#SexualMaturity

[homeofhousechickens]

Genuinely curious- when you cull an animal, how old/big do you wait for them to be? Seeing as fax printer is a chick, would you wait so that he is larger and provides more meat?

He actually isn't going to get much bigger (my birds reach sexualmaturity way faster then most breeds)! Fondue is already at his max size for example. Usually I wait intill the cockerels fill out a bit more and get a bit chunky but sometimes they never do but I still eat them. Bones is bones and bone is good for broth.

[millennialmaneater]

Maturity is NOT a number, it’s a mindset.

Maturity in a sexual relationship is not a matter of age or gender.

I’ve dated guys older, younger, same age. 

All of them were so much different when it came to relationship maturity, sexual maturity, and adventure.

I dated a real fucking babe, 5 years older then me, and he was absolutely one of the most sexually immature people I’ve met.

There is something to be said about men that are just okay with seeing where things go honestly. Like why does this have to be either a fuck every once in a while (when YOU feel like it) or relationship. Can’t we just see if we vibe and if we do then be about it. Like I don’t need a title or anything but if we vibe we can make time for each other.

But if that’s too much to ask for or too much for you to handle then damn I’m sorry but I’ll move on to one of the other 6 billion people on the planet.

[wildhumansociety-blog]

What Would Life be Like as a Parrot?

(A Couple of Amazon Parrots - Photograph by Pablo Rodriguez Merkel)

“You’re a bird brain”. The infamous insult could never be so inaccurate. With the power of research, several scientists have proven birds’ intelligence. Some are even smarter than our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Birds are evolutionarily the oldest animals around. They are descendants of the dinosaurs, and have come a long way. Of course, not all birds are created equal. Though birds in general are pretty smart, scientists agree that corvids (includes crows, ravens, and jays) and parrots are the most intelligent of the bunch. Birds’ brains are also similarly proportioned to primates’, but have more connectivity between the sections of the brain. With new studies and books coming out every year, we are learning more and more about how birds think and why they act the way they do. You just have to wonder, what would life be like as one of these majestic creatures?

Parrots are gregarious birds. Traveling in large flocks, they begin each day at sunrise and come to sleep at dusk. The amazon parrot for example, mates for life, yet still lives in a flock. There are many evolutionary reasons for this behavior; the type of fruits and nuts amazon parrots feed off are found in a scattered fashion, so it would be an advantage to have more sets of eyes to find more food sources. Another plus to living in a flock is having the strength in numbers to protect themselves from predators. With many members, parrots can vocalize a warning before the predator even has a chance to strike. Human society isn’t too different, is it? If it weren’t for any technological advancement, we’d probably be living just like these amazon parrots.

Another similarity in behavior parrots share with humans is courting, mating, and raising young. During the mating seasons, both sexes, but moreso the males, will become very agressive. Though they will fiercely defend nesting sites, they rarely harm each other. I do not believe that humans these days would spare each other physical fights like parrots.

In the beginning of courtship, two parrots will “bow” to each other and spend gradually more and more time together. During resting periods and at night, a parrot couple will preen each other and sleep in close proximity. As mating season approaches, they will scope out a nesting hole and start sleeping outside of it. The male will also start to regurgitate food for his mate, as she will soon be incubating the eggs and will not be able to leave the nest. A feeding is usually followed by copulation. This feeding behavior would be pretty understandable behavior coming from a human couple. While a female is pregnant, she wouldn’t exactly be housebound, but she wouldn’t be able to travel far. Her mate would provide for the family by bringing her food, and by human needs, resources to prepare for their unborn child.

Many tropical birds lay two to three eggs, (another similarity to human breeding habits!). In raising their young, the male parrot will also regurgitate food for the chicks as well as his mate. At first the mother will stay with the chicks, but then she’ll start to leave to forage. After fully fledging, young parrots will begin to integrate into the adult flock. If people parented their kids like parrots, their children would leave their parents at sexualmaturity in search of their own mate. Another interesting fact I’ve found is that scientists were puzzled as to how parrots could tell if another was male or female. It turn out, parrots (and many other birds) can see wavelengths of light that humans cannot. The female and male parrots could tell each other apart because one sex would have a slightly different wavelength to their feathers. Though I don’t think this would be a problem for humans, seeing as how most of our genitalia is external.

Then the circle of life revolves again. I think it’d be great if people lived like parrots. Unlike people, they don’t have political views or time to squabble over things like religion and money. If you think about it, pretty many other animals don’t have the luxury of extra time to think and wonder like humans do. But animals do have the luxury of not having to deal with all the conflicts that come with this extra time. I believe that this is one of many ways that demonstrates how we must stay in balance with nature, so we can learn from it. No matter how many twists and turns our ways of life will change, we must remember where we came from, because that’s exactly where will go back to after life.

~R