I was thinking about Jamestown again because my family and last name comes from there. I was thinking about how much it must have sucked to be a person on those small colonial ships for months on end. Then, I realized that I have no idea how that brought livestock with them too. Horses are big, eat a lot, require some exercise and you could only bring a few at a time at best unless they are effectively crated the whole time. Gestation periods for horses are also pretty long once you get to the destination so they wouldn’t proliferate for some time. The same holds true for cows. Pigs could eat waste on the ship so I suppose they could live OK on the boat but they are disgusting and have terrible hygiene problems. Chickens are about the only ones that I understand.
How did they get large numbers of livestock to the New World or any new place for that matter on small ships that are less than 100 feet long and filled with other stuff?
Subtropical High are subtropical latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees both north and south. This region is an area of variable winds mixed with calm, and it owes its name to the fact that the confused sea, muggy heat, and rolling and pitching of waves (variably stilled and aerated by winds) often slowed colonial ships for days to weeks due to lack of propulsion. In order to reduce the weight of the ship, the crew would dump horses and cattle into the water, subsequently increasing the speed of the ship in the low winds.[1]
The ancient Persian navigator and general Sataspes whose name was derived from his command of a Persian horse cavalry unit (sat was the unit size and asp(es) was the Persian word for horse) has been credited by some historians as the progenitor of the term. Sataspes was the leading explorer and navigator of this day, circumnavigating Africa[citation needed] as well as mapping out the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Verde. Mariners navigating ancient waters probably referred to the mid-latitudes as those mapped by Sataspes, whose name was translated as “horse”. The term also has probably survived from ships traveling to the New World that were often stranded in this region and forced to slaughter or jettison onboard horses in order to lighten the load, preserve precious water supplies, or for their meat and blood, but this may be apocryphal.
I heard the horses were dumped as they ran out of water for them while becalmed. Someone might look into that and edit if nessesary.
I understood that smaller animals - chickens, pigs, sheep and goats - were kept caged on deck and the larger animals - cattle and oxen - were confined in narrow stalls below decks for the duration of the voyage. Young animals were chosen for their size and the lesser amount of feed they would need.
I’m not so sure about horses, as they would need to be mature and broken in for their owners to ride. Below deck in padded stalls, possibly. Draught horses may have been shopped as foals, though.
Transporting horses was a problem. They get seasick. Unfortunately, as horses can’t vomit to relieve the condition, it’s much more serious for horses than people. It was particularly a problem for military forces being transported by ship. You couldn’t just land, unload the horses, and attack. The horses needed time to recover from the voyage before they were of any use.
Young pigs also grow at an astonishing rate. Unless entirely malnourished, they would be 40-80 pound feeder pigs after a two month voyage. When the movie “Babe” was shot, they used a large number of pigs, partially because the pigs grew visibly during the filming.
Offhand, I don’t know how pigs were actually transported aboard ships, though.