pets
grrlscientist | October 31, 2007The little hawk-headed parrot is settling in fairly well. (S)he is rather cautious about me, reminding me, by flying away whenever the opportunity presents itself, that I am not the human that (s)he is familiar with. This will pass soon enough, though.
This bird is is good flesh, but is not yet eating on her (his?) own even though I give her(him?) a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as a seed mix, so I am handfeeding her twice per day; once in the morning and then again in the evening. The food is a powder that I mix with water (five parts water to one part food) and is fed…
grrlscientist | October 30, 2007tags: birds, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, Image of the Day
This is a picture of my new roommate, a young hawk-headed (red-fan) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus. This bird was captive born and raised. This picture was taken last week, so it gives you a good idea of what the bird looks like right now.
Image: Andrea Wiebolt [Larger size].
grrlscientist | October 29, 2007tags: hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus, streaming video
I just added a four-month-old hawk-headed (red-fan) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, to my household. Since I don't have a camera or video camera at my disposal (yet) I decided to share a video with you of another young Hawk-headed parrot, named Scooter, who was approximately five months old in this video. Scooter had just come to his new home four days prior to this video. [1:51]
I am bringing my own Hawk-headed parrot home on the subway from the airport this afternoon. This video appeared at the time when…
grrlscientist | October 26, 2007tags: skinny pigs, guinea pigs, pets, Image of the Day
Image: The Sun. [nearly life-sized]
Bald guinea pigs were originally developed for scientific research purposes in the 1970s, by suddenly, these so called "skinny pigs" are all the rage among pet owners in the UK. Because they lack fur, these animals must have lotion applied to their skin, require a number 50 subscreen in the summer and a tiny guinea-pig sized sweater in the winter. Even though they are relatively thin, they requirre three times more food than regular furry guinea pigs because they burn the extra calories just to stay…
grrlscientist | October 9, 2007
Image: Brent Ward; Sedgwick County Zoo.
Thanks to a friend, who shall remain unnamed, it looks like I will be adding a bird to my flock, a species that I bred for many years before I left Seattle for NYC (a species that I gave up when I moved to pursue a career that seems to have gone nowhere, unless you think of the Coriolis Effect, as it applies to a swirling toilet, as "going somewhere").
To say the least, I have missed my birds so terribly, so deeply, so desperately at times, that this one little guy (girl?) will add a little something to the stillness that my vanished flock of…
grrlscientist | September 1, 2007tags: cancer, smokers, pets
Maybe this will surprise you but, having worked in cancer research for a few years, it isn't surprising to me to learn that secondhand smoke can cause cancer in your pets as well as in people. I mean, this just makes sense, ya know?
However, according to a study study done by the Tufts College of Veterinary Medicine, some of the nuances of this cancer risk might be unexpected. For example, of all pets, cats living with smokers are three times more likely to develop oral cancers (also known as squamous cell carcinoma) because they lick carcinogens from their fur…
grrlscientist | August 22, 2007tags: snails, weird pets, streaming video
Speaking of escargot, these giant African land snails (also known as the Agate Snail or Ghana Tiger Snail) are truly amazing and they weigh up to two pounds (900 grams) -- EACH! They are easy to keep, eating all sorts of vegetables and fruits, and if you get tired of keeping them as pets, you can always eat them for dinner. Oh, and you'll also enjoy the music that accompanies this video [3:03]
Oh, and to give you an idea of the size of these things, take a look at this video [0:30] ..
grrlscientist | June 21, 2007tags: cat, cat chat, streaming video
This sweet kitty, named Tiggy, is quite talkative. In this streaming video, she is looking for her people, using auditory cues. Awww ...
zooillogix | June 20, 2007Firefighters in Pocatello, Idaho, pulled the lifeless bodies of four cats and an albino rat from a blaze and then managed to bring them back back to life through artificial resuscitation. The fire department had purchased tiny oxygen masks for use on small animals two years ago.
Do cats hear "wha-wha-wha-wha-wha" also?The firefighter who rescued the rat, Kirby Jonas, described coming upon the animal's cage. "If I were betting money, I would have put down $10,000 that anything in that cage was dead," he said, according to msnbc.com.
Actual footage of Jonas during the blaze...
Jonas also noted…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2007tags: slow loris, endangered species, conservation, CITES
The Slow Loris, from the genus Nycticebus, is a nocturnal animal endemic to Asia.
This animal's cuteness could very well be its undoing.
Image: Anna Nekaris, Oxford Brookes University, UK.
Aww, isn't this cuddly little creature simply adorable??
Apparently thousands of people from around the world agree with you because the slow loris, a small nocturnal and arboreal animal that is endemic to much of Asia, is experiencing population declines due to habitat destruction and trapping for the pet trade.
They certainly make ideal pets…
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: cat, pets, vacuum, streaming video
Okay, this is truly strange .. have you ever met a housecat that tolerates even being in the same room with a vacuum? Well, this cat not only remains in the same room but she even allows her owner to vacuum her! [1:19].
grrlscientist | May 5, 2007tags: melamine, pet food, contaminated food, chickens
Has melamine entered the American human food stream? That's what the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would like to know. Because no one knows for sure, as of yesterday, approximately 20 million chickens raised for human consumption in several states have been placed on a marketing hold to keep them out of the human food supply, after it was shown that they ate feed that contained melamine-tainted pet food.
This decision came after government officials…
grrlscientist | May 2, 2007tags: tainted pet food, melamine, Food and Drug Administration, FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, politics
In view of the current problems with melamine-tainted pet foods, and the fact that these foods escaped detection by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for so long, a growing number of people are concerned about the safety of human foods as well. Obviously, based on this tainted pet food fiasco, the FDA is ill-equipped to test imported foods for safety and as a result, who is to say that these poisoned pet foods are not a "trial run" for something bigger, something that can cause wholesale…
grrlscientist | April 29, 2007tags: dogs, pets, antidepressant, SSRI, Reconcile, separation anxiety
Did you hear that Eli Lilly, the company that was caught in a big kerfuffle over Zyprexa (Olanzapine), recently released an antidepressant for dogs? The product, called Reconcile (fluoxetine hydrochloride), is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that is prescribed for dogs that suffer separation anxiety. It is prescribed on a dose-to-weight basis for use in conjunction with behavior modification training to help ease anxiety in dogs that become stressed-out when their owners leave them behind to go to work or…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2007
From left: Barney, Michelle and Dylan.
Dylan Hargreaves, four, is autistic and suffers severe learning difficulties. Until recently, he never uttered a single word. But several few months ago, his parents added a three-year-old blue-and-gold macaw to the family. They named him Barney, and suddenly, Dylan began to speak, repeating words that the parrot said.
After being tutored by Barney the parrot, Dylan says "Night, night", "Dad", "Mum", "Ta", "Hello" and "Bye".
"Barney has changed our lives. Before he arrived, Dylan would try to speak, but the sound came out as a noise," said Dylan's…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2007In a remarkable turn of events, it seems that Chinese manufacturers may have intentionally added a lethal chemical to a protein-powder ingredient intended for pet foods, said FDA investigators. Melamine, an ingredient in plastics and fertilizers that could lead to kidney failure in animals and people, contaminated rice protein and wheat gluten included in pet foods made in Canada and the United States. This chemical compound also has been added to corn gluten destined for pet food sold in South Africa, the FDA added.
Stephen Sundlof, chief veterinarian for the Food and Drug Administration,…
grrlscientist | April 10, 2007tags: dog breeds, IGF1, insulin-like growth factor 1, cancer, growth disorders
One gene mutation makes all the difference in body size between a big dog and a little dog.
Image: NY Times.
There are several things that I think are amazing about dogs, Canis familiaris. First, there is a huge discrepancy in body size between different breeds -- greater than for any other mammal, in fact, and second, these vastly different dog breeds still recognize each other as being of the same species. Yet, according to a recently published research paper, this huge differential in the body size of dogs…
grrlscientist | February 24, 2007Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He…
grrlscientist | February 23, 2007She seemed like any other ordinary three-month-old kitten but she wasn't. Finally, her human family noticed there was something different about her. A closer examination of the frisky feline's paws revealed that this kitten had 26 toes -- so they named her "extra".
"We counted and then recounted but we had it right the first time," said Kaelene Gerrard, who lives with her partner Eli Eliu and daughters Mercy, six, and 12-year-old Shardae in New Zealand.
Extra has seven toes on each front paw and six toes on each back paw - instead of the normal five on the front feet and four on the back.…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2006I am posting another silly quiz for you to play with, mostly to remind you that I am here in the background, checking in and thinking about all of you, dear readers, but I am still unable to post very often due to inconsistent computer access (and I am trying to access my blog using an antiquated Dell computer that loves to crash, which is truly a severe punishment). However, I do read and enjoy your comments, so please keep them coming!
Anyway, my quiz results are hardly surprising in the grand scheme but they are below the fold for you to enjoy. Of course I am curious to know your results…