CHICKENS AND SKIN MONKEYS
So scared the chickens were not going to be all right in the bitter cold -- but they're out there eating popcorn for a treat & drinking the freshly-replaced water AM & PM, & still laying. The crows insist on their own big bowl of popcorn too, and swear at me if they don't get it. Whadaya gonna do? Now I'm a bird flunky as well as a cat servant.
I was worried about the poor cold chickens and was trying to figure out how to warm them, when I realized if I did, they'd lose their natural resistance to cold. It's like losing your night purple after using a light in the dark. The best cure for cold for outside animals is lots and lots of good food, so they can lay on lots of fat.
Wild animals all have houses; their own tough skins. WE lived in deserts, lost all our hair, had to wear clothes against the sun. It must explain why nudity is a sin in the middle-eastern religions; it's DANGEROUS to run around naked in equatorial deserts.
The more "purebred" Makah up here run around in sleeveless t-shirts on miserable, cold, rainy days. It's the 70-degree days in summer that make these big guys miserable.
People have asked me, "What about coyotes?" Have you never heard of the miracle of chicken wire? The local Cooper's Hawk skidded to a hover over the cage and we pointed and laughed; you've never seen a hawk drool. This is the same bird that got into a neighbor's cage and ripped the head off a chicken. She'd left a hole the size of a football in the chicken wire.
If we're going to raise farm animals near predators, we have to be aware of these animals' versatility. In a film taken with a camera on the back of birds of prey, we see what the Cooper's largest relative -- the goshawk -- does with small spaces at speed (there's an ad, but it only lasts a few seconds). Makes me wonder if people who have been animating movies about flying on dragons haven't referred to the real thing.
Remember, if a predator gets your domestics, it's your fault. Don't think you can ultimately solve it by killing stuff; everybody doing that has decimated natural animal populations. And if you're raising stuff to sell to eat and taking shortcuts by killing wildlife -- what ELSE won't you take a shortcut with? And why should I buy your stuff?
I was worried about the poor cold chickens and was trying to figure out how to warm them, when I realized if I did, they'd lose their natural resistance to cold. It's like losing your night purple after using a light in the dark. The best cure for cold for outside animals is lots and lots of good food, so they can lay on lots of fat.
Wild animals all have houses; their own tough skins. WE lived in deserts, lost all our hair, had to wear clothes against the sun. It must explain why nudity is a sin in the middle-eastern religions; it's DANGEROUS to run around naked in equatorial deserts.
The more "purebred" Makah up here run around in sleeveless t-shirts on miserable, cold, rainy days. It's the 70-degree days in summer that make these big guys miserable.
People have asked me, "What about coyotes?" Have you never heard of the miracle of chicken wire? The local Cooper's Hawk skidded to a hover over the cage and we pointed and laughed; you've never seen a hawk drool. This is the same bird that got into a neighbor's cage and ripped the head off a chicken. She'd left a hole the size of a football in the chicken wire.
If we're going to raise farm animals near predators, we have to be aware of these animals' versatility. In a film taken with a camera on the back of birds of prey, we see what the Cooper's largest relative -- the goshawk -- does with small spaces at speed (there's an ad, but it only lasts a few seconds). Makes me wonder if people who have been animating movies about flying on dragons haven't referred to the real thing.
Remember, if a predator gets your domestics, it's your fault. Don't think you can ultimately solve it by killing stuff; everybody doing that has decimated natural animal populations. And if you're raising stuff to sell to eat and taking shortcuts by killing wildlife -- what ELSE won't you take a shortcut with? And why should I buy your stuff?
