I also have Woody's book, though not handy right now, so I thought I comment on this question.
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Do you know if Woodmorappe took into consideration that there were 7 of all the clean animals and it was only the unclean that had 2 of each kind?
To some extent, however, IIRC, he does not consider all animals that "divide" the hoof and chew the cud (even toed ruminants) to be clean, only those commonly eaten by the Israelites. Of course he wouldn't want to admit that there were many ruminants with divided hooves that the Israelites never heard of. For example Giraffe and Oakpi are ruminants with divided hooves. Were they clean animals? If so you need either 7 or 14 depending on which version of the story you accept and they would eat quite a lot. You also need African Buffalo, Bison, Moose, Deer etc. in 7's. I don't know whether the giant ice age bison would be considered a separate "kind" of clean animal or not.
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More problematic is the fact that a literal translation of Genesis 7:2 actually states that Noah took 14 of each clean animal on to the Ark.
of all the clean beasts thou dost take to thee seven pairs, a male and its female; and of the beasts which are not clean two, a male and its female (Young's Literal Translation)
The English Standard Version also has seven pairs, as does The Message, The Amplified Bible, The New Living Translation, The Contemporary English Version, The Holman Christian Standard Bible, and the Revised Standard Version.
It is also unclear to me whether you need 7 or all birds or only of clean birds. Still there are a lot "kinds" of birds.
Woody figures about 16,000 animals on the ark which may cover most extinct and extant "kinds" if kind is defined broadly enough.
That is going to require a LOT of food and a LOT of different "kinds" of food.
Regarding hay, I wonder if anyone here as ever cut hay with a scythe. I have and it is very tedious and time consuming. Hay also rots easily in high humidity, which will be a big problem on this big boat sealed with pitch during a global rainstorm. You are going to have to get rid of a lot of spoiled hay and probably sprouting and spoiled grain during the trip so some extra will need to be packed away.
While to problems of producing and storing enough feed for this giant floating zoo are mind boggling it is the problem of 8 people taking care of all these animals on a big boat that is truely insoluble. I don't know if that is off-topic here or not.
Randy
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