Sheeeeepppp

Anyways, what I’m getting at is that if you’re buying organic, ethically and locally grown produce from the farmer’s market… you still rely on products from animal farming.

Only vaguely related but this reminded me. I had a small garden back in Indiana. One yr I fertilized with some compost and a couple soil amendments. The next yr I only used HUGE quantities of aged sheep manure. That time around it was nearly twice as productive. If you garden and don’t have access to like, obscene amounts of compost, you should really consider the various animal product options

In basically any other ecosystem, nutrients would be returned to the soil by animal poop and decaying bodies, as well as leaf litter and woody matter being broken down. If you remove all the leaf litter and wild animals from your farm ecosystem, you have to add those nutrient sources back in! Vegetative matter from compost and cover crop is all well and good, but it doesn’t have the nutrient availability of animal byproducts. Because… once again… that is the natural role of animals in the nutrient cycle….

It’s also worth noting here that farms tend to need a much higher volume of animal-derived nutrients added in than your average ecosystem would, because harvesting food from them removes a massive amount of nutrients from their natural cycle. In effect, all humans eating the produce of a farm are part of the animal load of the farm ecosystem, but none of us are giving our nutrients back to it!

Livestock manure is a great option, and so are by-products of the meat processing industry (like the feather meal, bone meal, and blood meal mentioned above). Those are all things that can be brought in and used on a farm whether or not the farm actually has livestock.

Farms that have both livestock and produce (or pasture) also have some neat direct options! There’s been some super interesting research recently on intensive grazing - rather than having a big old area of pasture and letting grazing animals wander and disperse, you pen them in a relatively small part of the pasture at a time, so they all eat and poop in that area, intensively stimulating the growth of the forage plants. (Grass and other foraging- adapted plants respond to being physically tugged on by grazing animals with increased growth!) Then you move the pen on to the next area of the pasture. I know this is an increasingly popular strategy with cows, but not a great idea with goats - they eat plants all the way to the ground, while cows just eat the tops off. I’m not sure where sheep fall on that scale. But I recently visited a vegetable farm where the farmer has a small herd of cows *just* so he can rotate them through his fields and improve the soil with them! He plants a cover-crop mix that’s good for cows to eat, then moves them through it over the winter, before planting vegetables in spring.

Any farm that isn’t using animal-derived fertilizer is using synthetic fertilizer, which is ecologically worse in pretty much every way. It requires higher energy inputs to produce and distribute, it does *not* reclaim farm waste into usable fertilizer (which livestock does), it comes in a concentrated chemical form that can be dangerous to the humans who handle it during production and application, and its chemical purity and solubility with water means a large percent of it is washed out of soil by rain, causing massive nutrient pollution issues. In manure, or animal byproduct meal, the nutrients are bound up in a matrix of large organic molecules which helps them integrate into the soil without washing away.

Listen, you need to stop sending me all these pet death stories. I know you’re doing it because even now there’s this need for a sympathetic ear, and believe me I read them all and I do sympathize, but I am flooded, even with anonymous asks turned off. I can’t post and respond to them all. I euthanised three pets in the last 24 hours, and returning to dozens of more pet death stories takes a toll.

But tweets and posts like those above clearly cause a lot of hurt, fresh grief and fear, with pain reaching far beyond those that simply share them for some kind of shock factor, as those reduced to tears retreat into whatever dark space they find themselves in.

I can’t argue against a viral post at every place it appears, but if you know somebody is hurting I offer you my response instead, even if it’s only to copy-paste a reply if your own words are failing you.

We can take away the pain of our pets, and in doing so shoulder that pain ourselves. There is no need to make that pain worse for each other with attention grabbing over-exaggerations. Even if these posts were not meant to harm, they do.

Caption reads:

Yes, I think euthanasia is a tool that should be used to minimize your pet’s suffering and give them a quieter, less painful death. Yes, I think this should be done instead of going home for a drawn out “natural” death with no comfort management.

Excited cows enjoy their new brushes 

@agro-carnist

@the-crowing-king 

@iheartvmt 

@vetisntdead 

@sebbysheepie 

@magicfireflame

v*gans are in the notes, screeching about how “farmers want to fool people into believing they care about animals with annoying babytalk” and saying that if animals werent selectively bred and tightly confined, surgical modifications like these wouldnt be necessary.

I call bullshit on both claims, and sheep and dairy bulls arent even “tightly confined” yet their natural features like horns and long, fluffy tails will end up hurting them without surgical intervention of some kind.

She’s by herself and her babies. You can see this is a large pen as the others are in another. She has plenty of room. Shelter and ability to go away from her brood but something set her off, piglets being too loud. Too rough on the teats, one got hurt and she smelled blood.. that’s enough for her to eat them. This is why we have crates for the mothers. This happens less after about 3 plus weeks. Still can happen. But not as bad. Same as laying on them. That’s a big issue.

Here’s a sheep with flystrike. Please.. explain to me how having even more room then massive fields would prevent this? The flies go “whoa. No guys. We can’t lay our eggs there. They have too much room”. Sheep are animals. They don’t think “I could wash my wool now and then to prevent dirt and grime from my defacating on it and being trapped under a long tail to keep a hot moist condition that’s perfect for flys to lay eggs!”

This is part of animal welfare. We know what’s going to happen. We remove the tail to avoid this so it’s never an issue.

Ever get a gallbladder removed because the doctor said “yea I’ve seen this before, it’s starting to cause some issues so let’s take it out before it cause serious infection or even death”. I don’t think the doc ever would say “have you tried getting a bigger house? That might make the gallbladder work better”

This Is why those without animals or have nothing to do with them shouldn’t be giving advice. These animals have been bred carefully. See dairy cows. And people still scream “it’s cruel!” Because we have less cows giving more milk, living longer and being healthier then ever before.

I mean seriously. We used to raise sheep for wool but now peta says wool is cruel so people moved to plastic.. hence the sheep are now food. You’d think people would go “wait. Wool good. Keeps sheep alive and is natural!” Over “wool bad! Plastics good.

Regarding PETA’s claim that Artificial Insemination is rape and unethical/unnatural (as described here: https://mic.com/articles/158513/appalling-new-peta-ad-compares-rape-victims-to-animals?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social#.UDAm0skEY) 

There is a lot of rape in the animal kingdom - ducks and dolphins are kinda notorious for it. Penguins have been observed doing it, chimps, and bedbugs practice “traumatic insemination” which….well I’d advise not image searching that. Nature -is- like that. It is wrong to apply human ethical standards to natural animal behavior. Yes it’s sort of disturbing that frogs will accidentally drown females when they restrain the females during mating. Yes it’s very disturbing that there exists a fish whose entire life cycle involves swimming up a sea cucumber’s anus to eat its gonads. Bulls will try to mate with unwilling cows. Sometimes the cow puts up with it, sometimes she doesn’t. It’s the same with most livestock - roosters can be especially persistent in that way. But we cannot apply human ethics to animal behavior. And it is wrong of us to apply it in such a way that it harms the animal (see the issues with vegan cat food).

Regarding AI and rape, remember that the cows basically don’t know what AI is. To them it is basically another medical procedure - their response might be to step away from the AI tech a bit, but that would also occur during normal vet procedures like checking where the cow is in her estrous cycle (which is done via palpation of the ovaries through the rectal wall, and can be more awkward for the person doing it than for the cow, or at least it was when I had to do it in repro lab). If anything, because AI techs are well-trained and held to high standards for humane handling and performance (remember, stressed cows don’t get pregnant easily), it’s very humane. Unfortunately, for any animal, it’s not like the vet can explain what procedure is going on and why, even if it is needed. So just because the cow is moving away from the AI tech does not necessarily mean she is in undue distress and that the procedure is inhumane, any more than your dog shying away from a vaccine would.

Secondly, AI allows us to perform lots of rapid genetic selection. Because you can inseminate more cows per bull ejaculate using AI than natural cover (in AI, one ejaculate can be split into multiple straws of semen that can be used in AI, any of which could successfully impregnate a cow) you can spread the genes of a successful bull far wider than if you used natural cover, meaning your rate of genetic progress is faster. Many of the gains in the US dairy herd are due to AI and its impact on better genetic selection - compared to 1950, the US is producing 3x as much milk with half the number of cows! (source: Midwest Dairy Association) That’s a major improvement for sustainability as well, since environmental impacts decrease as milk production per cow increases. But this wouldn’t be possible without the increased genetic selection rate AI allows - better genetics can be spread further and help more herds per year.

It’s also a cost savings for farmers - the producer with the cows doesn’t have to pay for the year-round upkeep of a bull who is only useful during the breeding season. Bulls are also a labor hazard to keep around because of their aggression and large size. Natural cover doesn’t always go well for the bull, either. Sometimes the cow decides she doesn’t want to be around that bull at all, and the male can suffer damage ranging from testicular torsion to broken penises, and sometimes the bull needs to be euthanized as a result. It’s incredibly rare, and can happen even when the farmer does everything to prevent it (like putting experienced bulls in with first-time heifers or vice versa), but it is a risk of any sort of natural cover situation. AI is much less potentially traumatic for both cow and bull.

Pigs are traditionally a way to convert farm waste and forest forage (grubs, mushrooms, nuts) into fat and protein, with pigs hardy enough to stand up to the forest's threats

Cows turn grassland forage into protein-rich milk, meat, and leather. Cows are sturdy enough to be turned loose to live freely outside of direct supervision for long periods in secured territory and then rounded up, so can be raised with little labor on large amounts of poor land. Can move long distances under own power, can be raised in remote areas and sold fresh in high-demand population centers. Dairy herds, by contrast, were kept right outside population centers. Quick-spoiling milk can be processed into cooking lipid butter and stable, transportable, marketable protein source cheese. Can be used as traction-generating and load-bearing beasts.

Sheep are similar to cows at smaller scale and requiring closer attention, process grassland into mutton, milk, and wool, once most important textile in world before cotton.

Horses convert grassland to service as traction-generating and load-bearing beasts. Intelligently trainable, nimblest animals practical to tide.

Donkeys convert grassland to service as traction-generating and load-bearing beasts. Size and output/consumption ratio makes more practical than horses for many applications, but intensely annoying.

Mules - we bred a donkey with a horse to make it less annoying.

Deer, Antelopes, Turkeys, Ducks, Pheasants, etc. - game animals. Sustain their own life cycle from undeveloped land, are hunted in regulated fashion to sustain stock.

Bees - plant-fertilizing function radically increases productivity of fields, yields rich, high-sugar, indefinitely stable honey

Doves - we used to fuckin' farm doves, we'd have big-ass birdhouses out in the fields. Not sure what that was about.

I’ve seen more casual dog lovers (because that’s my animal circle of people) seem to think that it is okay that these people are so extreme and money laded and fighting for animal rights because they help get rid of “abusive” industries and like dog fighting has been illegal in this country since 1976 so a long time, but these ARAs continue to equate other aspects of ownership to that level of abuse and that is WRONG.

They are going after Greyhound Racing which has in the US seen a lot of reform (I know in other countries it is not so great) and we have seen the fruit of their big dollars in Florida…

But regardless if you agree with banning dog racing or not. They will go after lure coursing next, they will go after dog sledding next (they already are). After those “Racing” sports have died due to their monetary contributions they will go after Weight Pull, Herding Work (abusive towards the sheep AND the dogs to them). When those have died they can go after flyball, disc dog, agility. When those have died do they go after obedience? Canine Good Citizen, dog training classes? When those have died what do you have left? Go after dog ownership, go in for the final kill.

And they are already going after basic ownership with laws and legislation with their money behind it that doesn’t allow dogs outside for 30 minutes or more in certain hot or cold temperatures. To them, 30 minutes outside, even if your dog has an appropriate breed trait that allows them to be in warm or cold weather, even if you put that dog in a warm coat and boots, or a cooling vest, is cruel. It sometimes takes my dogs longer than that to decided where they want to poop. It takes longer than that to give them appropriate exercise. 

@furious-heart-collector​

These are myths. I’m going to link you to a really great post that a tumblr user with retired racing hounds posted here awhile back. Not only it is a nice summary of the industry in the United States, but they also list a number of excellent resources you can look into yourself. 

Please see that post HERE

I also wanted to address what you feel is a big issue for yourself with greyhound racing. That racing in the way greyhounds are raced makes them cat and small dog aggressive and unable to be social with other dogs and that this is a product of “abuse”. These are NOT true in the slightest. Greyhounds are sighthounds and part of being a sighthound is being stimulated by the movement of small animals. It is literally what they were bred for before this industry here ever existed in the first place, they’ve been bred to chase small animals for thousands of years. 

Prey drive is in the baseline genetics of greyhounds much like it is in the baseline genetics of MY dogs. Neither has been abused, it is simply DNA. Greyhounds and other breeds with prey drive will have drive on a spectrum. Some may be good with cats and small animals, some may not be, it is individual. 

Greyhounds are good with other dogs, in racing kennels they live with large groups and are well socialized to being in a pack. You may see them wearing muzzles in some cases, but this is because they have thin skin and even friendly play can cause injuries. A muzzle helps prevent this. Greyhounds are also used to living with dogs that have similar play styles as they do. Experiencing the play styles of other breeds may take adjustment or they may not like it! That’s fine though and it is not abuse. Many dogs don’t like the way my Malamutes play and I don’t expect them to be bouncy and friendly with all dogs. It is simply not their personality and my dogs are spoiled.

Leopard geckos, corn snakes?  On their radar.  Well-bred dogs?  Let’s legislate their breeders out of existence.  These people believe so strongly that we shouldn’t ride horses, drink milk, or have pet fish in the home that they are spending millions to make that happen.  They have the lobbyists in every state house and at the federal level.  You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’ve seen action on some level against all of these things I mentioned.  It’s getting worse.

If we don’t want to happen, we have to act.  We have to educate.  We have to take up the burden just a little, when we can.  We have to tell others what they can do.  It all adds up.  

When I moved from Pennsylvania to Maryland, I had to give up some of my snakes. Despite knowledge that my snakes could not actually harm anyone, despite my willingness to obtain a permit or do some sort of containment inspection, the law simply was that all venomous snakes were not allowed within that county. That includes my rearfang venomous, incredibly weak venomed western hognoses and their lack of willingness to bite in defense (because rearfanged snakes don’t work that way). To that law, they were as dangerous as me keeping a cobra, and they were broad-brushed into that ban all the same.

There were a number of stupid laws in Maryland but the biggest animal-related one was BSL. No pit bulls or pit bull type dogs. Do you know what everyone had instead? Mastiffs. Protection breeds. Livestock guardians. Sorry but if you thought a 40-60lb pit bull was dangerous in the hands of someone who didn’t know what they were doing, you certainly don’t want to see the fallout of that same person with a 150lb mastiff. The amount of times I saw someone get literally drug across the floor by their giant breed dog trying to attack another dog or human is unreal. The amount of clueless people with dogos, corsos, boerboels, bullmastiffs, presas with absolutely zero control over their badly bred dogs that genuinely wanted to attack everything in sight. They were only popular because those same people couldn’t get a “pit bull”. Where does the breed banning end? If the pit bulls are dangerous, then aren’t these giant breed dogs? If the giant breed dogs are banned, next it’ll be the protection breeds. When those are banned, will it be all large breed dogs? I’ve seen some labs and goldens gone bad too. Do you legislate all breeds over 30lbs out of existence to try and protect people from a problem you created?

Then I moved up here to the New England area. Rescues trying to legislate breeders out of existence, and then be allowed to breed dogs themselves. Bills banning dogs from being outside- even supervised. Bills banning leash walking and crates. My roommate was threatened by AC for leaving his fluffy, pajama’d dog in a car piled high with fluffy blankets and beds on a cold day he didn’t even wear a sweater for, they said they had the legal right to take his dog away for that and arrest him for cruelty and neglect.

The study concludes that grain doesn’t have a huge affect on nutrition (but that some grains may have nutritional value) and it has all the boutique folk saying “see?? Seee? It was a witch hunt! Not feeding grain is fine!” But like...those of us that have been well read and involved in the different nutritional studies into DCM have concluded it is not grains themselves, but what replaces them for a LONG time (legumes mostly which the new study does conclude causes nutritional deficiencies in excess). And guess what? Those grain free foods are in a huge majority still chock full of grain replacements that the study concludes are not nutritionally good for dogs. Like at. All.

This has ALWAYS been a formulation issue and the foremost nurtrition experts fighting against poorly formulated boutique foods have ALWAYS said this. There are simply not enough studies into legumes or even food trials done on legumes in a professional capacity for nutritionists to recommend a diet based in legumes. I’m sorry but that’s facts.

Nutritionists dealing with DCM and spearheading the movement to recommend WSAVA foods will still reccoemnd raw (if formulated by a veterinary nutritionist) and grain free diets (if they come from a company ACTUALLY doing research into their formulations before they release them).

If anything this study further cements, for me at least, that this is a formulation issue and it is more important now than ever to have your diet either formulated by a nutritionist or to feed your dog a food from a company that has its diets formulated by an ON STAFF veterinary nutritionist and one that is food trialed.

Food companies should:

Have their diets formulated by an on staff veterinary nutritionist

Do feeding trials on their formulations

Publish peer reviewed research on dog nutrition

Be science based

And it should not be controversial to say so. If you’re claiming victory that you can now go back to your grain free favorites I urge to to think clearly and know that we have known that grains or no grains isn’t an issue for a while. There are other things in your foods that affect your dogs. Trust your vetrinarian. And ask why your favorite grain free companies AREN’T doing feeding trials, AREN’T having their foods formulated by a nutritionist (or a team in the case of WSAVA compliant foods). Why AREN’T they publishing peer reviewed research? Why not? Why would they not put money towards towards your dog’s nutrition and back it with science and professionals?

Money is why.

Trust science. Read studies comprehensively and critically.

Study in question: https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/98/6/skaa155/5857674

Service doggo walks on glass floor for the first time 

the Dutch kennel club has now banned the registration of new brachycephalic breed puppies including the British bulldog, Pug, Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Boston terrier, French bulldog, Pekingese, Japanese chin, shih tzu, griffon Bruxellois, griffon Belge, petit brabancon and Affenpinscher.

Some annoying comments from the British Bulldog Breeding Association in there about how cross-breeding to improve conformation doesn’t work because they lose their “sweet personality” which is the biggest load of hogwash I’ve ever read.