Tell no one.

No one.

[tsalala]

“Our team recently had an incredible opportunity to collar a mountain lion mother (F427 - stained teeth) and her juvenile offspring (M419 - white teeth)—just weeks or months before he naturally disperses to find his own territory. This moment is rare to capture in the wild and gives us a unique window into how young males navigate the landscape.”

Taken in California, United States of America Images and text by California Carnivores

[odddogs]

another very extreme split nose, almost like two separate noses on one face

[thegenderal]

even before i lived in a place with a massive population of feral cats decimating the wildlife i had read the studies and knew the data said that TNR did not work and we need to be trapping and euthanizing feral cats but now that i’ve lived in a place where there are an enormous number of feral cats it’s like, inconceivable to me that anyone supports TNR, not just for the health of the world but for the sake of the fucking cats

[thegenderal]

nobody will even acknowledge it not even in most conservation circles. We have a solution to a massive, massive problem that is more humane, cheaper, easier, takes less time, prevents animal suffering, and saves valuable members of our disappearing ecosystem. And nobody is even willing to theoretically acknowledge that it exists outside of a few very small circles.

[thegenderal]

it works. It works. It is better for the cats. It’s better for the cats. Living in a place where you cannot drive 10 minutes without seeing a new roadkill cat almost every single day really makes you think about how much suffering could have been prevented if we just dealt with the problem we have created. It’s not a pleasant way to go, being hit by a car. Or being ripped apart by a predator, or eating a poison, or starving to death, of dying of an infection, or an illness, or any of the hundred thousand ways an animal in the wild passes without human intervention. Euthanasia is simply falling asleep. It is fucking wild to me that saying you think we should take responsibility for our mistakes and ensure that cats fall asleep peacefully instead of capturing them and then hurling them back out into the world SPECIFICALLY in order to allow them to die in agony makes people treat you like a fucking serial killer.

[thegenderal]

And if you don’t care about cats dying in agony do you care about the world around you? There’s a species of bird we only know ever existed because someone’s cat brought home our only example. That’s horrific. We’ve lost so much biodiversity because we simply won’t listen to the research, which again, has proven that TNR is not effective.

[thegenderal]

a peaceful death is not the worst thing that could happen to an animal.

[thegenderal]

@cathartidae sources for ya!

Sources:

https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/UW468 “How Effective and Humane Is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) for Feral Cats?” 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6523511/ “A Case of Letting the Cat out of The Bag—Why Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Management” (also has a thousand references attached that are handy)

Not a reference so much as the human society actively admitting that TNR does nothing to decrease population, actively contributes to harming wildlife, and doesn’t actually help the cats in any way, just reduces some of the nuisance behavior that people complain about: https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/real-impacts-trap-neuter-return

Unscientific from here on out as i don’t feel like trying to find the studies i read in like January of last year:

https://hahf.org/awake/the-trouble-with-trap-vaccinate-neuter-return/ “The Trouble With Trap-Neuter-Re (Abandon!) from the hillsborough animal health foundation, articles also link to studies

https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Evidence-Against-TNR.pdf from the american bird conservancy, has scientific articles quoted. 

[thegenderal]

Even More Sources on TNR being non-viable and ways that cats are impacting the world from birds to *hawai’i’s monk seals*

Animal Emergency and Referral Center of Minnesota. (2022, October 26). Indoor cats vs. outdoor cats. Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota. https://aercmn.com/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats/

Campbell, V. (2017, January 25). The Obituary of the Stephens Island Wren. All About Birds. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-obituary-of-the-stephens-island-wren/

Castillo, D., & Clarke, A. L. (2003). Trap/neuter/release methods ineffective in controlling domestic cat “colonies” on public lands. Natural Areas Journal, 23(3).

Coe, S. T., Elmore, J. A., Elizondo, E. C., & Loss, S. R. (2021). Free-ranging domestic cat abundance and sterilization percentage following five years of a trap–neuter–return program. Wildlife Biology, 2021(1). https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00799

del Hoyo, J., Collar, N., Kirwan, G. M., & Sharpe, C. J. (2022, October 25). Guadalupe storm-petrel (Hydrobates Macrodactylus), version 1.2. Birds of the World. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/guspet/cur/introduction

Dickman, C. R., & Newsome, T. M. (2015). Individual hunting behaviour and prey specialisation in the house cat Felis catus: Implications for conservation and management. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 173, 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2014.09.021

Edge. (2019, June 19). Guadalupe storm-petrel. EDGE of Existence. https://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/guadalupe-storm-petrel/

Galbreath, R., & Brown, D. (2004). The tale of the lighthouse-keeper’s cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli). Notornis, 51(4).

Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources. (2025). Feral cats. Feral Cats. https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/feral-cats/#:~:text=Feral%20cats%20on%20islands%20have,kill%20approximately%202.4%20billion%20birds.

Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2013). The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380

McGregor, H., Legge, S., Jones, M. E., & Johnson, C. N. (2015). Feral cats are better killers in open habitats, revealed by animal-borne video. PLOS ONE, 10(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133915

Medina, F. M., Bonnaud, E., Vidal, E., Tershy, B. R., Zavaleta, E. S., Josh Donlan, C., Keitt, B. S., Corre, M., Horwath, S. V., & Nogales, M. (2011). A global review of the impacts of invasive cats on Island Endangered Vertebrates. Global Change Biology, 17(11), 3503–3510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x

National Research Council. (1992, January 1). Scientific Bases for the Preservation of the Hawaiian Crow. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235935/

NOAA. (2024, August 29). Toxoplasmosis and its effects on Hawaiʻi Marine Wildlife. NOAA Fisheries. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/endangered-species-conservation/toxoplasmosis-and-its-effects-hawaii-marine

Read, J. L., Dickman, C. R., Boardman, W. S., & Lepczyk, C. A. (2020). Reply to Wolf et al.: Why trap-neuter-return (TNR) is not an ethical solution for Stray Cat Management. Animals, 10(9), 1525. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091525

Reed, L. (2022). The effects of free-roaming cats on native wildlife populations. Wildlife Rehabilitation Bulletin, 40(1), 17–21. https://doi.org/10.53607/wrb.v40.250

Salano, E. (2024, October 5). Eliciting the effect free roaming cats have on Native Hawaiian wildlife using stable isotope analysis. UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/biology_etds/103/ 

Steele, J. H., Thorpe, S. A., & Turekian, K. K. (2009). Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Academic Press. 

science says it’s long past time to stop prolonging the suffering of feral cats, for the sake of the people, the native wildlife, and the goddamn cats themselves.

[boundless-ennui]

I was at a friend's house to check on carcasses I had macerating in his yard. A little grey cat ran up to me, yelling her head off in friendliness and wanting nothing more than to be pet. I had nothing to give her but let my friend know he should catch her since she was so friendly. I am ashamed to admit I didn't give her much thought beyond that, finishing my work and giving her a last pet before going home.

My friend told me how he'd seen her before but she always vanished before he could catch her. He works far too many hours and is always tired so he couldn't prioritize catching this cat.

Three months pass with no sign of her. I go back with my partner to check on carcasses and this same little grey cat appears. This time, however, a tooth has been snapped off and her tongue is so badly cut that she can't keep it in her mouth. She was thin and dirty and screaming to please be given some food.

This time I couldn't look away. I asked my friend's girlfriend if I could borrow a cat carrier. She loaned me one and a tin of wet food that the grey cat willingly followed into the carrier. She didn't care at all about being put into the carrier - all she wanted was a hand on her. She'd arch up against the top just so my hand would rest on her back for a moment.

We drove through rush hour traffic to the only shelter still open. We knew we couldn't keep her and I couldn't stand the thought of putting her back out on the streets to die slowly.

The shelter couldn't take her. Her ear was clipped so she was a "community cat" and outside their ability to help. They tried desperately to offer alternatives to me as I cried over her carrier, knowing I couldn't take her home but also that if I didn't I couldn't live with the thought of her back on the streets.

I made a Hail Mary call to a local friend who is very connected in our city. They didn't have my number saved but answered all the same to hear me sobbing about a cat I'd found and to please help me find a place for her. Please. If I don't find something then she'll be alone on the streets again to die.

My friend came through. I could keep the cat in their garage overnight and in the morning my friend would be back in the city and could find someone to help the cat.

The shelter folk gave me a crate and some food - their hands were tied but they didn't want to leave me with nothing. They were good people doing the best they could in their own system. Community cats were ones they weren't allowed to "waste" resources on. Ostensibly they'd been dealt with and their fate decided. There was nothing the shelter folks were allowed to do for them.

I took the cat to my friend's garage. She was settled into a crate on towels, happy as a clam to be warm and safe. This was a cat made to be loved and to love, as she immediately began trying to groom one of my friend's roommates. He stayed in the garage with her, giving her food and water and in exchange having no say on whether she was in his lap or not. She was always in his lap.

Nobby Nobbs (so named for the only other character known to man that is as scrungly as she is) was then formally adopted by my friend. Her tongue has healed, her fur remains scrungly, and she's every bit the rabid love bug I suspected her to be when she came to me yelling to be pet.

She's a TNR cat. Someone thought they were doing her a kindness in that and if nothing else she didn't add kittens to the world but that doesn't negate the pain she suffered before I found her - the broken teeth, the lacerated tongue, the ulcerated cheeks, the flea-bald patchiness of her coat.

I say this as someone who adores this cat and has the privilege to see her loved and cherished: I wish she'd never had to suffer what she did. I wish people were alright making the harder call that leads to less misery on the side of the cats.

TNR is a polite fiction, nothing more. Just so the humans can pretend they've done right by the same cats they're letting loose to die miserably somewhere else. As long as the humans don't see it it's fine.

The shelter folks told me she's a community cat and that I could take her home and release her by my house. Then I could feed her myself and keep up with her and know where she was! I could still keep her, after a fashion.

I am not proud of how I snarled back that I would never exchange a quick death for a slow one. I would be giving her a different funeral plot, not giving her a life. Even near me she'd be just as vulnerable to the innumerable predators that find cats quite delicious, let alone cars and poisons and the other cruelties humans practice on stray cats.

She's the second stray cat I've met that when I held them the cat melted in my arms, purring and so desperately wanting to be loved. The first cat I was able to trap and take to a local shelter only to find when I called to check on him a day later that his health had been so terrible, so beyond help, that he'd been put down. All the love in that tiny body lost because the people I lived beside didn't care enough to trap the cats they had.

My partner was asleep. I woke her up to crawl into her arms and sob, my heart breaking for the stupidity of the humans who hadn't cared enough to grant this poor little cat the chance to be either an indoor cat, loved and cared for, or to grant him a quick death long before I met him. I've other stories of the cats they kept around, essentially feeding the poor souls to the predatory birds and wandering dogs that frequented our area.

TNR doesn't work. It is a lie humans tell ourselves so we can pretend we haven't failed these animals on a massive scale. Cats are invasive and cause massive harm in their turn. It is humanity who needs to deal with this crisis, this horror we've made, and I pray one day we look it square in the face and vow to make it right.

[thegenderal]

sorry

[allcreaturessmall]

A post came across my Facebook feed this morning from a page called Jim's Place for Parrots about a macaw that tragically died shortly following anesthesia to remove a piece of hardware from a toy that had gotten stuck on its beak and could not be removed without putting the bird under. Birds are notoriously fragile under anesthesia, and I don't fault the owner or vet in this situation, because it all boiled down to an unfortunate and unforeseen accident involving a toy, which is actually a fairly common source of injury and death in captive parrots.

The toymaker offered to pay the owner's veterinary expenses and has already made a public statement about the incident, and are going to change the design of the toy to make it safer. Small scale parrot toy businesses are often owned by parrot lovers, and they are taking this situation seriously. Basically, there are no bad faith actors in this, however, it does present an opportunity to talk about toy safety, and the component in question that ultimately resulted in this bird's death.

The piece of hardware you see in the third image is called a rope thimble. It is commonly used to hold the shape of a loop at the end of a rope or cable, as seen in the second image. Personally, I am not a fan of cable as a toy component because even if it is coated and stainless, if the coating is chewed off, a powerful bird like a macaw or cockatoo could do enough damage to fray it, and frayed cable is both extremely sharp and can shed small pieces that could cause internal injury. But cables are frequently used, so let's talk about the hardware itself.

An open ended rope thimble like this, when pulled loose from a toy by a large parrot, is the perfect shape for disaster, as the opening is narrow enough to get caught on the beak. Its structure makes it difficult to bend outwards, especially if sturdy stainless hardware is being used, and depending on how much space there is to use tools, it would also be difficult to cut through. I can easily see why it would be virtually impossible to remove from a struggling, unanesthetized parrot. Given that even captive birds are vulnerable to exertional rhabdomyolysis (an often lethal metabolic acidosis resulting in widespread muscle necrosis) if they overexert themselves under stress, not anesthetizing also had significant risks.

Thankfully, fully closed rope thimbles do exist, in both stainless and nylon. These are less likely to get caught on the beak, especially the models with a smaller opening. Even those could potentially get stuck on the tip of the beak, but it would be both less likely and easier to remove. So, if you make parrot toys at home and will be employing a rope thimble, please use caution and select a fitting that poses the least risk of an unfortunate accident like this.

[kedreeva]

Kinda grim question... is failure to thrive in animals the same thing as failure to thrive in human children or is different? Or do we just... did we just decide culling babies is a bad thing?

Breeding livestock animals and selectively culling to improve stock or end suffering is completely different than practicing eugenics on humans, yes.

I don't know enough about human baby medical conditions to say if failure to thrive is caused by the same things as in quail, but it seems likely that there's at least some overlap.

With humans, we have advanced medical care to work to fix some problems (like organ transplants for organ failures) and the ability to reduce or eliminate suffering (like pain medication), as well as (eventually) the ability to explain the situation to the person experiencing it. None of these things are available to a 1 week old quail. Hard culling it IS the kindest treatment available, on top of being the most practical consideration for the improvement of the flock.

People having human babies are not doing so in an attempt to improve the stock of the human race, they're doing it to make a family. This is not the goal of raising livestock. Most livestock is being raised for food (or use, like riding horses or shearing sheep etc), and most humans don't participate in cannibalism, nor do most people feed their dead to animals. The cultures that do participate in these things still aren't raising humans specifically for this purpose.

Lastly, humans DO sometimes make the call to end a life before nature would, though we don't think of this as culling. Abortions do happen where something has gone very wrong with the fetus to where it won't survive, and a choice must be made, particularly in instances where the mother's life is in danger. Even a healthy fetus could endanger a mother's life and a worse choice must be made. Abortions happen for many other reasons, too, by the choice of the mother (or in situations where she may be unable to make the call, the other parent, a relative, or a doctor). We also have (in some places) protocols for allowing patients to end their own lives in hospital settings if they choose- DNRs are a thing, but we also have euthanasia cocktails that terminal patients can choose in order to take control of their own suffering and end. But these are almost always welfare considerations made for (and by) the people they concern (the mother, the patient) rather than a measure of selective breeding.

I was going to put this into the tags but it belongs in the post. Please do not attack Anon over this ask. This is actually a really common struggle people have when it comes to culling livestock, because they understand "we don't kill human babies for this" and they often believe pet animals aren't culled (many of them ARE, though you might not see that side of things, but the runts are often culled and pet animals experiencing severe medical problems are often euthanized for a variety of reasons), so they have a hard time compartmentalizing livestock from the similar situations they're familiar with already. This person has asked from the other side ("it makes sense when you say it for animals, why don't we do that for ourselves") but the conflict of information is the same. It's a normal consideration to go through, for some, and I prefer that people feel comfortable enough to ask me, rather than struggle or come to a conclusion that will bring harm (either "we should do this for humans" or "we shouldn't do this for animals"). This is also a COMMON tactic among ARA groups ("we wouldn't do this to humans, what gives us the right to do this to animals" welfare concerns the animal can't understand, next question), and one that's easy to fall prey to if you haven't learned better before encountering it. Asking is always better than ignorance.

[a-voltage]

Really well put. After following your posts about the quail, I'd been thinking over the same thing. I can see the logical steps that would lead people to doing horrific things. I knew it felt wrong, but I couldn't put a counter-argument into words.

The missing piece is just like that Terry Pratchett quote, " It starts with treating people like things". People are not livestock. I mean, obviously. But then that leads to the question of "why do we do this to animals then?"

As a city-slicker who hasn't had a huge amount to do with livestock, I really appreciate you speaking on the thought process that goes on as a breeder and carer.

As you say, I think that because humans are so social and wired to pack-bond with everything, there's definitely a tendency to assume that all other animals are just like us. It's easy to anthropomorphize instead of taking into account the animal's actual needs when you don't have as much first-hand experience.

[kedreeva]

Livestock are not things, either, but the management of them does absolutely fall into the "they're not humans, either" category. Anthropomorphizing is a HUGE PROBLEM when dealing with animals in general, but with livestock especially purely due to the numbers produced.

The thing I didn't mention, and something that people rarely consider from this perspective, is that nature culls. In the wild, FTT animals will suffer and die slowly. They might be lucky enough to be caught by a predator and ended violently but swiftly. Animals not suited for their environment will suffer and die off at some point. Sick animals will suffer until their body gives out and they die. Injured animals will suffer, often rotting on their feet, before succumbing to the injury. If they make it, they may recover fully or they may be lame in a way that causes them to suffer hunger or pain for the rest of their lives with no way to abate it. It will probably mean their (slow, painful) death at some point. Predators may assist with swifter but violent ends. Even healthy animals may die to accidents, predators, etc. Survival of the fittest and all that. This is natural, sure, but also horrific. The two are not mutually exclusive. And it's necessary, for this balance to exist, or animals would overwhelm their environments and none of them would get to live.

In an artificial environment (ie, domestically-kept animals), humans are acting as nature, and I feel it cannot be stated enough that we are far far far FAR kinder about it all than nature will ever be. Well-kept domestic animals experience a life of luxury that their wild ancestors could never hope to have dreamed of. They get rich foods, endless clean water, a safe place to live and sleep, health care as needed, and a swift, gentle end. Their progeny will produce progeny which will produce progeny which will produce progeny, into time everlasting as far as they're concerned. For creatures whose goal in life is to pass on their genes, that's a pretty damn successful life

But the other side of that is that the domestic animals (as a whole) ARE wildly more successful at reproducing, and those offspring are wildly more successful at surviving, which means there are far more of them than would exist in nature. Humans must act as nature in this case; and this means that responsible keeping involves pruning the animals not suited for the environment they are in (in order to make animals that do not suffer in this environment), gently putting to rest the animals that are suffering (particularly in ways that cannot be healed), and, yes, pruning the excess to feed ourselves, in return.

Humans keeping domestic animals is mutualism. They gain a comfy, stress-free life, success in passing on their genes, and a kind end, and we get food (or company, or in some cases, work). The question "why do we do this to animals" seems a lot sillier a question when you actually consider the animals as the animals they are and what "nature" actually means, and look at what good, responsible breeders are doing, and realize that they're usually aren't doing anything "to" animals, but rather "with" them.

[chelonianmobile]

@kedreeva Do you feed culled animals to other animals if what they had wasn't catching? It would make sense for culled chicks to be included in pet food, for example. Or put them in fertiliser?

[kedreeva]

Yep! All of my humanely culled chicks (ie, chicks I culled rather than an animal found randomly dead) are neatly packaged for the freezer to be used for reptile/amphibian feed, or they are added to donations of larger whole-prey culls that I bring to wildlife rescue centers. Anything I personally would not find suitable to sell or donate, either gets given to friends or fed to my own animals. Bug, for example, LOVES when I give her the "unsightly" chicks who have nothing communicable wrong with them but that look messed up for whatever reason (crossed beak, twisted leg joint, malformed skull, etc), and I have a friend who asked me to clean and set aside all the non-hatching chicks that made it to lockdown, because they're small enough for one of her very small snakes that only likes to eat quail, not mice.

Anything not suitable for any of those avenues (for example, I find a dead bird and I'm not sure when the bird died) gets put outside for the crows and/or buried (depending on which bird it is, I have buried a few peafowl over the years). Were I to have a biohazard risk that couldn't be cured by freezing first, I would likely dispose of those carcasses either through my vet (because they would already be there being tested for said biohazards) or through a controlled burn (like adding a carcass to a bonfire), but those cases are (and hopefully remain) rare.

[talesfromtreatment]

Excellent post.

For further examples, I recently hard culled (euthanized) all my remaining corn snake hatchlings from last year. Their sire is being soft culled (sold to a non-breeding home) because he does not make healthy babies. He bred last year to a half-sister as well as a completely unrelated female. I got good clutch sizes and a good hatch rate overall, but a lot of non-feeders to start.

And then they began dying. The non-feeders going was like "okay, that sucks but something was making them not want to eat" but then the good eaters began dying off, too. Over 2 months I lost half the hatchlings. 3 died over the 36 hours following my decision to euthanize them on a set date. No signs of illness. Gaining weight. Looked like they were in the middle of normal crawling and then just passed. I could not ethically rehome the remaining babies, and I couldn't let them just keel over one by one over the next few months.

[horsefigureoftheday]

Sucks how many people were taught that "horses put their ears back when they're mad" but then never taught the difference between "angry backwards ears," "mildly annoyed backwards ears," "pain backwards ears," "concentrated backwards ears," "sleepy backwards ears" and "just happens to be listening to something behind it."

"Horses put their ears back when they're mad" idk man i think it depends

[horsefigureoftheday]

These are all completely different expressions in completely different scenarios, and only two of them are decidedly negative.

[horsefigureoftheday]

Actually, I wanna talk about the third horse, the one putting its ears back in pain. Over the last 15 years veterinarians and animal scientists have worked out pain scales for most domestic animals by taking photos of the during routine procedures.

We know vaccines painful, and by comparing horses at rest with horses getting vaccinated, we've been able to determine how they express pain visually. By looking at horses with disorders like colic, broken bones, wounds, and so on, we can determine their facial expressions during more severe pain.

At zookeeper school we were drilled through the pain faces of the most common lab animals and livestock. Nowadays I believe this has become a routine lesson in all animal related fields, but the general public still doesn't know that this is a thing that exists.

Here are all the pain face/grimace scales I've been able to find. Please study them if you interact with any of these animals on a regular basis:

[dragon-in-a-fez]

hipster cafes be like "we are proud to be a community establishment! 😊 think local!! 😇 everyone welcome!!! 🏳️‍🌈 restroom for customers only"

[dragon-in-a-fez]

damn the leftism sure is leaving some people's bodies in the notes

[allcreaturessmall]

I am a little hesitant to make this post, because people online will absolutely tear someone to shreds over a mistake or bad decision, especially where animal husbandry is involved. I am posting it anyway for two reasons: one, I believe in transparency and accountability in rescue, and two, because I have a platform to let other people learn from my mistakes. So let's talk a little bit about husbandry fuck-ups.

Last Friday, my worst nightmare nearly became a reality: I arrived home from a doctor's appointment, opened my front door, and smelled smoke. I tore down the hall towards our reptile room, checking there first knowing it was the most intuitive place for a fire to start with the various heat fixtures in use. I opened the door, was met with a smokey room, and immediately saw its source: one of the iguana enclosures. The fixture mounting the mercury vapor lamp had been ripped from the ceiling, and the lamp was face down on the basking shelf, where it had burned a smoldering pit in the wood. Had I been out much longer, it likely would have progressed to a full-blown fire, and we could have lost countless animals, as well as the house itself.

On one hand, this was a freak accident. The enclosure, which is a walk-in closet modified into a habitat, has been as it was since 2018 without incident. On the other hand, it was a preventable accident; several shortfalls in the design of the habitat - and thus, my husbandry - were to blame: 1. The fixture holding the lamp was a simple heavy duty ceiling hook and while it could easily support the weight of the lamp, the weight of the lamp + a large iguana was too much. Having only one anchor point securing it was unwise. 2. The lamp was (apparently) reachable by said iguana. When we built this habitat, the animal was much smaller, and the lamp was out of his reach. Iguanas grow, and the security of the lamp should have grown with it. I suspect he may have jumped from one of the higher branches or even the basking platform itself and grabbed on to the fixture, motive known only to his little lizard brain. 3. The lamp did not have a cage, which would have kept the hot bulb a greater distance from the surface it fell on and reduced the chance of fire. This in particular was HUGE oversight on my part not just because of the risk of fire, but risk to the animal. A "naked" heat lamp within an enclosure is a safety hazard; if the animal can touch the hot bulb, it can be badly burned. Again, when we built the enclosure, the iguana reaching it was not a concern, but the cage should have been there regardless as best practice. I made these errors despite being an experienced keeper/rescuer who really ought to know better. I am EXTREMELY fortunate that we not only did not have a fire, but that the animals in the room - especially the one in the enclosure - were unharmed. I am lucky that not only were the animals in the room not lingeringly impacted by smoke inhalation, but that the fumes did not reach the bird room; it is on the opposite end of the house with glass doors, and I was thankfully able to shut down the central cooling and vent the smoke quickly through through ceiling fans and open windows.

Since this has happened, we made several immediate changes to correct the problems with the enclosure, and we've been given a sobering reminder to be more diligent in how we design our habitats, to adapt enclosures as an animal grows, and to always use best practice where safety is concerned. I would urge anyone reading this to please take this as a reminder to double check the safety of your own habitats, and to correct anything you find lacking.

I hope everyone reading understands that I am offering this story with the good faith intention of raising awareness about potential safety issues. I am owning these mistakes and sharing that experience in case someone, anyone, might benefit from a reminder. While I would be glad to see people commenting/reblogging with additional safety tips or sharing similar stories of husbandry misses to raise more awareness, I will not be acknowledging or responding to personal attacks.

[bonefall]

Is there beef with the Holstein cows and you or what was that joke lol

It's kind of wild It's just never come up on this blog before, but I HATE holsteins. Bottom 10 cow breeds for me. I hate how they're so common they account for the majority of milk produced. I hate that they're the "default" cow to the point where some don't even know cattle HAVE other colors. I hate their tiny horns (IF THEY EVEN HAVE THAT. LOSER ASS HORNLESS COW) and their painfully massive udders.

Legit I'm trying so hard to not launch into a No Mouth Must Scream style AM speech-- shoot my hand slipped.

(AM speech about why i dont like holsteins below the cut)

For starters, I have to give a brief lesson on what these terms mean; the "Holstein" is the American strain of the "Frisian" breed. Frisians are an ancient breed from Frisia, in the north of what we now consider the Netherlands. Crosses between the breeds are "Holstein-Frisians."

(There’s even more to this but im keeping it as simple as possible. Also one of my friends is Frisian and she is probably going to kill me for describing it like that.)

Historically, livestock was adapted to the environment they lived in. Frisians were bred by the Frisii people for hundreds of years in extremely grass-rich, lush, flat environments. The "polders" of the northern parts of the Netherlands. They're huge and eat a LOT of food.

Traditional Frisians were developed to produce as much meat and milk from a single individual as possible, without compromising the health of the cattle with constant inbreeding to get quick gains. We are talking about a breed that is over 2000 years old. They had the perfect environment to make The Ultimate Food Cow and by god they did it. I can respect that.

So, take that, drag it across an ocean to a place that does NOT have polders, and add the rapid enshittification of capitalism to it. BAM you've got a fucking holstein.

There is ONE goal for "improving" the holstein. Make More Milk. As long as the black and white milkbag leaks enough, nothing else matters. Health? Fertility? Feed ratio? Ability to not die of infection? WHO CARES. MILK LINE GO UP.

Over 90% of holsteins are inbred to start with, because Milk Line Go Up. To the tune of having an average COI of 8%-- where extreme negative effects (think Hapsburgs) start to crop up around 10%

Holstein bulls are aggressive bastards (many dairy bulls are), so no one wants to keep intact males in their herds, meaning most cows are artificially inseminated

Not being limited by the natural lifespan of a living bull means that the same stud can keep having direct offspring for decades after his death

Toystory the bull had 500,000 calves before he died, and hit over 1 million offspring in 2015. That's ONE animal and to put this in perspective, there are 9 million holsteins in the US.

DON'T WORRY IT GETS WORSE

Not only can 99% of holsteins be traced back to just two bulls-- 99% of male holsteins share one of two exact Y chromosomes with those two bulls.

The gene pool is so small that it's equivalent to about 60 individuals. Warrior Cat allegiances are larger than that. That's barely bigger than modern ThunderClan.

"Massive lack of genetic diversity" does not begin to capture the existential dread of this situation. Mark my words, WATCH, when the Bird Flu finally mutates a strain that rips through a mammalian population, it's gonna be in the USA and it's going to be through our dairy cattle.

This is not prophecy or me laying a curse on the land, this is the natural consequence of basing the stability of US milk production on the equivalent of 9 million clones of two classrooms worth of individuals, and then packing them in close quarters

And we don't have to wait for doomsday for the impacts to be apparent on the cattle themelves

Holstein fertility has also dropped by half since the 1960s when the intensive inbreeding really kicked into high gear

Because their whole body is dedicating all of their resources to milk production, they have a notoriously "bony" frame.

Show judges, however, like this because they think that's a very "feminine" look for a 1600 pound ruminant. Very normal thing to think.

Like. I don't know if i can communicate this to people who don't look at cows a lot (it's not quite as obviously dramatic as a pug skull) but here is a comparison of an "ideal" show holstein and an "unselected" holstein from a herd that's been established as a sort of "control group" for what they looked like back in the 1960s;

The way that the artery on the "modern" cow's belly runs to the udder like a big pink worm freaks me out the most ngl

The udder also bulges out from between the back legs

The show cow is so thin

And then compare these both to a Holstein-Frisian cross who leans more on the Frisian side;

Proper weight, developed legs. Its biggest "problem" is actually just the udder shape-- deep udders, which "hang" low like that, aren't optimal for milk-focused breeds because the higher away from the ground the less chance there is of infection. In that department, the "unselected" holstein clearly outclasses the holstein-frisian.

But it probably won't be surprising to hear that the "show holstein," with its massive, swollen udder, is SUPER prone to infections such as mastitis.

But it is also just more prone to getting sick generally

And, to keep up with these insane demands, holsteins need a TON of food. You aren't going to just turn these things out into a pasture and be done with it. Even its ancestor the Frisian needed premium Dutch polder grass to be such a good cow-- crank that up to 11 with these Monuments to Humanity's Hubrice

The Texas Longhorn developed in semi-feral conditions and can eat a bush to become the best thing in a 10 mile radius. The Scottish Highland was iron-forged in upland moors with a steady diet of turf and rain.

Meanwhile if a Holstein has less than 5 homemade meals a day without poland spring bottled water it will die to death.

And the WORST part? You have to use these if you want to make money in dairy farming. It's WAAY too expensive to just run a suboptimal farm. Their milk isn't great, but they sure do make a lot of it.

...so Holsteins and Holstein-Frisians (and other "super efficient" breeds) have absolutely decimated heritage cattle. The American Milking Devon is a deep reddish brown with gorgeous horns and low maintenance; rare. Randall Linebacks are painted with lines of white speckles down the back and can be used for any purpose; critically endangered. The Niata was a pug-faced cow who could fight jaguars; extinct.

And THAT'S what makes me hate them most of all. I LOVE cows, but whenever I see a reference to one, it's a holstein. It's always boring black and white splotches with big pink udders. They're practically synonymous with "cow" when their homogeniety is actually hiding much cooler breeds from you.

Did you know cows can be tiger-striped?

And that England has its own type of longhorn?

Or that cow horns can twist upwards like an antelope?

And that they can have REALLY LONG ears?

And that they can be blue?

And that's not even getting into some of the cows that have gotten a small crumb of attention lately, such as Highlands, Ankole-Watusi, and Texas Longhorns. There's so many cool cows out there! And they're all really different from holsteins! MOST of them are also a lot healthier and produce tastier milk and meat!

TL;DR yeah i don't like holsteins and I like sniping at them. For reasons both legit and petty.

[headspace-hotel]

the Cow Lore is definitely worth a read

[madam-melon-meow]

@scoutsmoocrew holstein lore post

[scoutsmoocrew]

Definitely prefer my smaller chubbier Holsteins. All the high genetic merit ones tend to be trashfires.

[amber-tortoiseshell]

Just saw this tortoiseshell on Reddit. Any idea what might be causing this patterning? The color even seems like chocolate in those 'dalmatian' like spots

https://www.reddit.com/r/cats/s/P2fj7cAjhJ

link @roseate-felidae

Extraordinary. No, I have no idea what's this. Probably something de novo.

[everythingfox]

Like fighting a mirror

[teaboot]

drift compatible

[ridersofbrohon]

everyone please look at this cat my brother found in the philippines - he's got 2(two) noses!

[shanetism]

@pangur-and-grim

[despazito]

Beautiful puppies get put on the Standing Contraption

[despazito]

[monarobot]

Imcredibly curious about what’s going on

[despazito]

This pupy is being trained to be a show dog aka in the discipline of conformation

The proper term for standing fancy like this is called stacking and there's a number of products and DIY contraptions you can build for training your puppy to stand in the correct posture to make them look their best. It's good to start training puppies when they're young to get them used to stacking and to learn that it can be a pleasant and rewarding activity. This isn't my wheelhouse at all so I can't speak to any device being better than another, I think the quality of the training matters more than the price or your stacking box lol.

Some hard-line proponents will call it abusive to train your dog to do this but I strongly disagree. There are issues to discuss about dog shows (e.g. health/ breed standards/ appearance over function/ if the ideal specimen of this breed is a dog that's an expert at herding or tracking or pulling a sled, how does stacking and trotting in a show ring properly judge these traits?) but the very act of showing and stacking a dog is not at all inherently cruel unless your dog has like, very serious mobility issues in which case why tf are we doing show training.

I think the best way to explain confo to outsiders is that this activity should be seen as a form of competitive obedience that also judges the dog's physical traits and attitude. Training your dog in conformation is training patience, focus, good manners and an extremely high threshold for impulse control. Your dog will be expected to show at an event with many distractions and numerous other dogs it's never met before and to perform next to these dogs while being unreactive and maintaining focus on their handler. They will also be expected to get physically handled by a judge who will feel them over, including sensitive areas like the mouth and gonads, without aggression or extreme fearfulness.

All this stuff can be trained without any abusive methods, in fact beating or reprimanding your dog into submission will probably create a poorer show dog. A dog that is fearful is a dog without confidence, and a dog that carries itself with confidence and knows it's hot stuff is much more likely to win over the judges' hearts!

[dirtydragonthoughts]

Hey, so, uh... What the fuck? Who is a) importing Przewalski's horses into the US and b) selling them at livestock auctions as mules or just surrendering them to rescues?

(For reference, there are about 2500 Przewalski's horses in the world. They are considered one of the last truly wild horses (and may even be a separate subspecies from the domestic horse). Their numbers dwindled to as few as 40 individuals in the 1950s to about 2500 today. About half are in captivity with zoos and conversation programs.)

(Article)

[fjordfolk]

Utilization: By his anatomical peculiarities this dog is predestinated to puffin-hunting on the steep rocks around the fjords and along the shore.

The standard:

Neck: Clean-cut, of medium length, quite strong with a relatively well furnished collar.

Compendium comment:

The head is carried relatively low. The two last vertebrae (atlas/apsis) are shaped so that the dog can bend backwards so that the head touches the back. To do so is vital when turning in the narrow burrows. NB! This should NEVER be demonstrated the ring!

The standard:

Ears: Triangular ears of medium size, broad at the base, carried erect and very mobile. The cartilage of the ear lobe has the faculty of being able to retract itself so that the ear folds itself and flops in a specific manner, either backwards or in right angle upwards, so as to close the auditory passage.

Compendium addition:

The ears of the Lundehund have a unique muscle that enables them to fold and close the ears when entering the burrows, thus protecting them against dirt and moisture. The turning and folding of the ears probably also is help in locating the birds.

The standard:

Forelimbs: Moderately angulated. Forearm: Straight.

Forefeet: Oval shaped, turning slightly outwards, with at least six toes of which five must rest on the ground. Eight pads on each foot. The two inner toes, formed respectively by 3 and 2 phalanges and endowed with a ligamentary and muscular system, make the foot look solid.

Compendium addition:

Very flexible and elastic shoulder muscles. The Lundehund has joints that allow the forelimbs to extend at nearly 90 degrees from the body, but this must NEVER be demonstrated in the ring! The forefeet turn slightly outwards to give room for the extra toes.

The Norwegian Lundehund is a polydactyl. Instead of the normal 4 digits, the Lundehund normally has 6 digits, all fully formed, jointed and muscled, with tendons going up the inside of the leg, partly responsible for its wide front gait. Some specimen may have more, others less than 6 digits per foot, but less than 6 on front feet should lead to downgrading. The extra toes help the dog climbing up and down crevices in screes and cliffs.

The standard:

Hindfeet : Oval shaped, turned slightly outwards, with at least six toes - four of which must rest on the ground. Seven pads on each foot, the one in the middle, the most important one by its size, being attached to the inner pads corresponding to the two inner toes. When the dog is standing up on a flat surface, the weight of the body must be evenly distributed on the pads.

Compendium comment:

More than 6 digits is not a fault. 5 digits are acceptable on the hind feet. The extra toes on the hind feet are normally less developed than those on the forelegs and variations from the ideal, both regarding number and placement, should not be penalized.

The standard:

Gait/Movement: Light and elastic. An external rotary action of the forelegs and somewhat close action behind is characteristic of the breed.

Compendium comment:

In judging the movements of the Lundehund, one must consider that this dog is built to climb efficiently up and down steep cliffs and screes. The extra pads on both fore- and hind paws must then touch the surface to aid the dog in climbing. The extra toes help getting a grip, both in ascent and descent. The wide front with extra flexibility enables climbing safely up and down crevices, as the forelegs can grip at a 90 degrees angle to the body. On flat surfaces, the Lundehund will show typical rotating front movements, due to tendons and muscles from the extra digits on the inside of the legs. Hind movements are narrow.

[fjordfolk]

@grison-in-space

Well not to spoil anything, and the project is still going, but we now have F3s from the buhund and icelandic sheepdog crosses that have passed quality control and reentered the stud book, checking all the boxes. One is a Norwegian and Danish champion. Both have bred on.

The project is still going so F2's are still being born, but in general. The F2s been sort of halfway there in general type, some having more traits than others. The toes were already plentiful, proportions were pretty much there. The general consensus was "more Lundehund than other, but not quite there yet."

Some 25% buhunds, which have had the most litters and progression:

Icie: (in the 1st two its the male)

Unfortunately the Norrbottenspets crosses are lagging behind, with the first F2 litter born in March of this year (a perfect quadruple, with 2 girls and 2 boys).

Last I checked, none of the dogs born in the project have shown signs of intestinal lymphangiectasia and there have been no singletons.

[grison-in-space]

Hey, that's awesome! And broadly speaking, honestly, it's best for the population to do things that way: more outcrosses brought in and introgressed into the gene pool with selection that is perhaps looser and not perfect at first but longer lasting. Gives you more time to get the important stuff, like the lymphangiectasia, introgressed in while also slowly maintaining the important stuff like the extreme flexibility and the toes. It takes time to break up linkage between the stuff you want to keep and the stuff you don't. Keeping more individuals in the gene pool and accepting a somewhat slower rate of selection to get back to where you want to be is absolutely the best way to achieve that.

I'm really excited to hear how well it's going, given that, and I hope they consider coming back to regular, if occasional, infusions of new blood to help replace the beneficial genetic variation that gets lost via drift. Drift is a huge force in small populations, and those little dogs are such a precious oddity; it would be a shame to lose them through either drift or by washing out all their unique traits through too much gene flow at once. It sounds like they're moving at a really good pace so far.

[fjordfolk]

I agree - and I think there are a few things that have served to make this project successful compared to a lot of the ones I see cropping up. One is expertise, they're working with the best animal geneticists you can dig up in this country. The other is that this is a grassroots movement. I don't think there's anyone in the world who knows the breed better or loves the breed more than the people in charge of it, and when they asked their members whether to open the stud book to select F3 dogs in '22 it passed with over 90% in favour. These lines are wanted, and they will be used.

Whenever we talk about lundehunds, I feel compelled to point out that these are not poorly bred dogs. If they were, they'd be gone by now. This is a breed club that's used to being heavily involved, that sends out biennial surveys to owners of 937 dogs and gets 910 responses, that strategically places puppies with interested buyers according to geography and possibly future breeding plans. They're not flawless and they've taken some criticism, but they know a thing or two about playing long games.

[grison-in-space]

Oh yes, you don't maintain those level of deeply unusual traits with such a small population over that long without people who are ride or die for them. I didn't know those numbers, though: those are absolutely phenomenal response rates in any survey population. Usually a 50% response rate is considered stellar; those numbers are just astounding and they are incredible evidence of—as you say!—a deeply invested and committed community.

What a bright future they have, with so many people who love them and want to use the best evidence available to help them succeed. Thank you for all the details; I was looking casually for English speaking updates on the outcross project this afternoon but only found much data on the F1 and the outcross bitches selected for the program. I'm delighted to hear how well things are going; listening to you describing just how effective their community has been in advocating for them made my day.

Out of curiosity, are they considered generally culturally important in Norway? They're a very unique breed, but I don't know much about how Norwegians relate to and conceptualize dogs as part of cultural identity. But that level of community minded intensity is something I associate with people for whom the dogs are an important part of their cultural heritage, like some of the folks I've read about Jindo and Sapsaree in Korea or some of the Inuit writers I've seen talking about qimmiq. (It is not a coincidence that both of these communities have experienced attempted cultural genocide in living memory as a function of attempts to exterminate or extirpate the dogs.) Is that a factor in the intense community built around these dogs, or is it "just" a function of their uniqueness?

[fjordfolk]

For lundehunds I think it's a bit of both. Our historical breeds are seen as part of our cultural heritage and identity, and the initial preservation efforts of a lot of them (buhunds, fjord horses and livestock breeds in particular) coincided with greater movements of national romanticism - Norway was under Danish rule until 1814 and only gained independence from Sweden in 1905. Most of the work around standardization and stud books happened in the latter half of 1800. This movement missed out on the Lundehund, which only really started picking up speed after their near-wipeout from distemper in the 1940s, but I think still says a bit about why we're so protective of our breeds.

But ofc the Lundehund now has become sort of the pinnacle of Norwegian preservation breeding. Everyone knows what a Lundehund is, because they were a cornestone for a very specific way of life, but also because they're objectively fucking bizarre.

[roach-works]

i for sure thought this was just a very well done satire on strange dog breeds until i started scrolling down and realized that no they're actually real AND COOL AS HELL. thank you norway thank you puffin dogs i love you all

[were--ralph]

i wish people talked about watusi more

[were--ralph]

look at how absurd their horns are i love them in every way

[desastreus]

@bovineblogger ?

[bovineblogger]

fun fact their horns are mostly hollow! theyre full of blood vessels, and it helps them cool down ! :3

[dr-otter]

Less fun fact; the air filled horn is essentially a giant sinus, and subject to all the potential misery that entails. A mucus filled giant horn is so heavy it causes a head tilt.

More about Diallo and his Condition - Virginia Zoo

Many questions surrounding Diallo’s condition have been asked in the past couple of days regarding why certain treatment methods were not pe

Here's a photo of the inside of a horn:

[wizardarchetypes]

the pharmacist was explaining to me how to draw up medicine and use syringes and instead of saying I’ve done it before I said, “oh it’s fine, I give seals injections all the time,” and he just stopped and said, “oh. ok.” Didn’t ask me to elaborate. Why did I specify seals. I give lots of wildlife injections. seal blubber just seemed to closest comparison the my human thigh I guess