Logistics of high-quality lifestock delivery for alien megacity?

Essentially all the members of an alien species live within a single relatively sparsely inhabited megacity. The city has a surface area of about 30,000km².

The species happens to be almost exclusively carnivorous and needs to butcher around 5,000,000 large animals (including big flightless "birds", large cow/deer-like creatures, etc...) weighing on average 200kg plus 100,000,000 small animals weighing on average 10kg, per day to sustain itself.

The problem is all animals must be delivered from wherever they were raised all the way to consumers:

• still alive

• and in a presentable (that is, not injured or diseased; generally appetizing) condition

I'm not sure of this but I believe the second point means highly efficient intensive farming cannot be used (atleast not without some substancial modifications).

The questions that still need answering are:

How much land (including the land needed to grow the crops needed to raise them) do they need for all these animals?

Is raising and then delivering animals in a decent condition all the way to consumer centers feasible given the dimensions of the city?

If so, how exactly would this civilisation do so?

Once the animals are delivered to centers where inhabitants of this city can get them, how do you store them? And what could you do to make them look better (in the same way was is put on apples to make them look shiny)?

Additional information:

This civilisation has access to generally the same level of technology as we do on Earth currently.

To approximate the characteristic of this species livestock, Earth animals can be used (cows, pigs, chickens, ostriches, etc...).

The animals only have to seem like they're healthy, they don't actually need to be so. As long as whatever method is used, doesn't change the experience of eating the animal, it works.

You can assume pretty much anything not mentioned here about this civilisation if it helps with your answer.

Not that it is relevant to answering the question as far as I can see, but the aliens as pointed out by adaliabooks are indeed substancially larger than human beings, so don't be surprised that the amount of food they consume...

posted about 7 years ago

AngelPray‭

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