Wild food in Ireland

riffmongous wrote: »

I dont know how much truth there is to it, but as a child we were always warned to stay away from blackberries after a period of wet weather as they supposedly could give you worms, I don't know if there's any truth to that though. The other warning was to stay away from berries close to the ground incase they had rat piss on them, again, just what I remember being told.

I wouldn't put to much faith in old wives tails, however they are usually based on some fact. I don't see why wet weather would cause worms in blackberries. Human worms need a life cycle, they tend to use cattle as their means of getting into humans because we used to spray human waste on fields to fertilize them which gave the worms a complete cycle from cattle to human and back to cattle again. It rains so often in Ireland that berries wouldn't work if they became dangerous to the animals they need to eat them and spread their seed.

Berries close to the ground are going to be eaten by smaller animals and any diseases they have could get passed on. So it would be a good idea to pick from higher up. It's usually very obvious if the berries have been eaten by something else.

My suggestion would be nettles. Not very high in calories but good nutritional value link

Not hard to prepare and widely available, best to pick in spring/early summer, before it flowers. Take the top part off of younger plants and cook in water to remove the sting.

Can also be dried and made into tea.

My uncle loves nettle soup. I'd forgotten about it. Nettles are absolutely everywhere though so a great food source.

Fried seaweed is actually really nice.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/nov/21/how-to-forage-for-seaweed

Cattle..

These beasts will be able to free roam the Irish countryside once the farmers protecting them fail to feed and contain them. We might think of cows as docile creatures and they tend to be right now. We keep them well fed and happy in Ireland.

But the reality is they're the biggest mammal on the island, they regularly kill farmers completely by accident due to their massive bulk. I've been in fields with cows and they know the difference between the human that feeds them and everyone else. These days cows tend to avoid humans they don't know, but enter a field with calves or hungry cows and they will case you down and given half a chance they'll probably kill you.

We might think the cows we breed are so domesticated that they wouldn't be aggressive or able to survive on their own but there are examples of European cattle breeds going wild in the likes of Hawaii. Article here.

Even using a high power rifle you're unlikely to take down your average cow with one shot.

Once our native cattle go wild they'll probably have little or no tolerance for people, they'll likely be harassed by people and zombies. They'll quite likely attack anyone they see and shooting them will just make them angrier and will probably make them charge at you harder.

Cattle are going to be a major issue for any survivors. Free roaming cattle will be one of the most dangerous things you can come across walking down a country lane, there's very little that will be able to stop a rampaging cow.


Obviously the benefits of hunting cattle would be huge, they're mostly meat. In fact probably way too much meat for one person. There would be big benefits to trying to keep cattle but without proper management you probably won't be guaranteed milk out of them. Having cattle around your base of operation would give you an added layer of security as they'll probably get agitated by anyone or anything coming near them.

Cattle will be a high risk, high reward food item. It's probably pointless taking one on if your group is small as you will put your group in a lot of danger and probably won't be able to deal with all the food effectively. Best left for larger communities.

Tzar Chasm wrote: »

Again i must remind you of our species proficiency with all things pointed and stabby.

If you have enough people to eat a whole cow, you have enough people to hunt and kill it.

if you are lone wolfing it, sheep are a reasonable target

I'm not going anywhere near a cow with just a pointy stick.

The problem will also be that you're not going to be dealing with a cow in isolation. If the cows don't let you separate them out to find one that a your group could maybe take down you're completely screwed. If you look at lions chasing bison on the African plains the hunt can sometimes go wrong with the Bison realising the lions got one of them and the herd turning to attack the lions.

Spring time will make them very dangerous, once calves are in the mix the cattle will probably attack any human they come across (as bison do to lions and lion cubs) once they start to see us as the predatory animal that we are instead of their protectors.

Sheep could do with their own post, they're not exactly easy targets either. Sheep can be pretty vicious, I've been attacked by rams on a number of occasions, they're afraid of nothing. The ones I was attacked by are the rugged connemara sheep that are half wild.