First up, could you direct your replies to individual posts, rather than collating your replies to different posters into a single long reply, please? It makes it easier to follow the thread of the conversation
No most of them do not die, their instincts keep them alive quite well.
Most wild animals do, in fact, die. Otherwise we'd be up to our ears in them by now. Have you noticed how many offspring a rabbit has? How many do you think live, on average, to reproduce themselves? (Hint: it's the same number as they have parents). The same is true for other animals - many more offspring are produced than survive to reproduce themselves.
The fact that they were young on board means they didn't have to worry about predators either. Are you saying young animals which are given food daily living around others will die within a year?
Excellent! So they'll be released with no experience of looking after themselves - that'll help! Zoos constantly struggle to successfully raise animals in captivity, the Ark is under far worse conditions - tossing and turning in a violent sea, thousands of animals cramped into dark conditions, lacking the modern technology to maintain the correct humidity and temperature for them, being fed a completely unnatural diet. And, remember, not a single one of these animals can die because there's no back up here.
Also: while they may be young animals at the start of the year, most of them won't be by the end of the year. Huge numbers of animals complete their entire lifespan inside of a year, while the longer lived creatures can often get big and unruly in that time - a year old bull, rhino, bison or elephant is a big animal.
1. Hasn't been my experience, but so what?
2. Food were most likely in the form of hay, dried fruit, salted meat, dried meat, and dried fish and perhaps fodder food like tortoises like earlier mentioned.
3. If you're so inclined as to wonder about the animals which you think would absolutely spoil their food need I remind you there are 8 humans on board.
It's a problem because you suggested you could just pile up food, rather than needing to feed and clean them out. This is a fantasy, ask any zoo keeper. So you have 8 people, and - by your absurd underestimate of the required number of animals - 8000 animals to look after, that's 36 seconds each by your own numbers. 36 seconds is
not long enough to clean out and feed an animal. It just isn't.
As for hay, dried fruit, etc. that's fine for that small proportion of the animal population that will thrive on such feed. The rest of them are going to be a bigger problem. And let me remind you: this is a year long trip, you've said you have young, growing animals, they're in cramped conditions in a boat probably at unsuitable temperatures and humidities - the odds are already stacked against these animals and you can't afford to have even a single one. Feeding them unsuitable food is going to be the final straw.
In any case, the reasoning that they must have been young is a logical one. The bible doesn't mention their age, so why do you assume they were old? Wouldn't they take much more space then? I see no reason for this. I am much younger than Noah and I can figure so much out.
Right, so the bible that spells out in intricate detail how big the boat is, neglected to mention that they should be young animals. Of course. The literality of your reading is obvious.
It's also not that logical a decision to make, young animals take up less space but they also require more care, and are less able to look after themselves when you reach the otherside. If your elephants are young (presumably you're at least letting them wean first so you don't have to hand feed them?) then you'll have to wait years after the Ark lands before you can get the first offspring.
As far as repopulating all animal life that's an issue how? The more there is food the more animals will breed generally. When you have a scarcity of food the animals stop breeding or move. So having so few animals over 4000 years is a challenge how?
Well, you've got two rabbits and two foxes. How many rabbits does a fox need to raise a cub? You have two antelope and two lions? How many antelope does a lion need to eat to raise a cub?
That's problem one: how do you manage to keep your carnivores alive long enough to establish a population of herbivores large enough to support them.
And you've dumped all these animals in one small part of the Middle East. Animals, you may have noticed, don't all live in the Middle East they're spread all across the world in a non-uniform fashion. Kangaroos are found no where but Australia, for example, and the only placental mammals in all Australia when we arrived were bats. How, exactly, did this modern pattern of biodiversity arise from a single dumping of species in the Middle East?
That's problem two: how do you explain modern biogeography?
And, let's not forget, there's just been a global flood, the entire world is covered in a thick layer of salty sediment from the flood. There's no trees, no grass, no bushes, no plant life at all. It'll all be dead from the flood. Now, let's bend reality again and pretend that seeds from all these things could survive the flood and begin repopulating the land - how long do you think that will take? How long before fruit trees begin fruiting again? How long before the humming birds can draw nectar from flowers again? And, remember, until you've got your herbivores happily re-established you're going to have to keep care of your carnivores (see problem one).
So that's problem three: the entire world has no vegetation, how do you maintain your Ark of Life until it's all re-established.
Need I remind you this is an exponential rate of replication. I'm sure you're aware of the rabbits being brought over to Australia in 1859.
An exponential rate of replication only applies until perfect conditions; all life on Earth has just been destroyed in a flood, you have thousands of hungry predators to feed. Exponential growth under those conditions is a joke. And that's before we role on your super-evolution as the millions of species alive today somehow emerge from your 8000 ark species.