>
> OXEN: work, [meat, leather, tallow, vellum]
Horn, bone, dung, sacrifice.
A bull's hide is as valuable as its meat. Horn is used for fastenings, drinking vessels and many other uses. Bone is used for belt-ends, handles, needles, pins and skates. Dung is an important resource. It's probably sensible to include 'sacrifice' as a resource use.
> COWS: dairy products, [leather, meat, tallow]
Horn, bone, dung, sacrifice.
Prestige value is also very important. Cow's milk and dairy products are not
of central importance in pre-industrial societies, and are highly seasonal.
Sheep's milk is the major source of dairy products.
> SHEEP: dairy products, wool, [meat, parchment, tallow]
sacrifice, horn.
Sheep's milk and associated dairy products are of crucial importance. Sheep,
especially the Fat-Tail variety, are milked in Sea and Fire Season. Ewes'
milk is the most common source of cheese and butter. A Fat-Tail will produce
only a tenth the milk of a dairy cow. Wool, which ranges from in colour from
brown to oatmeal to occasional white, is shawn, plucked or rooed (depending
on the breed) in early Fire Season.
> PIGS: [meat, skins, lard]
bone and tusks.
> FOWL: eggs, [meat, feathers]
Eggs are seasonal (Sea Season only). Fowl meat falls in the luxury food category. Hollow bones make musical instruments.
> BEES: pollination, honey, wax
Mead.
.
> Oxen and cows require two acres per animal, sheep require one-third an
> acre per animal, pigs require one-tenth an acre per animal. Oxen are
> usually only slaughtered when starvation is a threat. During the winter
> culling, half the cows are slaughtered, three-fifths of the sheep,
> nine-tenths of the pigs. These values do not take any magical blessings
> into account. Please correct my numbers if I am wrong, but I think most
> of these are sufficiently accurate for our purposes.
Culling is a complex issue, and will vary enormously from year to year. Recent archaeological research has tended to downplay the size of winter culling in pre-industrial European societies, but I have no quarrel with these figures as indicative.
John
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Baldrick: What, have you got a plan, My Lord? Edmund: Yes I have, and it's so cunning you could brush your teeth with it!
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