Livestock

Something that I was thinking about passing a farm, was how much more common horses would in Medieval America. Would we have "enough"? Granted a lot of this relies on the handwave inherent in the scenario and that we don't all destroy and gobble any available livestock, but it would be interesting to speculate whether we have a head start, or how much catching up to do.

The Medieval Demographics site states the livestock population for medieval society is something like 2 times the human population, two thirds being fowl, so that would be roughly 120 million plus animals, which would mean 80 million geese, chickens, maybe turkeys, with cows, sheep, goats and hogs being in the ranghe of 20 million. Cows would likely be inordinately small in that lineup, so maybe two million. On the other hand, there are large stretches of Medieval America that is occupied by pastoral tribes, (Who's model might not be covered under the MDME model) where the ratio might be as many as five cows to a person. However, these numbers refer to places which are maybe not as heavily industrialzed, but as still connected to the industrial world. So let's say there are three million herders in the heart of cow country, and give cut that ration in half. That would mean there are over ten million cows in Medieval America. Right now there are something like 90 million cows, so practically a literal decimation. However, this does mean we probably have a "pool" of cows to work with, we just don't need as many our modern age where we eat a lot more, especially beef. This is to say nothing of chickens whose numbers lay over a billion, and even the number of egg-laying hens (Which would be their primary purpose in a medieval society) almost matches this country, person for person. Pigs are slightly less numerous than cows, at roughly 60 million, although as it is there's a feral hog population that tends to get out of control, they probably don't need humans to keep a track on them for sustainability. The population of sheep is something like 5 million--it's actually been on a decline (supposedly most livestock numbers are down across the board). That's of course, relatively low, but still easily millions, and as they're also very popular pasture animals for somewhat scrappier terrains like New England and the American southwest, it's conceivable the number might be flat, or merely one half in the new Middle Ages. Goats are even scrappier, and they have the lowest population of the common barnyard animals, as their goods are relatively niche and they are not even particularly eaten as much as its literal stablemates. Medieval Americans would be much less picky (in turns because of the goat's lack of pickiness) and the goat population is almost certainly flat, maybe even greater than it is industrial times. I actually looked at more exotic pack animals: The llama and the camel. It seems the llama population is something like 40,000 and the camel population is something like 3,000. Those are perhaps good enough numbers for sustainability if one is willing and able to keep them, but it's a matter of novelty vs actual usefulness, as well as being occupied with surviving for a couple generations (After the fall of the Roman Empire, a lot of breeds were lost to time, and people had to start over, often with feral descendents of livestock. Llamas, being a little more numerous, and versatile, might still have a place, especially in Western America, but the camel might be too spread out, and have too few Americans specialized to working with them, to become one of the more common animals in civilization. However, they *did* originally once inhabit the continent, so it's not out of the question some wild herds wander here and there.
And of course, what about the horse, the animal that brohght us here? In the contemporary United States of America, there are seven million horses. They are very rarely used for utilitarian purposes, and almost never eaten, but tend to exist as pets or for hobbyists or entertainment. In the Middle Ages, they would return to being used for war and draft animals. They very, very expensive to keep, perhaps more akin to having a yacht than a car? So how many are in Medieval America? Well, there is not actual figure I could find (Assuming Medieval Demographics Made Easy does not count them, and it does not refer to horses in its livestock information.) But extrapolating, it's said that a knight on average had five horses, and I would say there are probably something half a million knights, and thus two and half million horses. We can possibly double that for farms, merchants, scribes and messengers, and few other miscellanous activties. And that's for the settled population. I've seen claims of Mongol Empire having as many as 60 million horses, definitely claims that each warrior had to have five. (That's about a million in Medieval America). Keep in mind they would have not have as many horses as the mongols, as cattle are just as important to their culture, but I still feel comfortable with a population of at least two million, and I think it could go as five. So overall, I would say there are ten million horses in Medieval America, about a 30% uptick, not too shabby, and maybe not as large an increase as one might think, quite possibly the largest in terms of livestock.