Comment on Do chickens get seasick?

Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  They did! In the age of sail where there was little understanding of food preservation and no refrigeration, livestock was routinely kept aboard.

  Unfortunately, upon going into battle, clearing for action involved removing said livestock. If there was time and they were lucky, they were set adrift on a boat or barge. Otherwise…

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  • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I was on a replica of one of Columbus’ ships (forget which one) but they told us livestock was too valuable to keep in the weather so the humans slept on top, livestock in the hold. The ship was astonishingly small.

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    • Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      So the humans would be the ones dying of exposure. God damn was human life cheap

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      • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Yep! OTOH people were way tougher back then. But yeah, human life was cheaper than the livestock. Which kinda makes sense. You don’t know the conditions at your destination, but you’ll need food for the survivors.

        I’d rather end up alone with one cow and one bull than 20 mouths to feed and no way to do it. There’s a term, “terrible algebra”, something like that?

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