In the continuing series of 150 Things You Should Know & Do, a great group have women have come together to create a list of Homestead, Preparedness & Survival Skills we should learn.
- 150 Preparedness Items You Need to Stock
- 150 Preparedness & Homesteading Skills You Need
- 150 Reasons to Prepare for Life!
In our modern age, few people could mark off 15 of these skills as something they are knowledgeable AND skillful at doing. I can mark off quite a few that I know, understand and pratice; I can check mark quite a few more where I have knowledge of how to do it, but not necessarily the skill to actually do (which means a check needs to be further studied and learned); and then there are the wholly blank where I have little or absolutely no clue about at all. The good news? Looking at the checks and blanks gives me a place to start!
I’m not panicked though (and neither should you), because I know I cannot accomplish it all. Building families and communities with shared skills is a great way to accomplish it. However, this is a great list for you to get started and begin focusing on those skills and knowledge bases for you to begin to learn to become better prepared, able to be more self-reliant and self-sufficient, and make a better life for your family.
So, how many of these skills do you already know?
150 Homesteading & Survival Skills to Learn
HOMESTEAD
- Waste management
- Gardening
- Animal husbandry
- Horsmanship & driving horses
- Wine making
- Mead making
- Brewing
- Livestock maintenance & raising
- Chickens
- Rabbits
- Goats/sheep
- Cows
- Other livestock
- Distilling (water and alcohol)
- Animal maintenance
- Hoof trimming
- Castration
- Medical
- Veterenary skills
- Shearing
- Moving & organizing
- Training
- Candle making
- Beekeeping
- Seed Saving
- Smoking (meats and cheeses, etc.)
- Wood working skills
- Welding
- Carpentry
- Cobbling
- Wildcrafting (edible & medicinal plant identification)
- Skinning, tanning & leather working
- Building & maintaining home, sheds, carts and more
- Record keeping (journaling & note taking for gardening and more)
- Alternative Growing Methods (not typical plot of land)
- Aquaponics
- Hydroponics
- Mushroom
- Vertical gardening
- Container Gardening
- Straw bale
- Forest floor
- Cooling & heating without electricity
- Processing the animal for use of all the parts
- Tools from bones
- Brain for tanning
- Sinew for threadmaking
- Gelatin from hooves, etc.
- Seasonal & Meteorological tracking
- Reading the land
- Making oil cloth
HOMEMAKING
- Preserving
- Canning
- Dehydrating
- Smoking
- Fermenting
- Salt
- Ice
- Root cellar
- Off-grid cooking methods
- Campfire
- Smoking
- Cooking in ash (versus open flame)
- Solar
- Vinegar making
- Curing cast iron
- Teaching
- Stocking a pantry
- Keeping a root cellar
- Creating food storage
- Learning
- Handicrafts
- Sewing
- Darning
- Crocheting
- Knitting
- Spinning
- Weaving
- Rag rug making
- Felting
- Fabric
- Butchering
- Broom making
- Soap making
- Off Grid Homemaking – washing & drying clothes
- Proper home cleaning & sanitation without cleaners
- Rendering fats (for foods and homemaking)
- Using wood ash for cooking & lye making
HUNTING & FOOD GATHERING
- Fishing
- trotlines
- convetional rods/reels
- baits
- nets
- traps
- spear
- hand
- Hunting
- blind making
- stalking
- choosing weaponry
- Trapping
- Different kinds of traps
- Baits & scents
- Archery
- Sling shot, club and other alternative forms of hunting and self defense weapons
- Foraging / Wildcrafting
- Processing & skinning & extended use
- Tracking
- Scavenging
MEDICAL SKILLS
- First Aid – General
- Medical & Surgical skills
- Midwifery
- Dentistry
- Wildcrafting for alternative medications
- Psychological
- Making salves & tinctures & essential oils
- Hygeine & santiation
PREPAREDNESS SKILLS & SURVIVAL
- Water purification & filtration
- Fire starting & fire maintenance
- Tracking time/sun
- Camping
- Hiking
- Keeping dry/warm with alternative means
- Campfire cooking (open flame, ash, etc.)
- Making char cloth
- Orienteering/map reading/traveling by the stars/navigation
- Finding & making pitch tap
- Living and scavenging off the land
- Boat/float making
- Knot tying
- Scavenging (making tools & weapons & shelter from trash)
- Alternative shelters
- Tarp
- Wood
- Scavenged
- Debris
- Self Defense
- Martial Arts
- Camoflauge
- Hand-to-hand combat
- Hiding
- Rope making from alterntive materials
- Ham licensing
- Alternative forms of communication
- Trail marking
- Smoke signaling
- Morse code
- Sign Language
- Secondary and tertiary languages
- Hand signaling
- Pigeons
- Urban camoflauge
- Weather watching/reading/meteorology
- Water collection (from tarps, dew/leaves, etc.)
TOOLS & WEAPONRY
- Reloading
- Alternative forms of ammunition
- Situational awareness & Decision making
- Tracking & silent movement
- Knife making
- Forging & Tool maintenance
- Auto Repair
- Solar & electrical upkeep
- Blacksmithing
- Gun smithing
- Shooting skills
MISCELLANEOUS
- Spiritual
- Leadership
- People skills
- Bartering
- Listening
- Learning
- Teaching
- Budgeting & money management
- Organization
Here are a few books to get you started on building a library for learning these skills. Websites & tutorials are great, but you need to have something in physical form to learn from. There are tons of books on specific skills, but I’m going to list the more general knowledge ones to get you started on a preparedness/homesteading library:
- Foxfire books
- Tom Brown’s Books – tracking, survival skills, foraging and more.
- Encyclopedia of Country Living
- SAS Handbook for Survival Skills
- Where There is No Doctor
- Willy Whitefeather’s Outdoor Survival Handbook for Kids by Willy Whitefeather
You can also print off this list of skills, in an editable format – learn how here.
I know this list isn’t exhaustive, so what would you add to it?
Becky is a wildlife enthusiast and pet and livestock care expert with a diploma in canine nutrition. With over a decade of experience in animal welfare, Becky lends her expertise to Simple Family Preparedness through insightful info about pets, livestock, bee keeping, and the practicalities of homesteading.
I seriously love these lists you have. My only thought is, I wish you would be able mak3 clickable links for each item. This would lead the reader to the exact bit of information intended to learn a little about. Even if a basic general knowledge of it as it were. Sort of a “….. for dummies”. For example, tge waste managment as it pertains to homesteading
I seriously love these lists you have. My only thought is, I wish you would be able mak3 clickable links for each item. This would lead the reader to the exact bit of information intended to learn a little about. Even if a basic general knowledge of it as it were. Sort of a “….. for dummies”. For example, tge waste managment as it pertains to homesteading