Noah brought baby animals on board his Ark? Want proof that's a myth?

Question

I've been reading lots of responses from people who take the Great Flood story literally. One of the main ideas they're espousing is that Noah took baby animals, so they'd take up less space in this "football field and a half" sized Ark. That's grasping at straws, and here's a few reasons:

1) If all those animals aboard the Ark were babies (because they needed to be small) then how did they get to the Ark, crawl thousands of miles? What about fresh water fish? did they squirm their way over land to the Ark?

2) Baby animals can't survive on their own without their mommys and daddys! Most would die within days after the Ark settled on dry land (not to mention caged for 40 days in the disease laden Ark). How are baby eagles supposed to survive after the Ark landed? Baby eagles NEED to be fed regurgitated food from mommy! Did Noah eat worms and puke into the little chickies mouths?

3) Here's a question: How much fresh water is needed to support a single fresh water fish? 1 gallon per inch of fish is the standard amount. Forget animals, fresh water fish would take up FAR more of the total weight of the Ark, even if they'd been juvenile fish. Fresh water trout need cold water -- like 50 degrees, Tropical fish need a water temperature around 80 degrees. Did he have hand cranked refrigeration units and heaters? Did he build wooden aquariums? he must have, the technology didn't exist to make glass aquariums. If he built wooden aquariums, then what about light for the fish to see? How are they going to be able to see well enough to eat the little fishy flakes Noah drops into the tanks?

I can make points 4-50 if anyone's interested

Let me add, that there's NO WAY the animals were adults, Noah couldn't build a ship to house 200 large zoos worth of animals out of gopher wood. He'd need a team of THOUSANDS, working round the clock in a ship larger than Los Angeles

Thank you BrotherMichael, an articulate and intelligent response, but seriously, there's no way that the survivability of the animals could be guaranteed after Noah's Ark bottomed out on dry land without massive Divine Intervention.

What did all the baby animals do to survive once they exited the Ark? They certainly couldn't have migrated back to their (now barren) homelands since they wouldn't have had the strength. If their tiny little baby legs could walk across mountains and deserts to migrate back home successfully, then where would they get food for their journey.

Come to think about it, how would a full sized .. say Tasmanian devil survive the journey back home? There's nothing living in between the Ark and Australia yet, everything's been swept clean.

What would the lions eat when they got off the Ark? There were only two of every animal remaining, and it takes quite a while for even rats to willingly make enough babies to feed so many carnivores -- let alone sheep.

Answer 1

According to Scripture, Noah’s Ark was a safe haven for representatives of all the kinds of air-breathing land animals that God created. While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles. Exploring natural solutions for day-to-day operations does not discount God’s role: the biblical account hints at plenty of miracles as written, such as God bringing the animals to the Ark (Genesis 6:20; 7:9, 15). It turns out that a study of existing, low-tech animal care methods answers trivial objections to the Ark. In fact, many solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems are rather straightforward.

How Did Noah Fit All the Animals on the Ark?

According to the Bible, the Ark had three decks (floors). It is not difficult to show that there was plenty of room for 16,000 animals (the maximum number of animals on the Ark, if the most liberal approach to counting animals is applied), assuming they required approximately the same floor space as animals in typical farm enclosures and laboratories. The vast majority of the creatures (birds, reptiles, and mammals) were small (the largest only a few hundred pounds of body weight). What’s more, many could have been housed in groups, which would have further reduced the required space.

It is still necessary to take account of the floor spaces required by large animals, such as elephants and rhinos. But even these, collectively, do not require a large area because it is most likely that these animals were young, but not newborns. Even the largest dinosaurs were relatively small when only a few years old.

What Did the Dinosaurs Eat?

Dinosaurs could have eaten basically the same foods as the other animals. The large sauropods could have eaten compressed hay, other dried plant material, seeds and grains, and the like. Carnivorous dinosaurs—if any were meat-eaters before the Flood—could have eaten dried meat, reconstituted dried meat, or slaughtered animals. Giant tortoises would have been ideal to use as food in this regard. They were large and needed little food to be maintained themselves. There are also exotic sources of meat, such as fish that wrap themselves in dry cocoons.

How Were the Animals Cared For?

We must distinguish between the long-term care required for animals kept in zoos and the temporary, emergency care required on the Ark. The animals’ comfort and healthy appearance were not essential for emergency survival during one stressful year, where survival was the primary goal.

Studies of nonmechanized animal care indicate that eight people could have fed and watered 16,000 creatures. The key is to avoid unnecessary walking around. As the old adage says, “Don’t work harder, work smarter.”

Therefore, Noah probably stored the food and water near each animal. Even better, drinking water could have been piped into troughs, just as the Chinese have used bamboo pipes for this purpose for thousands of years. The use of some sort of self-feeders, as is commonly done for birds, would have been relatively easy and probably essential. Animals that required special care or diets were uncommon and should not have needed an inordinate amount of time from the handlers. Even animals with the most specialized diets in nature could have been switched to readily sustainable substitute diets. Of course, this assumes that animals with specialized diets today were likewise specialized at the time of the Flood.

How Did the Animals Breathe?

Based on my two decades of research, I do not believe that anything more was needed than a basic, non-mechanical ventilation system. The density of animals on the Ark, compared to the volume of enclosed space, was much less than we find in some modern, mass animal housing used to keep stock raised for food (such as chicken farms), which requires no special mechanical ventilation.

It is reasonable to believe that one relatively small window would have adequately ventilated the Ark. Of course if there were a window along the top center section, which the Bible allows, all occupants would be even more comfortable. It is also interesting to note that the convective movement of air, driven by temperature differences between the warm-blooded animals and the cold interior surfaces, would have been significant enough to drive the flow of air. Plus, wind blowing into the window would have enhanced the ventilation further. However, if supplementary ventilation was necessary, it could have been provided by wave motion, fire thermal, or even a small number of animals harnessed to slow-moving rotary fans.

What Did Noah and His Family Do with the Animal Waste?

As much as 12 U.S. tons (11 m. tons) of animal waste may have been produced daily. The key to keeping the enclosures clean was to avoid the need for Noah and his family to do the work. The right systems could also prevent the need to change animal bedding. Noah could have accomplished this in several ways. One possibility would be to allow the waste to accumulate below the animals, much as we see in modern pet shops. In this regard, there could have been slatted floors, and animals could have trampled their waste into the pits below. Small animals, such as birds, could have multiple levels in their enclosures, and waste could have simply accumulated at the bottom of each.

The danger of toxic or explosive manure gases, such as methane, would be alleviated by the constant movement of the Ark, which would have allowed manure gases to be constantly released. Secondly, methane, which is half the density of air, would quickly find its way out of a small opening such as a window. There is no reason to believe that the levels of these gases within the Ark would have approached hazardous levels.

Alternatively, sloped floors would have allowed the waste to flow into large central gutters. Noah’s family could have then dumped this overboard without an excessive expenditure of manpower.

The problem of manure odor may, at first thought, seem insurmountable. But we must remember that, throughout most of human history, humans lived together with their farm animals. Barns, separate from human living quarters, are a relatively recent development.

While the voyage of the Ark may not have been comfortable or easy, it was certainly doable, even under such unprecedented circumstances.

Answer 2

Oh come on, even if they were baby animals there wouldn't have been enough room. Do you have any idea how many species of animals there are on Earth? You're not going to convince anyone! Let them believe in their crazy little story in peace.

Update: The person a little further down is exactly what I'm talking about. I promised myself I wasn't going to get into this but...16,000 animals? Even if that were true, there are more than 16,000 species of land based animals on this planet today, and last I checked they don't believe in evolution. Now, mind you, you had to have at least a male and a female of each species, dividing that number in two. Now we have 8,000 species. But wait. The bible actually said that of the "clean" animals, Noah was to load seven of each species, and one male, one female of the "unclean" animals. This reduces the number even further. Even if the number of "clean" species are only an eighth of those represented, that still reduces the number of species by over a quarter (and I know that's not exactly accurate, but I'm not going to do algebra just to get an exact number). This brings us to, what, less than 6000 species? So now that we've "proven" that Noah could fit 16,000 animals, we're running into the problem that we STILL haven't represented ALL of the species on the planet. Not even close. And nothing that couldn't swim for over a month without dry land could have survived outside that ark. Honestly, where on Earth do you people come up with your reasoning skills? Am I the only one here who actually read that book of an answer and thought, "anyone who believes THIS tripe will believe anything?"

Answer 3

figure it. in Noah's day there were not as many varieties of species as there are today. alot of animals have been bred by man, many different kinds of dogs, cats, horses, pigs, cows, sheep, birds, etc.

many of the flood time animals would of had to travel quite a distance to reach the place where the ark was. so all the young would of had to be old enough to endure the trip. depending on how far away, some could of been born along the way then by the time they arrived, were old enough to be in the ark.

the ideal age was so they wouldnt be trying to claw the less aggressive animals to death.
plus, the animal types were in various pens.

i'm sure that many times wilderness people took in small birds that lost the parent, and ground up the right kind of food for them. ground with a stone.

so it wouldnt have been any hard thing for Noah and any of the family to do.
.

all water life remained in the water. they did not get into the ark. many water species survived, as the seas abundant with life attest to.
.

the ark drifted for roughly a year until it landed. so by then the young animals were ready to go out on their own.

it was then that God said that all animals would be in fear of Noah and his family, all mankind.
which meant that during the time they were in the ark, the animals behaved like domestic animals, pets.
.

the animals slowly traveled... scattering to various regions, it was a certain number of years after the flood that the continents began to drift apart.
many animals still travel over great distances during seasonal changes. wonder why.
.

Answer 4

I posed a similar question and I had crazies citing that the Ark had been found!!!!Even if it had been found,there is no way you could fit more than a few cows/sheep etc in there.And what about all the plants?Did they miraculously survive underwater for so long?And where did all that water go?Just magically left the water cycle of it's own "free will"?Far far far too many nonsenses to make the story even remotely possible.

Answer 5

Arguing with an hysteric, while often amusing, is a complete waste of time....other than for the amusement. If someone believes the Ark story as literal, there's not much one can do to successfully counter the deluded?

Answer 6

The animals were young, not babies.And the fish didn't need to be in the Ark, there was plenty of water on the earth. The fear of man didn't come to the animals until after the flood. It's all right there in the Bible. Instead of reading opinions about the Book, read the book for yourself.

Answer 7

just think of the species of ants and bettles and all other insects.

they would take up half of the ark(i exaggerated)

how about the food for one year? how about the reproduction of rats for one year?

reproduction of insects?

Answer 8

These are only bed side stories to make children sleep.

Answer 9

No I don't doubt that it's entirely fictional.

Answer 10

YUP,,,,, See the animals were~~~~~ADULT!!!!!!!!