents for cat food (and dog food, although dogs have such a wider range of acceptable/appropriate foods).
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Trust me, it is really hard for me sometimes, and I have to try very hard not to get attached to our livestock animals like pets, but we, and the pets, have to eat and we're trying to be as self-sufficient as possible)
You don't need meat......
I'm just a big softy - but it's just a plain fact of life that we have to kill something to survive.
. My daughter always had a couple of guinea pigs growing up.
