If you’re preparing for a catastrophic event in the future, then you will need to know several survival skills for the benefit of you and your family. A total collapse in society often occurs in areas of extreme disaster such as floods, war zones, earthquakes, and more. A prepper can take all the necessary precautions to learn how to stay safe and comfortable during one of these horrific events. Without these skills a prepper isn’t fully prepared anyway.

A variety of skills can help you survive when the time comes, but only a few can make the short list of the most important skills. Without these skills your chances of long term survival diminish greatly. When you begin to prepare for emergencies, you must consider these seven skills that will set you up for success. Other skills may be important, but they won’t enable you to survive on their own like these skills.

1. Growing Food

People who grow gardens of food are at an advantage in disasters. When everyone else loots the stores for food in a chaotic mess, the people with gardens can simply walk outside, grab enough food for a week, and walk back inside. Growing your own food helps you keep track of what you eat as well. You won’t have to worry about bad food if you’re the one who grew it. Growing your own food will certainly help your case for survival when disaster hits as you’ll be able to rely off your own food storage instead of looking through the empty shelves of a panic-raided grocery store.

2. Hunting

Maybe you won’t be able to grow a garden for a number of reasons. But you’ll still need to eat. You might be content to hunt small game, but you should also look for deer if you can in your area. Deer meat tastes good, and you can get a lot of food from an average doe. If you find a large buck, then that’s even better for you. You can store the extra meat somewhere cold and dry for later consumption.

3. Home Defense

You should also get trained on how to defend your home from intruders. If there’s a big disaster, then you’ll definitely want to know how you should proceed with keeping the people out of your home. You might need to shoot and kill someone to defend your family. You already have the gun for hunting anyway. You can’t let someone harm people or steal the resources you’ve collected in your home. It’s up to you to defend your home and keep everything and everyone safe.

4. Weapon Maintenance

That gun you have won’t do you any good for hunting or home defense if it doesn’t work. You would need to figure out why it doesn’t work and fix it as soon as you can. You should also invest in spare parts for the weapon so that you can fix any issues that come up. The gun has to stay in working order for you to survive in a chaotic situation and you need it to hunt the animals for food when you can’t find other sources of food to eat.

5. Fishing

The local streams and lakes should provide plenty of fishing opportunities in an emergency survival situation. Make sure to stock your house or shelter with plenty of fishing rods, bait, and other accessories. Fishing can also relax you in the midst of the chaotic emergency lifestyle. Some quick research should reveal the local fish that are best for consumption and where they can be found. Fishing might be one of your best options for survival if a disaster occurs.

6. First Aid

You or someone in your group will eventually need first aid in a disaster. You should learn how to stop bleeding, apply bandages, splint broken bones, perform CPR, and more. You can sometimes find free first aid courses at local hospitals or other health care facilities. You’ll be glad you spent the time to learn first aid when someone steps on something sharp and gets a deep puncture wound. You may not be able to make it to the hospital quickly, so you’ll need to care for that person as best you can.

7. Foraging

Hunting and fishing may not always be the easiest ways of gathering food. You can always try berries, nuts, leaves, mushrooms and other plants, but you have to know how to identify the safest plants for human consumption. Foraging can help you acquire additional food sources if it’s raining and the deer hide. You might not always be able to find lots of fish. But the right plants are always available for food. You would just need to be careful to pick the right ones.

Source:Americanpreppernetwork.com