Surviving Winter in the Dust Bowl Argument

Joshua Everett
Mr. Hammer
AP Biology
May, 4 2015

Surviving Winter in the Dust Bowl 

In the 1930’s, there were many states that suffered through the era of the “Dust Bowl”. Many often suffered from the inevitable droughts, high temperatures, and high winds. In October of 1934, I was forced to survive the winter with the limited resources the Dust Bowl put on my farm. In order to survive the time period from October until June, when the next harvesting season is, I have decided to eat my bull and keep the female cow alive only to starve it out later. I would drink the cow’s milk but once milk production ceases I would proceed to eat the wheat from the previous harvest.

I would kill the bull in order to conserve on the resources that I have. The bull consumes the most amount of calories a day when compared to myself and the female cow. The bull would need to consume 45 gallons of water a day in order to be healthy which is not ideal when I need to drink water in order to survive as well. If the bull was to consume 45 gallons of water a day, my 500 hundred gallons of water that I have in total, would be gone in approximately 11 days. That would mean during those 11 days I would not be able to have any water which means I would die within the first 3-5 days. The bull would be most useful as food since it weighs the most and would have the most consumable meat. Only 41% of the cow’s weight is consumable and since the bull weighs 1,200 pounds, there would be approximately 1,260 grams of meat to eat a day. This still does not reach the amount of calories a male human should consume a day. The bull meat is a great source in protein and fat but lacks carbohydrates.

Good sources of carbohydrates include wheat and milk. The purpose of keeping the cow alive would be to continue the process of milk production. A lactating cow produces 6 gallons of milk a day which is equivalent to 21,965 grams a day. By continuing milk production, I would expect to obtain the minimal amount of milk needed to replenish the nutrients I am not receiving from the bull meat. In order to keep this female cow alive, I would have to feed it water and food. The recommended amount of water intake for a lactating female cow is 50 gallons a day. Again, this is too much water for the cow and I to survive. If I wanted to keep the cow and I alive I would have to cut the cows amount of water significantly and cause the cow to be unhealthy and unable to produce the milk needed in order for me to survive until June. I would instead collect as much milk as I can from the cow before it dies, and ration the milk over the rest of the time until June. It makes more sense to kill the cow because it would provide additional cow meat that could be consumed as well.

With the cow meat and the milk, I would have good sources of proteins and fat but limited sources of carbohydrates. In order to make sure I receive the correct amount of carbohydrates, I would eat the wheat. Wheat is the only resource that contains the most carbs. I have 500 bushels of wheat from the previous harvest which is equivalent to 53,364 grams of wheat a day. This huge number is more than enough to survive the Dust Bowl and to replenish the missing carbohydrates.

Without the cows having to worry about giving them water, I would be able to drink 2 gallons of water a day. The minimum humans need to drink is 0.4 gallons of water. I would only drink this amount because I would want to conserve as much water as I can because even though the harvest of food will be coming in June, I do not know when the next rainfall would come. I want to be prepared as possible just in case rainfall does not come until a later date. With the extra wheat and meat, I would also save those just in case the harvest is not as productive. I would always want to be prepared for the worst so I have better survival chances in the future. If I were to follow this plan of action, I should be able to survive the winter with little to no problems at all.