This supposition is due to a common misconception, based on the theory of human and societal evolution, that ancient peoples were not advanced enough for such a seemingly massive responsibility.
I doubt it was a theory. Back then even herders didn't have more than 1,000 animals at a time.
Much time would have been saved in the care of animals if laborsaving devices had been incorporated into the design of the ark. In reality most of the animals would have required very little if any care once loaded onto the ark. With the proper technology Noah could have built self-sustaining cage and confinement systems that would have required little human attention. And even without the proper technology, Noah had God to guide him.
I believe this is a reach here. The technologies spoken of were from Egyptians primarily at the time. Why did god "bestow" this knowledge to them know full well they would use it and pay homage to other gods? Again this is assuming that the technology at the time was available.
The ark likely made use of self-feeding, self-watering and self-cleaning technologies. Such laborsaving designs were fairly common knowledge in the ancient world.
How did the carnivors self feed? They needed to eat fresh meat daily, which would mean more than 2 of each animal had to have been brought aboard.
Food could have been preloaded into a chute or container on the side of the cages, enabling the animals to self-feed. Enough food would have been loaded into the chutes to last for long periods of time. Extra food would have been located in overhead bins or nearby. This same technique is used today in the animal industry to increase labor efficiency. This would have greatly reduced the time needed to feed the various animals.
Again this might work for grain fed animals, but not the carnivors.
Water could have been piped to self-filling bowls or troughs. The water could have been gathered through a rainwater cistern system or might have been preloaded before the Flood. Ancient people commonly made indoor pipes from reeds, baked clay and bamboo tubing.
Lol, if it rained for 40 days and nights, I wouldn't think water would have to be stored.
The ark was not a floating zoo. Animals kept in a zoo require much room, specialized food and individual attention. The ark was an emergency vessel built by Noah under God's special and specific guidance.
Though not a floating zoo, the animals still had to be taken care of with decent attention since they were considered (according to the story) the LAST of their kind. If an animal got sick, which in zoo's is a very common, unless the right attention and care was done, the animals could die.
It was more in keeping with the conditions found in modern animal laboratories or mass production animal factories, which are crowded but relatively clean environments.
Mass produced species of animals are of usually one type. Chicken farm, cattle farm, etc. We're talking ALL of the animals who don't eat, sleep, excrete, etc. the same at all.
It is possible that many animals, which are not considered classic hibernators, have the latent ability to greatly lower their metabolic rates (Terry Vaughan, Mammalogy, 1986, pp. 421, 469-471). Such lowered metabolic rates can be brought on by several factors including temperature fluctuations, unavailability of food and water, variability of light and other environmental stimuli.
Many rodent and small mammals go into torpor during the course of their daily cycle. During this torpor animals do not eat, drink or produce any waste. Although the ark's crew could have cared for all the animals, this need would have been greatly reduced if some of the ark's inhabitants had either hibernated or gone into torpor.
When all the facts are considered, the crew of the ark could have cared for thousands of animals. Data from animal husbandry studies have shown that a few people can care for tens of thousands of animals (John Owen, Cattle Feeding, 1983, p. 101; E.C. Miller and E.F. Hodges, "One Man Feeds 5,000 Cattle or 60,000 Broilers," 1970 Yearbook of Agriculture (USA), p. 57).[/i]
Again we speaking here of 1 kind of species. If all the animals on the ark were cattle, I'd probably believe this. But they weren't. Different diets, and different animals. So to say that being able to feed the animals like they do cattle would be wrong.
