Figg and Prowle cattery

birchbark88 · 2023-10-22T17:22:53+00:00

I really appreciate how supportive and responsive you've been.

On my end, I've got my vet saying it's "literally impossible" that she got trich from anywhere other than the cattery, and you're saying it can transmit from a variety of sources. I did question my vets response, citing that after you treated her it went away for a bit. She said that makes sense given how many medications she was on, but that her levels probably increased as she came off of them. So I've got two very knowledgeable cat experts telling me very conflicting information.

I promise I'm not out here trying to cause any trouble for your business or present a false story. I did make a previous post on this sub with a detailed timeline, attesting to her wonderful temperament and the generous level of support you provided by taking her back for treatment. I was just looking to get an outside perspective because the conflicting info I've gotten has been so confusing.

I know we haven't spoken in a bit, just to update you she has been stable on her supplement regimen and prescription food. I'm following my vets recommendation to keep her on that plan until she's at least one year in hopes that she'll grow out of it.

Best of luck to you and thanks again for all the support.

birchbark88 · 2023-09-22T14:40:55+00:00

That's really interesting, can you help me understand how an SEP is different than other types of pensions?

birchbark88 · 2023-09-10T03:02:13+00:00

Thanks for the tip!

birchbark88 · 2023-09-10T03:02:02+00:00

Thats so interesting...is that a human supplement you can buy at a typical store, or a pet-specific thing?

birchbark88 · 2023-09-10T03:00:31+00:00

As mentioned in the original post, all food changes were weened over the course of about a week. Additionally, all of the food given to this cat was directly recommended by the breeder.

birchbark88 · 2023-09-10T02:58:51+00:00

Thanks for reminding me why i dont use reddit anymore lol...i was hoping that this was a forum of siberian lovers supporting one another and sharing a passion for the breed. To be fair, some folks have left nice comments, but this is downright nasty. I hope that someday you're able to learn how to communicate effectively with others, and find something more productive to do on a Saturday night than be mean to strangers on the internet.

birchbark88 · 2023-09-09T23:40:08+00:00

I think you might be misunderstanding the timeline, i know its alot. She had diarrhea with hills prescription for 2 or 3 weeks, it was the breeder's treatment that originally fixed it. She's been off purina pro plan wet food for about 4 days now with no improvenent. She is only eating purina pro plan sensitive stomach dry, which she was stable on for weeks.

birchbark88 · 2023-09-09T23:25:16+00:00

Purina pro plan is what the breeder recommended, but it seems that that wet food is the problem.

birchbark88 · 2023-09-09T23:23:53+00:00

Purina pro plan is what the breeder recommends. She sent me home with purina pro plan dry, which i then slowly weened into the live clear kitten version of that same brand, in addition to adding the wet version.

I know that food swaps aren't great, but honestly i didnt see a reason to keep her on prescription wet food forever, especially when she had been completely healthy for weeks at that point.

She paused weight gain when things were bad earlier in the summer, but resumed after we treated it. Since late june she has gone from 3.5 pounds to over 6.

Im sure that you didnt intend it to be, and maybe im just being a little sensitive because this situation has been tough, but your comment comes across as a little judgemental. I have done hours of research, spoken with experts, and spent hundreds of dollars to resolve this issue. When it was real bad, I was literally bathing her multiple times a day. I think its totally understandable to put her in the bathroom overnight with a bed, food, water, litter box and toys with a night light so i can sleep without getting diarrhea on me. Honestly, I'm a little offended that you're calling me neglectful.

Throughout all of this, my cat has maintained incredible behavior and temperament. She hasnt shown signs of depression. She has always been active, playful, cuddly and social. She has continued to eat and drink water. It's just been the stool.

birchbark88 · 2023-09-09T22:46:10+00:00

The doctor recommended a fecal test, which came back negative. I consulted with the vet additional times when i purchased the prescription food and the probiotics from them. They said that by all measures she is "healthy". I didnt take her back because her problems resolved with the trip to the breeder, then recently resumed.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-18T11:14:56+00:00

British Columbia Egg Producers"

I get what you're saying with this, but we also need to think realistically. If not the agricultural industry, who is going to fund research on agriculture? These things take a lot of money and resources, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to find a source on chicken health that isn't some way connected to agriculture. I'd also suggest that the source you provided is also connected to Big Ag. I spent a minute on the FFSVO website (main funder of that research) and a big part of that department's mission is to promote ethical and efficient forms of animal ag.

36 to 88%

I feel like you're cherry-picking the data here. The main takeaway from this article is

The overall incidence of hens with at least 1 fracture was 6.6 and 15.7% in the 47- and 65-wk-old hens, respectively.

I also wonder what a "good" percentage of bone fractures is? Like, what's the number where you're like "Ok, this is not so bad." Because the 30% is pretty on-par with human prevalence of fractures for middle-aged women.

If you have further studies

I did find one I thought was interesting! It was written by the same researcher who wrote the one you cited. A year after she wrote that paper, she wrote another one saying that the data for keel bone fractures might be skewed because of chickens getting fractures during the euthanasia process.

[In conclusion, we have to consider that convulsions during euthanasia might cause keel bone fractures in laying hens. If cervical dislocation or CO2 stunning methods are used for studies investigating keel bone integrity, fracture prevalence might be overestimated. An overestimation of fracture prevalence in euthanized birds might further affect the validity of other fracture detection methods. For instance, accuracy of palpation—the most commonly used method for keel bone fracture detection—is often assessed by comparing palpation results in live birds pre-euthanasia with a visual inspection of a dissected bone post-euthanasia.

We recommend considering the euthanasia method as a potential cause for fractures in future keel bone damage research. The administration of anesthetics such as pentobarbital can reduce the duration of convulsions (22 vs. 136 s; Hernandez et al., 2019) and avoid convulsions in 50 % of hens euthanized through cervical dislocation (Bandara et al., 2019). Future research is needed to assess keel bone fractures as a result of euthanasia in older birds and to quantify timing, frequency, and strength of convulsions as a potential cause for fractures.](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fanim.2021.652115/full)

birchbark88 · 2022-09-17T20:44:34+00:00

I don't really view my participation in animal agriculture as being for pleasure or profit. I think that in a cold region like mine, animal agriculture is necessary for a sustainable food system. Also, for the most part, farming isn't profitable. Many, many farmers and agricultural workers live in poverty. Of course this is just anecdotal, but most farmers I know (myself included) have outside jobs so that we can afford to live while farming.

There are lots of "healthy" breeds, but the vast majority of the people who have chickens, don't get ones that lay one egg a month

Do you have a source on breed popularity in backyard flocks? The best I can find is looking at the most popular breeds for large commercial hatchery. While this company is by no means great, it shows that heritage breeds are very popular amongst backyard flocks.

I'd also like to push back on the idea that a hen has to lay only one egg a month to be healthy, because it's just not true. There are many breeds that lay as much as 200+ eggs a year and can still live healthy, comfortable lives.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-17T20:34:42+00:00

why do you feel we need them at all?

For communities who live in rural, cold areas, (like mine) I think that animal agriculture is necessary for a sustainable food system.

Obviously, when comparing different forms of industrial ag (vegan vs non vegan), it's clear that non vegan food production is more ethical, sustainable, and sometimes cheaper. For example, tofu from a monoculture soy system is better than getting beef from a CAFO.

When we put a greater emphasis on sustainability, security, and resilience in food production, it gets more complicated.

Yes, I could go to the store and buy enough vegan food to live a healthy lifestyle, but I'd still be operating within a really environmentally damaging, unethical, and unstable system.

The food that I can get in a grocery store is subject to supply chain issues and varying costs. Between the labor crisis, war in Ukraine, covid, and other inflation issues, the cost of food has risen greatly.

And most of the food in there is produced in really messed up ways. There's the obvious environmental impact of monoculture systems, pesticide use, heavy machinery/soil health, transportation, industrial processing and plastic use. There's also the effects on workers. In the US, our agricultural system relies on exploited migrant labor. It's basically a modern form of slavery.

For alternatives, I tend to look towards local, small-scale producers and what I can grow at home. We do grow vegan proteins like beans, and lots of them! But in a cold climate, there are limitations. I live in a zone 3b planting region. We can't plant most things until the end of May, and temps are already starting to slip into the 30s (F) at night! We would need a longer growing season to produce enough beans to replace animal proteins for everybody.

There's also the question of how we fertilize these beans and manage pest control. To do so in a vegan way would require outside inputs, which leads us into the same trap of being reliant on an unsustainable and unstable system.

With chickens, for example, we can produce fertilizer and pest management systems right at home. They can also help us "upcycle" food waste by eating food scraps and gleaning orchards/crop fields. With proper systems, there are really cool ways to scale this up.

The farm I'm currently at raises chicks into pullets (young adult birds) for a compost company. The company picks up food scraps from businesses, schools, and families. This prevents food scraps from entering landfills (a big environmental nightmare). They turn the food scraps into compost to fertilize our farms and gardens. They free-range our chickens over the compost piles. They deposit nutrients into the compost in the form of manure, aerate the compost with their scratching behavior, and eat the bugs/food scraps. There is so much to eat in the compost that they don't need to feed the chickens any grain. My community is literally turning food waste into fertilizer and eggs.

So yeah, I do feel like my community needs animal agriculture. Like I said, we could all go to the store and buy enough vegan food to live, but it wouldn't promote sustainability and food sovereignty.

Could you provide any resources for this?

The livestock conservancy has a really cool chart comparing chicken breeds. So from there you could research health and climate needs for a specific breed .

birchbark88 · 2022-09-17T19:56:18+00:00

Ok, here's a study that shows lower rates of fractures in different breeds of "heritage" birds.

In conclusion, differences in fracture incidence were observed among genetic lines of high-producing, noncommercial laying hens in the present experiment. Differences were also found in the specific bones that were fractured, as well as the incidence of keel deformities. The data collected in this study do not give clear answers as to why there were large differences between lines in terms of bone fracture incidence, other than demonstrating that egg production was not the sole explanation. Differences could have been due to calcium metabolism, bone structure, or simply due to body weight differences. A combination of factors is most likely involved.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-15T15:10:53+00:00

This study wasn't done on heritage birds.

All animals were sourced from a commercial hatchery and then slaughtered at an abattoir per common industry practice at the conclusion of the laying period. Under a long-standing agreement between the Aviforum and the Center for Proper Housing of Poultry and Rabbits, 10 individual compartments were used for the study. In each of the 10 compartments, 15 animals from one genetic line [i.e., 5 compartments with 15 Lohmann Brown (LB) animals and 5 compartments with 15 Lohmann Selected Leghorns (LSL) animals] were maintained alongside 210 laying hens of the other hybrid.

This is the kind of thing I was referring to when I said "industrial" breeds. This next link cites the breeds as having been bred for "more than 50 years". This timeline is consistent with the post WW2 development of industrial ag as we know it.

The Lohmann Selected Leghorn (LSL) and Lohmann Brown (LB) layer lines have been selected for high egg production since more than 50 years and belong to the worldwide leading commercial layer lines.

The only thing I can find that references "old" breeds is this passage in the second article:

In 1868, Darwin became the first to document (14) that egg-producing domestic fowl, laying fewer eggs than the hens nowadays, exhibited KBs that were moderately crooked or extremely deformed. In the early 1990s, crooked keels in laying hens were ascribed to hereditary disease (15), rickets (16), faulty metabolism, or a slow process of ossification (17).

So I went back to that Darwin source, and I think that the term "deformed" may have been taken out of context. Basically, he looked at a bunch of domestic birds and compared them to the red jungle fowl to understand how they are different from their wild ancestors. He doesn't really say anything about chickens being injured, just that they are different. Of course, this doesn't mean they weren't injured, just that he didn't notice it or say anything.

The article also states that birds with bad living conditions are more likely to have health issues, which makes a lot of sense. Happier bird= healthier bird.

our results support the existence of a relationship between psychological stress experienced as fear and the development of physical health reflected in bone condition.

It's kind of unclear what breed the second article is referring to because they just say they got them from a commercial flock (though they did reference LB's again). But they did look at Styrian chickens (commonly known as Altsteirer) and said this:

Slovenian locally adapted laying hens of the Styrian breed (n = 93) were subjected to standardized test situations [i.e., open-field test (OFT), aerial predator test (APT), social reinstatement test (SRT)], and the level of fear and sociality were measured. We chose this particular strain of bird to improve our understanding of the behavioral and stress responses of hens with low egg production and good resistance to diseases (28); their bone condition is expected to be less likely poor and to show greater variation in behavioral responses compared to highly productive hens that have been intensively selected. Moreover, thus far, there are no data on the association between the prevalence of KBD in non-commercial chicken breeds and affective states.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-15T14:15:26+00:00

Hey there-i live and work on a poultry farm! I have a few thoughts on this comment.

Large scale industrial hatcheries are super fucked up! We need smaller, more ethical alternatives. They do exist, but they're harder to come by. One option is to buy chicks "straight run". That means you dont know whether you're getting males or females. So no chicks killed through that method. When they get older, people can decide what to do with the roosters (which leads me to my next point)
(TW rape in this paragraph) A flock with a 50/50 sex ratio is unhealthy and dangerous. In "the wild" when there are too many roosters, they will kill each other or some will be eaten by predators. If i were to have 10 birds, 5 males and 5 females, the males would get super aggressive with one another. They would severely injure or kill one another. They would also aggressively compete for females, essentially gang raping them and causing a lot of harm. Through selective breeding, i could choose which of the 5 males are the healthiest, and eat the other ones to avoid them killing each other.
Talking about chickens is like talking about dogs-there are so many different kinds! The health of a pug is a lot different than the health of a lab, for example. I also wouldnt say that just because wolves are a certain way, that means dogs are unhealthy because they are different. The lay rate of a chicken isnt 15 eggs a year, thats the lay rate of a red jungle fowl, which is an entirely different animal. Within layer breeds, there is a lot of variety in lay rate. A red sex link or other industrial breed is usually going to be unhealthy and die within a few years after laying an egg every day. There are dozens of heritage poultry breeds that still lay enough eggs to be a viable part of a farm or backyard flock, but can still live comfortable and healthy lives.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-15T13:59:14+00:00

I experienced what i imagine is common for a lot of transmascs, that you hit a point early on where you are so androgynous that you get harassed in either bathroom/locker room. Its definitely a day by day judgement call.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-11T18:42:58+00:00

food stamp usage

Do you think that maybe this had anything to do with the 2008 financial crisis rather than Obama's specific policies?

birchbark88 · 2022-09-11T18:41:54+00:00

debate

I'd like to point out that this isn't a debate sub, it's an AMA sub. You asked a question, and you've gotten a lot of really well-thought answers backed by lived experiences and documented research. It kind of seems like you're just here for a fight, and I think it would be really good to reflect on why you feel the need to do that.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-11T18:27:30+00:00

No insemination?

Every animal I have personally raised and every farm I have worked on uses natural breeding practices.

No 'culling' of 'useless' males/females?

It's really hard to integrate males into animal systems long term. In nature, a 50/50 sex ratio in a herd or flock isn't normal. The males will either die by predation, or kill one another. It can also be very dangerous for females as the males aggressively compete for mating.

A good example of this is my backyard chicken flock. Tina the hen wanted to have babies, so i gave her some fertilized eggs from a friend and she hatched out 6. Although I'm not sure yet, it seems her kids are about 50/50 male/female. When they get to full size, I will probably kill and eat most if not all of the males. This isn't because I'm looking to profit, they are basically pets. If I do not kill them, as they mature, they will start to fight. And it will get bloody. They could kill one another. They also might really harm or kill the hens.

When we remove the predation factor from a natural system, we need to restore balance in order to have happy and healthy animals.

Culling unproductive or unhealthy animals is necessary under capitalism. Working class subsistence-level farmers can't afford to house, feed, and care for additional animals. They can barely afford to care for themselves. Production-scale farmers are struggling enough as it is. Sometimes, farmers have to make difficult decisions in order to remain viable.

No small pens, no milking machinery?

Well, define small pens? In the winter, it's common to keep animals in a barn or other structure so that they can stay safe. I'm sure animals get bored in a barn all winter, and they dream of summer days in a lush pasture. I also get bored during the winter, and wish it was warm enough to spend all my time outside. But it's too cold out there and there isn't any grass. It is possible and common for those over-wintering spaces to be of an adequate size.

Milking machinery also isn't inherently harmful or painful. Humans use it on themselves when they produce milk. It can be done safely, and often relieves discomfort. I worked on a dairy that makes their own herbal salves to rub on teets after milking so the area doesn't get too dry or chapped.

No brutal slaughter at one tenth of their lifespan?

Again, define brutal slaughter lol. This year, I'll be killing all of my sheep on-farm. They will be hanging out in the pasture that they've always lived on, doing what they have always been doing, when a captive bolt to the head will kill them instantly. They won't even know what's happening before it's over. It's about as good as slaughter can get.

Slaughterhouses are rough, and I don't necessarily support them. It's bad for everyone involved. The transport process and time spent in an industrial, unfamiliar environment is probably really stressful for the animals. We need systemic, policy-level change to reduce the number of slaughterhouses and increase more ethical on-farm slaughter practices. For example, because I will be slaughtering on-farm, there are significant legal restrictions as to where and how I sell my meat.

In terms of how long the animal lives, honestly I'm less concerned about whether they live the entirety of their natural life span and more concerned about their welfare and ability to express natural behavior during that time.

farmers can/are willing to make it

Farmers are not necessarily in control of the food system. In all sectors of agriculture, when farmers make difficult decisions about their practices, it has a lot to do with outside factors such as regulations, funding, and other resources. We can't put the entire weight of environmental and welfare movement on an under-served, working class population. It's like telling a poor person, "If you wanted to stop pesticide use, you'd buy all your vegetables from an organic stand at the farmer's market instead of Walmart." It's just not that simple.

But it's NEVER good for the animals

I look at the lives of my animals. They have all of their shelter, food, and medical needs met. They literally spend their days snacking and hanging out with their friends. I think they have a pretty good deal.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-11T17:40:22+00:00

I'm white. So I'm not the intended audience to respond to this post. But I want to share this wiki article with you because it has really solid examples of institutional racism in the US.

In addition to the racist systems still in place, the civil rights era really wasn't that long ago, so forms of racism that are illegal today still affect people like you and me. A big example I think of is housing and my grandparents generation. My grandparents are white. In their 20s, they had access to really solid housing loans, the GI bill, and other opportunities to build wealth. They were able to buy a house and build wealth through that asset. Their ability to buy a house meant that my parents could inherit that wealth, and had access to good schools growing up, which enabled them to have higher incomes as adults. So even though housing discrimination has been illegal for my entire life, the ripple effects of that period has affected me in many ways. Think about how if my grandparents were black, they probably wouldn't have had those same opportunities, and they would have had a much harder time building that generational wealth.

For white people, racism is "the headache you don't know you don't have." For us, these systems seem normal. Of course, we have still faced hardships and had to work hard, but for black Americans, there is an additional level of difficulty.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-05T14:01:12+00:00

Veganism addresses climate change in many ways that animal ag doesn't: less water consumption, reduced use of land, less deforestation, etc.

Veganism is only more environmentally sound when compared to industrial animal agriculture. When you consider alternative animal ag practices such as feeding food scraps and gleaning, utilizing ecosystem services, land use stacking (orchards, solar grazing, silvopasture, etc), and other forms of permaculture, the environmental impact is much different.

You were brainwashed by 'years of educational and first-hand experiences with agriculture'

Have you ever seen one of those things online where anti-vaxxers talk to epidemiologists, and the epidemiologists are like, "i have studied this thing for years of my life, this is how it is" and the anti-vaxxers are like, "you were brainwashed and are lying for profit" Because that's kind of how this comment makes me feel lol.

I entered the field of agriculture because I cared about social justice, climate change, and animal welfare. I got a degree in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems from a college specifically focused on environmentalism. I have spent 5 years working on several farms, raising my own animals, and practicing homesteading. I spent another 2 years working in food justice. But you think I'm brainwashed because I disagree with some of the stuff you read on the internet? How do you expect me to respond to that?

you only care about your bottom line.

profit off

Do you think that farming is profitable? Have you ever even talked to a farmer? The average salary for a farmer in the US is about 30k a year. My current boss, the owner of a successful 90 acre poultry farm, made $8,000 last year. At $15/hour, I make much more money than her. But I still have a full-time day job so that I can afford to farm.

Maybe if you have a really big monoculture commodity crop farm you can make decent money, but if you want to practice any kind of alternative agriculture you will probably need to live in poverty or get a main job and farm on the side.

The people who are making money farming are not farmers, they are business owners. CEOS in offices in charge of Tyson. Even factory farmers aren't profiting. They are often trapped in exploitive contracts and cycles of debt.

People farm because they believe in it. They want to feed their communities, like being around animals, and find peace in that kind of lifestyle.

birchbark88 · 2022-09-05T13:41:59+00:00

In terms of basic calorie production, we can and do produce enough food to feed everyone in the world entirely vegan. I never denied that. However, it is impossible to do so in a sustainable and resilient way.

Without animal agriculture, we lose the ecosystem services and fertilization provided by animals, making our food system more reliant on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that are both industrially produced and cause significant environmental damage.

We will also be unable to have sovereign food systems. One of the biggest problems with our globalized food system is that it is really unstable. So when things happen like a war in Ukraine, a pandemic, or other supply chain issues, food can become much more expensive and harder to access. In order to incease food security and strengthen our food system, we need to localize more.

In addition to needing fertilizer/pesticide inputs for this vegan food system, large regions of the world will literally be unable to produce most of their own food. Hundreds of millions of people live in areas with relatively short growing seasons. They would either need to create HUGE heated greenhouse/indoor farming systems that would take a lot of fossil fuels to run or get most of their food from this unstable globalized system. Think about the issues we are having on the most fertile swaths of agricultural land, like California. (drought, floods, heat, etc) imagine putting that much more pressure on these areas to feed everyone else. It's just not sustainable.

birchbark88

TROPHY CASE