That calf is wearing a nose tag. Nose tags are put on calves so that they are able to stay with their mothers longer, but are unable to nurse. They don’t NEED to nurse as they get older, they just get greedier and pushier and will bash up the cow’s udder and bruise it with their noses.
This nose-tag is so that calves can stay with their mothers, their mothers can remain pain-free and healthy, and nobody is stressed.
Based on fur texture and face shape, that calf is at least six months old, probably older. Calves can survive without actual cow milk even at three months, though older is better (calves weaned that early are usually fed a sort of formula for another couple months).
Also, nose tags like that one don’t go through the cow’s septum. They basically work like those fake septum rings for humans.
In addition to weaning the calves, another use for nose tags is protecting non-lactating cows. Sometimes weanlings or even adult cows will suck on themselves or other non-lactating cows; this can cause internal teat scarring bad enough to prevent that teat or teats from ever working. I’ve seen this happen, and it’s ugly, probably at least somewhat painful, and, if bad enough, would lead to the cow being slaughtered at a very young age because she can’t produce milk, has chronic mastitis, and/or can’t be milked with automatic milking equipment. So, nose tags actually prevent animal cruelty.
Also, calves will suck on anything remotely oblong (and attempt to eat literally anything), even if they are being adequately fed or overfed. Often they will suck on other calves’ ears, and, since ears are longer than teats and cows have upper as well as lower teeth in the back of their mouths, many calves get bites on their ears, which often become severely infected. I’m not sure if nose tags would work there, because physics—a non-toxic but bad-tasting ear paint would be better—but yeah, letting a calf put anything it wants in its mouth is not always a good idea.
I love this for 2 reasons: Most people don’t realize that in farming areas agriculture/horticulture/animal husbandry is part of public school education from as early on as 7th grade. (Though I remember dissecting cow eyes in 4th grade science sooo) I assure you fifteen year old farm kids know more about what constitutes animal cruelty in farms than thirty year old vegans with, or without an agenda.
Also that if you really want good quality beef/pork/eggs/milk/etc you don’t abuse your animals. Ever. That’s not the point and if you want to make any kind of money off your career choice, you are going to treat those creatures better than you treat yourself. You’ll call a vet five times for an infection in your herd before you visit the hospital for a missing foot on your own leg.
So. Yeah. Watch out, because we’re getting internet access these days. We’re on tumblr too.
P.S. The immigrant workers farming your supermarket produce have no health care or legal protection, and the Bolivians farming your 365 Organic Quinoa can’t afford to eat it. But PLEASE won’t someone think of the poor baby cows who won’t get off the tit?!
Also this is a LOT nicer than what mother cows do to calves that won’t be weaned. You know what mother cows do to calves that won’t wean? kick them in the head. Now I don’t know about vegans, but I’d rather have a nose tag that discouraged me from injuring my mother (because calves that don’t wean tend to chew on udders and make mother cows bleed) rather than being kicked in the head.
Source: I grew up on a fucking cattle ranch. I have seen chickens skeletonize a mouse I KNOW SHIT.
Happy to explain!
See, chickens are omnivorous. They eat bugs, plants, and meatstuffs. Y'know how crows and ravens and things eat meat? Well, chickens too. Ours had a particular fondness for ham when someone accidentally put it into the bucket of good scraps we set aside for the chickens. A bucket we tried to keep as meat-free as possible, because few things are more terrifying than a chicken looking you in the eyes as it scarfs down ham.
Anyway, back to the mouse.
One day i was doing Chicken Chores, like gathering eggs, putting out grain, emptying the bucket of greens, etc, when a mouse runs across the pen.
All at once, eight or so chickens stop dead, look at it, and SWARM.
Now I’m six at this point in time and developing a healthy fear of chickens, and so do nothing.
By the time the chickens are done, all that is left of the mouse is its bones. I left the chicken pen very, very quickly.
Chickens crave meat. They were dinosaurs. They did not forget that they were dinosaurs.
They will also cannibalize each other with reckless abandon. Sometimes we just had to remove one chicken to its own private pen away from the others because no matter what we did, that specific one always tried to eat the other chickens. We had one that really liked other chicken’s eyes. Bear in mind, our pens ensured each chicken had about five to six square feet all its own if you managed to space every chicken out evenly, we never locked them in teensy pen things, and fed them LOTS. These chickens just really, really wanted to maim.
Chickens that are not Buff Orpingtons are the devil. Buff Orpingtons are sweethearts. If you must have chickens, have that kind. And never get Guineas. Guineas are SATAN INCARNATE. THEY SMELL FEAR.
I have reblogged this before because watching farmers school vegans is always hilarious, but now we’re into birds, specifically fowl, and I have got stories.
I had to give my turkey an antibiotic injection once upon a time, and she turned the needle puncture into a six inch by three inch hole in her back overnight as she attempted to eat herself because apparently turkeys find themselves to be delicious. She had to spend 3 months duct taped into a tea towel (the bandages underneath cleaned and replaced daily, mind you) until it healed because she would not stop ripping the bandages off to continue consuming herself.
Your chickens strip a mouse to the bone? Mine draw and quarter them and run around with the parts shrieking. My peacocks grab mice, beat them to death on the ground with this insanely fast back and forth head twisting motion, and then swallow them whole. You would not think an entire adult mouse would fit in their face, and you would be wrong.
I knew a guy that used to regularly post photos of the 5-6′ long Copperhead snakes his peafowl would destroy. And I don’t mean kill, I mean destroy. These venomous snakes would get into the pens and the peas would just peck them into oblivion like nbd.
Fowl didn’t just used to be dinosaurs. They are still dinosaurs.
Thankfully they are small dinosaurs
and we can just tape them into tea towels if we have to
BEGGING for a Jurassic Park reboot where farmers run the place instead of brogrammer scientists, and the raptors frequently get scolded and taped into tea towels
there's this word in Serbian 'vukojebina' which literally means 'the place where wolves go to fuck' but they use it to mean 'in the middle of nowhere'.
it sure does the job well, but the visual stayed with me longer than I would have liked it to.
Hiya! Curious about joining bluesky but intimidated by all the features? Already on bluesky but want to learn more? Then welcome to my quick guide on getting started and navigating bluesky!~
What is Bluesky?
it’s a social media site that’s owned by no single person or company. it's aim is to bring back the early days of twitter before bots, elon musk or algorithms took over.
Personally I find the site really cozy, wholesome, and engaging.
my Bluesky account for example
What’s unique about Bluesky?
→ CUSTOMIZATION:
your timeline is very easy to control. There’s tons of options, so be sure to go through each tab in your settings. some options include: turning off autoplay, changing the order in which threaded replies show, changing DM settings, content preferences and lots of visual app settings.
→ MODERATION LISTS:
human made, mass blocklists. These are public lists of accounts that when you subscribe to you automatically block or mute everyone in that specific blocklist. A great way to avoid unwanted content, and interactions.
✦ Moderation lists I recommend will be below the cut
→ STARTER PACKS:
recommendation lists on who to follow, made by users. You can even curate your own starter pack of recommendations!
✦ Starter pack recommendations will be below the cut
→ FEEDS:
public timelines, basically. There are a lot of feeds you can join, or you can even create your own. I made a feed featuring just my pixel art so it doesn’t get cluttered with text posts or other photos in my media tab.
✦ I’ll post feeds I recommend below and link you to a tutorial on how to create your own feed
→ BLOCKING/MUTING:
bluesky has a great blocking system. When you block someone they can no longer see, or interact with you. They also have a feature to make your blog inaccessible unless logged in.
you can also mute specific people, delete post replies, and even detach your post from a reblog. You can also mute specific words, phrases, tags etc.
→ NSFW:
bluesky allows NSFW content, including artwork, porn, lewds etc. They also have a great moderation page to avoid the content completely, censor the content, or show it if you’d wish.
✦ just go to settings > moderation > toggle on NSFW settings and it’ll let you heavily moderate.
→ LABELS:
this is a really cool feature on the site, you can subscribe to certain pages that enable a lot of fun/useful labels that help you in different ways! (like pronoun tags, artist tags etc)
✦ Labels to browse will be posted below
→ COMMUNITIES:
the vastly diverse communities really feel like the best parts of tumblr. since you can so heavily curate your experience, it can really feel like a calming oasis. Mine is mostly artists, and other creatives.
there’s also a large community of professional artists, art directors, authors, celebrities, and even the best shitposters from twitter. the app really is what you make of it but it’s thriving right now.
RECOMMENDATIONS & LINKS BELOW ⬎
→ MODERATION LISTS:
HATE SPEECH:
NAZIS | MAGA | MAGAv2 | MAGAv3 | TRANSPHOBES & HOMOPHOBES | FAR RIGHT | FAR RIGHTv2 | FAR RIGHTv3 | ELON MUSK FANBOYS | ANTI-BLACK | ANTI-VAX
✦ to block or mute everyone in the blocklist at once, click subscribe in the top right corner:
→ STARTER PACKS:
ART:
PIXEL ART | PIXEL ARTv2 | WOMEN OF PIXEL ART | BADASS DIGITAL ARTISTS | MAGIC THE GATHERING ARTIST | PAINTERS OF BLUESKY | INDIE COMIC CREATORS | LGBTQIA+ COMIC CREATORS | WEBCOMICS ULTIMATE COLLECTION
✦ for more niche starter packs, use the search function. search your specific interest and ‘starter pack’ and you’ll find some!
→ FEEDS:
DISCOVER | WHATS TRENDING | MENTIONS | ART | TRENDING ART
THE GRAM: a timeline for exclusively image posts from those you follow. no textposts etc.
ONLYPOST: similar to the gram, it shows a timeline of only those you follow. no reposts, just original posts.
📌: a way to bookmark posts. just reply with the pin emoji.
✦ there’s tons of others feeds as well! just use the feed tab and you can browse feeds or search for specific ones.
✦ TUTORIAL ON HOW TO CREATE A CUSTOM FEED FOR YOUR ART/POSTS
→ LABELS:
SKYWATCH: most popular label. Lots of useful labels!
AI Labels: identifies AI users, can also enable hiding the posters.
Pronouns: self explanatory but useful. can add a badge with your pronouns!
✦ you can search for additional label bots on bluesky!
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:
✦ EXPIRIENCE ENHANCING TOOLS RECS
✦ CLEARSKY: TRACK BLOCKS AND BLOCKLISTS
✦ SKYFEED: CREATE CUSTOM FEEDS EASILY
✦ use the block function often. do not entertain trolls or hate speech.
✦ as well as starter packs, there’s also lists! lists can be used in the same way to create curated lists of accounts. it’s a good way to keep track of specific genres of posters you’re interested in, and finding new ones!
✦ hashtags: use them! they’re beneficial in boosting your post. you can even link hashtags in your bio making you easier to find. another method of making you more visible is if you post an ‘interest’ post! basically just type things you’re interested in and it’ll help people find you / vice versa !
✦ update your profile first thing, like bio avi etc. make a small post so people know you're real. interact and engage! the communities there are so welcoming!
I think that covers abt everything i wanted to cover! Hope this was helpful and thanks for reading lol
titsay
kaledo-art
janainaart
izzy806
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