tinyhousetaxidermy

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

How do you feel about Americans?

Americans have one of the highest obesity rates in the world, yet they hold the most Olympic medals. They have a horrible education system, yet eclipse the rest of the world in scientific research. The country is filled with clueless philistines, yet their culture permeates every society, in some way, across the planet. The country is still less than three centuries old, but has spent most of it at war. They are universally hated or feared by nearly every other country on the planet, yet the first to offer help during a disaster. Their people are stubborn and never content with the way things are, and for better or worse, all of them imagine how things could be better. Every American is a bankrupt billionaire, a prince in exile, a grounded astronaut, a disgraced scientist. There are the people who do not settle for who they are, but for what they may become.

The country has her problems. Certainly their government has a lot of blood on its hands. But there is something charming about the people I can’t quite place. Even the delusional leftists or the out of touch neocons. There is a certain magic about the place that you don’t find elsewhere. There are bad parts and bad people, to be sure, but there are just as many good parts and good people. It is a land of extremes. But even the poor aren’t really that poor. Much better to be a homeless American living on the beach than literally freezing to death at a metro station in Moscow.

Sure, Yanks say some stupid things. Sometimes they do stupid things like arm terrorist groups they later go to war with. But sometimes they also say profound things. Sometimes they do profound things like planting their flag, in person, on the moon. I can’t stay mad at them and I can’t help but love them.

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

The look on her face when she realizes

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

Hi vets! Can you please give me a veterinary perspective on "factory farms" [and if they deserve the negative reputation they get]?

vet-and-wild here.

Yes and no. I mean, everyone may have different opinions but here’s mine as a former farm laborer and Animal Science grad. Sorry this will be long, I have a whole lot of thoughts on this. “Factory farm” is honestly kind of a scary buzzword people use to describe any large farm, but a lot of times it’s just used as a blanket term for large scale farming rather than being owned by a company. The overwhelming majority of US farms are still family owned. Some of the really big farms have the newest technology to decrease their environmental impact and increase animal welfare (i.e. methane digesters, robotic milkers, etc) and end up being more efficient per pound of product produced. Some small farms have a handful of messy, stinky cows that only get seen by a vet when they’re already super sick. I’ve seen both. I’ve also seen small hobby farms where animals are treated like royalty and large scale farms that are messy and inefficient. BUT, doing anything large scale tends to lead to welfare issues (for both humans and animals) and sustainability issues. The state of animal agriculture in this country is a hot mess. Farmers have to produce massive quantities of cheap product to make a living. The problem isn’t that farmers are some evil animal haters that want to poison the planet, it’s that they literally can’t make a living without mass scale production. That needs to change. It’s bad for the farmers, their animals, and the environment. So go after legislators and corporations that allow this to happen, not poor farm laborers.

Animal welfare, particularly for production animals, was a huge part of my degree focus so that’s the area I’m most familiar with. There are obviously a whole bunch of other comments that can be made about environmental impact and human welfare conditions, but I’ll let someone who knows more than me talk about it. As part of my degree, veterinary training, animal welfare studies, and job experience, I’ve been on a lot of farms. Swine, poultry, dairy, beef, meat goat, dairy goat, meat sheep, dairy sheep, mink (fur), and camelid. I’ve been to organic, backyard, research, feedlots, tie-stall, free-stall, large scale, petting zoos, heritage breed, and every kind of imaginable in between privately owned farm. Even vegan farm animal sanctuaries. I’ve been in meat processing plants and have seen first hand what the processes is. So I’ve seen a lot. And you know what? They all have pros and cons. Back when I was in undergrad we were using the Five Freedoms of animal welfare to assess animals. The Five Freedoms are freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from fear and distress, freedom to express natural behaviors, freedom from pain/injury/disease, and freedom from discomfort. Farms of any scale can meet those requirements, or fail horribly. Personally, I think confinement housing fails horribly, and that’s a practice generally associated with large scale farming. There are actual benefits (i.e. less inter-animal aggression, tailored nutrition, easier monitoring), but you very much take away freedom to express natural behavior and I would argue freedom from discomfort as well. And you know what? I try to be objective, but my personal feelings are that an animal should have enough room to turn around and not stand in their own waste. I don’t think that should be controversial. Animal agriculture is (for the most part) failing horribly with enrichment and ability to express natural behaviors, and that happens to be very important to me as an animal owner so I know I project that onto agriculture. Some species industries are better than others (i.e. dairy), while some are so far behind (i.e. poultry and swine). I’m not vegan or vegetarian. I don’t have a problem with eating meat, but I think the system needs drastic improvements.

People honestly tend to focus on issues that are not really big issues because showing videos of an animal not being knocked insensible before slaughter is much more gut wrenching than a pig without enrichment. But you know what? There are multiple behavioral and welfare issues with pigs not being provided adequate stimulation, including increased tail chewing (which is why pigs are tail docked), aggression, and stereotypic behaviors. Whereas the rate of successful 1st time stunning in processing plants is actually extremely high, and needs to be to pass inspections. PETA shows a video of dead piglets and it makes people outraged, but the issue isn’t animal abuse, it’s poor biosecurity that caused an outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus that has a near 100% mortality rate for young pigs. That is a real example. People should be upset. They should be upset that biosecurity protocols weren’t followed. But again, a video of a transport truck not being properly sanitized doesn’t really make for a good animal rights video. Public pressure is of course important for change, but people need to actually take the time to learn about what’s really an issue. Y’all can debate whether or not eating meat is ethical, but that’s not the question here, and it ignores the bigger picture. The fact is, there are animals alive right now and that will be born in the future that are harmed by a shitty system. Personally I’d rather focus on relevant welfare issues to improve their lives rather than comparing factory farming to genocide or whatever scare tactics animal rights groups are using nowadays.

Ferox here.

Following on from that note, comparing animla agriculture to genocide is a particular oet hate of mine. Genocide aims to kill and therefore eliminate a specific group of people, which animal agriculture has caused the populations of domestic animals to boom in far greater numbers than their wild counterparts. The goals are literally opposite.

As vet-and-wild was saying, using a blanket term like ‘factory farm’ isn’t super helpful when discussing animal welfare as it’s specific practices within each enterprise that need to be considered, eg dry sow stalls, debeaking, etc. Generally it’s animal density which concerns me, as the more animals you pack in together the more stress behaviours you see and the less natural behaviours, and chickens and pigs get the worst of this. But it’s hard to make a choice as a consumer purchasing food as you can’t backtrack that food from the supermarket to its origin easily so I can see why the discussion is often boiled down to ‘factory farm vs free range’ even if it’s really more nuanced than that.

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

TW: animal cruelty

Meat industry:

Ranchers:

Not to mention they’re, you know, raising animals for profit in a system that values their carcasses over their lives.

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

supporting zoos does not support animals

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

Roe deer but make him floppy

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

Just some things from my camera roll :)

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

CLADISTICS ruined my life

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

TW: animal cruelty

Meat industry:

Ranchers:

Not to mention they’re, you know, raising animals for profit in a system that values their carcasses over their lives.

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

i don't really understand why you would be pro-zoo. like i understand nature reserves and sanctuaries where people can observe from afar, but it doesn't seem right to me when they're locked up in generally small confined areas for people to watch them do nothing all day. idk maybe i'm getting this wrong, and i still really respect you, i just don't understand this. like i interned at a zoo and felt uncomfortable with how small their living areas were and how they had no stimulation

Zoos don’t look like this anymore.

They look like this:

Good zoos do not keep their animals in “tiny spaces” with no enrichment.  I’m not pro-roadside zoo.  I’m pro-accredited zoo.  Zoos are incredibly important for conservation and education.

Are Zoos Necessary?

The Importance of Zoos: Resource Post

Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter: Assessing the Impact of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium

Why I Want to be a Keeper

Why I Believe in Zoos

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

My fellow ‘sparce fans are saying it’s the day to draw Dunsparce in hats. Kaiju loves his sun hat! ovvo

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

Oh they would have had to. Because if they had accidentally brought in a kid who had grown up around livestock I can almost imagine them being too stunned to do anything before the deed was done.

I saw an ARA video where they asked kids if they wanted a chicken sandwich, and then instead gave them the 'ingredients' including a live chicken and a knife. It would have backfired hilariously if they'd gotten a farm kid on there who had been raised butchering his own meat.

They probably purposefully got city kids for that lol

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

Ferret sees snow for the first time

(via)

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

I’m not dead yet!

Just made a huge update on Etsy to try selling some Inktober originals. I also got several high quality matte prints for “Conjoined (Ravenstag)” and “Wendigo”.

Any proceeds are going towards investing more inventory for my shop. Giclee prints are expensive to order! Let me know if there’s a particular illustration you would like a print of too. Trying to gauge demand before I dive deep into ordering.

Etsy @RampaigeArt

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

PLEASE DO NOT THINK FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT YOUR VOICE WILL NOT HAVE AN IMPACT THIS IS LITERALLY THE BARE MINIMUM

I'm sorry for putting this in the BLM and stop Asian hate tag but in the last few days posts tagged with "Palestine" have not been showing up.

[tinyhousetaxidermy]

I think the law that says ferrets can’t hunt is more based on the fact that people thought to make a law applying to them and didn’t think of making one applying to mink. There’s also the simple fact of locality. Mink are native to the US. Ferrets decent from the European Polecat, which IS used for hunting in Europe. But, one problem that can happen is loosing your ferret just because it decides not to come out. People don’t want there to be a breeding population of invasive mustelids. Meanwhile by using mink, if one gets away it more just joins the population of already wild mink. Doesn’t mean it’ll definitely survive, but we’ve seen with housecats how quick a species we think of as completely domestic can have a huge impact on wildlife

Do you watch Joseph Carter the Mink Man on youtube?

I’m subbed to him! Pretty cool stuff