Animal welfare on steroids

By

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March 6, 2024

Back when we lived in Iowa, our nearest neighbors owned an acreage that they dubbed Last Chance Ranch. And, it wuz an apt name because the owners took as their serious life mission to provide care to injured animals or animals suffering from mistreatment or malnourishment. I’ll note that both their home, and ours, were located at the far west end of a dead-end road.

Among the menagerie that the Last Chance Ranch took in included an assortment of three-legged dogs and cats, a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig that required a hind-quarters cart because its hind legs were paralyzed, a few decrepit, arthritic, crippled up old horses, a bovine or two on the downhill slide, a few flightless birds, and I’m sure a few nondescript critters that I can’t recall.

However, from that assemblage of mournful critters there eventually emerged a story — humorous to me, at least. Here’s what happened:

On many nice evenings the lady at the Last Chance Ranch took the opportunity to exercise her collection of three-legged dogs. It wuz safe because we had very little traffic on our road. Her normal route took her by the end of my driveway and within eye-sight of my garden and chicken-flock pen.

Well, one fine evening, the friendly lady spied me working in my garden and veered down my driveway to see me. Of course, her 3-legged dog pack hobbled down with her, including an eager-beaver tri-pod Beagle.

As I left my garden to converse with her, I noticed that a baby chick from the brood of one of my setting hens had made its way through the fence and couldn’t seem to find its way back inside the pen. Unfortunately for the week-old chick, the rambunctious Beagle hound spied the chick at the same time — and pounced on it, and crunched it to an instantaneous bloody death.

The lady owner yelled in panic at her Beagle and the startled hound dropped the mutilated chick’s carcass at my feet. I picked it up, sighed, and said something like, “Well, that’s what you get when you venture out of your pen.” And, I threw the dead chick far away down in the ravine east of the driveway.

The poor well-intentioned lady was absolutely aghast. She apologized. She sobbed and broke into tears. I told her to forget the whole episode. Stuff happens when you mix chickens and dogs. She sniffled up and offered to pay me. Of course, I declined and said that someday I might accidentally run over one of her dogs and I didn’t want to feel obligated to pay for it.

So, she gathered up her hobbling pack and headed home. However, in about 15 minutes, she returned — with a $20 bill in her hand — and insisted I take the Andrew Jackson as payment for the dead chick.

That sort of triggered my ire a bit and I replied, “Ma’am,” I said. “If you’ll pay me $20 for a dead week-old chick, go home and get ol’ Tri-Pod and come back. At that price, I’ll let the chicks out one at a time for him to kill.”

She went home with the $20 in her pocket. However, our neighborly relationship was cool to aloof from there on.
***
Last week I wrote about some melancholy remembrances of my fun-loving, musical, maternal grandmother Ann. I included some of the lyrics I remembered from the silly, nonsensical songs she sang to me and all her grandkids.

Well, this week I’ll conclude those fond memories by including a couple more sets of Grandma’s silly lyrics. Here’s a set about an animal fair:

“I went to the animal fair.
All the birds and the beasts were there.
The big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.

The monkey, he got drunk.
And fell in the elephant’s trunk
The elephant sneezed and fell to his knees.
And, what e’re became of the monk?”
***
And, here are the lyrics to a silly sing-a-long song that Grandma pounded out on the honky-tonk, ragtime piano. The song is not a creation of hers, but an actual commercial song that I assume was popular sometime in grandma’s childhood. I remember most of the words, but I checked on the internet and there were a few stanzas that I only partially remembered. At, any rate, here are the lyrics to the song, “Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder:”

“Won’t you bring back, won’t you bring back, Mrs. Murphy’s chowder?
It was tuneful, every spoonful made you yodel louder.
After dinner Uncle Ben used to fill his fountain pen
From a bowl of Mrs. Murphy’s chowder.

“There was ice cream, cold cream, benzine, gasoline
Soup beans, string beans, floating all around,
Sponge cake, beef steak, mistake, stomach ache
Cream puffs, ear muffs, many to be found.
Silk hats, door mats, bed slats, Democrats
Cow bells, door bells, beckon you to dine.
Meat balls, fish balls, moth balls, cannon balls
Come on in, the chowder’s fine!

Won’t you bring back, won’t you bring back, Mrs. Murphy’s chowder
It was tuneful, every spoonful made you yodel louder
If they had it where you are, you might find a motor car
In a bowl of Mrs. Murphy’s chowder.”
***
Enuf drivel for one week. The words of wisdom for the end of February in a leap year come from Dinesh Kumar Biran: “February the month of love?!! No wonder it’s the shortest one in the calendar.”
Have a good ‘un.

A lousy system

By

John Marshall

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March 6, 2024

1

Spring will bring us tree pollen, ragweed, and presidential primaries. There are remedies at hand for most seasonal allergies but an antidote for these primaries, the sinusitis of American politics, seems out of reach.

In recent years a lot of labored breathing went into the politics of nominating candidates who wouldn’t necessarily make good presidents. We had nominees who looked good on television, who stood up best during constant jet whirl, mediocre meals and the attacks of media sharks and Internet bleaters.

This election, like the last, will be a test for bladders, ulcers, incipient phlebitis and brain cells. It is not a quality test for the White House.

And it’s a bum way to pick a president.

*

Over half the voters in both major parties don’t care much for their presumed nominees. One is old and shows it, the other is a lunatic. The voters are saddled with Biden and Trump because the Democratic and Republican parties have forfeited control of campaigns. The power behind candidates is now leveraged wholly by cause lobbies. Primaries, once a test for leaders’ ideas and inclinations, are warped by the fat bankrolls and fever dreams of control groups. My way, or get out of the way. The quest for unlocked competition and generous debate is a political non-starter.

We came to this through the reforms of 50 years ago, when the McGovern crowd sought to do good by letting the people pick their own candidates. This was seen as a stout blow for democracy, yanking candidate selection from the party bosses chomping cigars in smoke-filled rooms. The result was a bewildering, interconnected system of state and regional primaries.

The emphasis on Super Tuesdays and super delegates has failed glaringly to produce the best candidates and has become less democratic, not more. (In primaries since 1972 fewer people have gone to the polls, not more, and even in the best years, only a minority bothered to vote. That’s hardly an improvement.)

In earlier days the party regulars who worked the streets, distributed the literature and raised the money had a chance for that trip to Miami or Chicago with the heady experience of being involved in the national game for the biggest stakes. They lost interest in doing all that groundwork only to be shoved aside while part-timers in political life were chosen as delegates. Presidential picking has become too predictable to give anyone satisfaction in party chores.

The workers who provided the backbone of the party system have mostly checked out, the parties mostly a shadow. Today we get candidates of the moment rather than statesmen for an era.

*

The smoke-filled room was how, in presidential campaigns, we had candidates like Willkie, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. (We also had Harding, Coolidge, Hoover. No system is perfect.)

There is little evidence that the reforms pushed through in both parties in the 1970s and ’80s, or the bee swarms of super primaries beginning in the 90s, have helped the republic, the political parties, or the voters.

They have made the presidency an endurance contest. They have produced “position papers” which put voters to sleep. They have brought Madison Avenue techniques and Washington gut-punching to the presidency. They have replaced thoughtful analysis with tweets, and important speeches with Tik Tok moments. The “democracy” of the Internet pushes fraud on the electorate, placing mountebanks and poseurs on an equal plane with credible and thoughtful public servants. (Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert in a league with Liz Cheney and Lisa Murkowski? C’mon.)

The presidential selection process, now the tool of powerful pressure groups, is beyond our reach. A system that reduces our choice to Biden and Trump at this early date is overdue for an overhaul.

Valuable Calves Hard Work

By

Frank Buchman

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March 6, 2024

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Baby calves are the most valuable property in recollection of nearly seven decades in the cattle business.

Prices recorded at auctions today, usually several hundred dollars, far surpass the level of half a century ago.

Heifers that calved in feedlots of yesteryear were a major detriment that managers wanted little to do with.

These newborns were often available by calling the feedlots which were anxious to get rid of them as soon as possible.

Today’s generation calf buyers will hardly believe that feedlots sold those calves for maybe $15 or even less.

While the investment was low, so was the possibility of making money with the calves. Numerous attempts at growing baby feedlot calves failed.

Stress from their birthing, lack of momma and feedlot manager attention, and time delay were immediate setbacks. They typically never got their first milk containing colostrum from their mothers.

So, the generally small, thin, fragile, often shaking babies had to get the artificial colostrum from new owners. The first food was too late in most cases and did not accomplish what it was supposed to do.

Often the little calves would succumb within a few hours of arrival. If they did live with regular feedings of milk replacer from a bottle, longevity was still usually quite short.

There were a limited number that started eating feed and developed into marketable cattle although their background was usually apparent.

Some cattle owners like to develop baby calves, but biggest demand is to put them on cows that have lost calves.

Dairymen have sometimes been a source of baby calves for cows that lose calves and that often works quite well.

Putting a baby sale barn calf on a cow that has lost a calf can be successful but not always.

Ranch personnel care of baby calves is a major task. There are three babies in box stalls with regular bottle feedings.

Two are from cows who had twins but could only care for one baby. The third bottle calf just didn’t get enough milk from its mother.

There’ll probably be cows that will lose their calves and the bottle babies will be fostered onto them. Otherwise, the calves will be grown for marketing.

Reminded of Isaiah 58:10: “Feed the hungry. Then your light will shine out, and the darkness will be bright.”

+++ALLELUIA+++

XVIII–10–3-4-2024

Horse’s Ability To Move Both Directions Fluently Depends On Training

By

Frank Buchman

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March 6, 2024

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“My horse is left-handed. He always turns easier to the left than the right.”

That comment is frequently heard from horseback riders when their mounts go a specific direction, take a lead, or spin one way in preference, or better than the opposite.

Consequently, it is assumed, that not unlike humans, a horse is left-handed, or right-handed, depending on the direction which is easiest to maneuver.

That’s not necessarily the case.

The subject is actually much more complex, according to Julie Goodnight of Goodnight Training Stables, Inc., Poncha Springs, Colorado.

Goodnight is known as The Horse Master on her award-winning RFD-TV show. Her Natural Horsemanship Training techniques are to reviewed at the EquiFest Of Kansas, Saline County Livestock Expo Center and Tony’s Pizza Events Center (TPEC), March 14-17.

In a discussion about horses performing one direction better than another, Goodnight compared horses to people.

“A horse’s brain is similar to a human’s anatomically, although they do not think and process information in the same way,” Goodnight said.

Human traits, such as artistic talent and higher logic abilities, are not qualities of horses. “They simply do not have that intellectual capacity,” Goodnight contended.

Like the human brain, the horse brain is divided into two lobes, the right brain and the left brain.

“Also, like humans, the right brain controls the left side of the body and visa-versa,” Goodnight revealed.

Two hemispheres of the brain are connected with neurological connective tissue which allows messages to be transferred back and forth between the two parts.

“In humans, the connective tissue is highly developed,” Goodnight insisted. However, in horses, it is undeveloped. Hence, the one-side nature of horses.

“Humans think with both sides of our brain all the time,” she continued. “When we talk about someone who is ‘right brained,’ we are saying that person’s right brain is dominant, and since the capacity of creativity is in the right side of the brain, that person has more artistic ability.”

Everybody has the capacity for creativity, but some people seem to have more talent than others. “Remember, these are human traits, not equine,” Goodnight clarified.

A story was related about a horse that appeared to have mathematical abilities.

The horse could paw out the answer to any math problem, even when the owner wasn’t present. After much testing, animal behaviorists were stumped as to how the horse was able to do math.

Finally, someone had the idea to put a visual barrier between the human and the horse, and the horse could no longer solve problems.

“The moral of the story is that the horse had learned to watch the human for reactions that indicated he had the correct answer,” Goodnight explained. “He would begin to paw until he saw the right reaction from the person and then quit. It worked every time, and the horse was a genius, but he did not have mathematical ability.

“This is another example of how horses train humans, but that is a whole different subject,” Goodnight quickly added.

So, horses don’t have the intellectual capabilities for personality traits like in humans.

“Since we cannot interview the horse or test his skills, it is hard to say how the brain affects his personality,” Goodnight continued. “The dominant side does affect how the horse moves and responds to signals from its environment.”

It also affects how the horse learns. “Although horses have little intellectual capacity in terms of logic and problem solving, they do learn quite well,” Goodnight credited. “For better or for worse, horses learn the wrong things just as quickly as the right thing, and it seems like it is far easier to teach them the wrong things.”

Since there is little communication between the hemispheres of the horse’s brain, a horse pretty much thinks with one side of his brain at a time.

“This has many implications for behavior and safety,” Goodnight analyzed. “For learning, this one-sidedness means that we have to train both sides of the horse’s brain, but we should only work on one side of the horse at a time.”

In other words, when training the horse to be mounted, one would work first on the left side, train the skill thoroughly, and then go to the right side of the horse and start again with the training.

“For some horses, the second side will come quickly, but for others, it is like starting all over,” Goodnight recognized. “Being able to switch from side to side fluidly with any skill will only happen once the horse is thoroughly trained on both sides.

“How quickly a horse picks up a new skill on the second side is a good indicator of how balanced, or two-sided the horse may be, and of course is a good sign for performance training,” Goodnight said.

Goodnight’s schedule and other activities planned for EquiFest Of Kansas are available at www.equifestofks.com

Horse’s Ability To Move Both Directions Fluently Depends On Training

By

Frank Buchman

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March 6, 2024

0