just curious, if you were limited to the use of just one animal for all purposes

Buffalo 

Elk or venison

what other considerations?

feeding, age to maturity, etc.

when man first jumped into boats to go anywhere new, they brought along pigs.  for all the reasons re: use above, but also because they eat anything, take care of themselves (sorta), were smaller/easier to manage...

it ain't like we are the first to consider this

an interesting easy read which discusses this can be found in Lesser Beasts

Couldn't find an easy-to-copy excerpt online, but here's the author answering essentially the same question.  and the answer isn't his, it's a consensus of historians and anthropologists, most of whom, are not members of this forum


"A lot of your book is the role that pigs have played in human development throughout history. Why have they been so important?

I’d say pigs have been so important to history because they are useful in ways that other livestock animals are not. I would start with the fact that they reproduce so quickly. A cow gestates for nine months and usually just gives you one calf that takes a year or two to grow big enough to kill and eat. But a pig gestates for less than half that long, just four months, and will give you six or eight or 12 piglets, and sometimes even more. Each of those grows to slaughter weight in about half the time that it takes a cow to get there. So if you want to produce a lot of meat really quickly, then the pig is your animal.

Then paired with that is that because of the characteristics of the meat, it cures really well in salt and smoke. So if you take a pig and you take the pork and you salt it, then it gets even better. It becomes bacon or ham or sausage. Whereas beef or mutton, when you salt them they tend to get rather leathery. So what that meant was that you could store that meat for long periods of time, even before artificial refrigeration, which has existed for just a blink of the eye in terms of human history. So you could pre-slaughter meat, you could store it at room temperature, which was a good way of warding off starvation at times when going hungry was a real problem.

The other advantage of the pig is that they are omnivorous. They’ll eat just about anything people will eat, and lots of things we won’t. A cow, you need pasture where they will eat grass or other plants. But a pig, you can turn them loose in the forest and they’ll eat acorns, or by the sea and they’ll dig up clams in the mudbanks, or often throughout history they’ve been on city streets finding plenty of food in garbage or even human waste and sewage that’s spilled into the street. So they’re so versatile. They can be raised just about anywhere, virtually for free, on any sort of waste materials. So they became particularly important for poor people who could raise them just on waste and get a nearly free source of food."

Pig for sure, think of all the good stuff that comes from a pig:  Pulled pork, Bacon, Salami, Prosciutto, Ribs, Sausages, Ham, Pigs Ears & Tails for the Dog, Pork Chops, Tenderloin, Did I mention Bacon...

nolaegghead said:

water buffalo

meat milk cheese and healthy

fishlessman said:

nolaegghead said:

water buffalo

meat milk cheese and healthy

...and will pull a plow or wagon.

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

nolaegghead said:

water buffalo

meat milk cheese and healthy

...and will pull a plow or wagon.

and knife handles

If I could have only one general purpose animal for all things--beef. It provides almost everything except eggs. It can be used for work and is valuable as a commodity. It gives me more items to barter for eggs or pork

yeah.  quit dickin' around.  it's pigs.

next question.

No votes for gerbil?  You guys need to get out more. 

JohnInCarolina said:

No votes for gerbil?  You guys need to get out more. 

That was as disgusting as anything you have ever posted. And you have posted a lot of disgusting stuff

Little Steven said:

JohnInCarolina said:

No votes for gerbil?  You guys need to get out more. 

That was as disgusting as anything you have ever posted. And you have posted a lot of disgusting stuff

Lol - someone flagged your post but not mine!

Hehhehheh, not my first flag bud.

Darby_Crenshaw said:

steven is a known troll.  i have been advocating for his being banned for many years.  stand by, i am working on something and should have an answer by noon.  if he is banned, you will know it worked.

also, just to be honest, this original post is from my fake 'zippy' account.  the real zippy no longer posts here.  he is in a deeply committed lesbian relationship now, and a vegan, gluten-free, etc.

he has no time for this place.

I left your beaver comment alone. Unfortunately what happened to the zip (and Rodney) is a direct result of yoga.

Ok no bartering---still beef. I like cheese too much. And ice cream. I'll feed that beef acorns and rub it with Gin and Tonics