Blood hunting with blood 1 mages

[Groundworm]

Since SDRs were made unique and require construction 8 after CBM 1.6, several heavy blood nations are left with only blood 1 mages for blood hunting (excepting cap-only mages, which obviously can't be recruited en masse). So how do you actually amass large numbers of blood slaves with blood 1 hunters exclusively? Do you just recruit a truly ridiculous number of them? Do you give all of your blood hunters blood-boosting items at the cost of 25 slaves each? Is there another way that I'm missing?

Should I just use CBM 1.6 if I want to play a nation with only blood 1 recruitable everywhere mages?

Thanks! All suggestions welcome!