drferox:

Anonymous said to @ask-drferox: Hey so I feed my cat a mostly raw diet because she’s a bengal
and the breeder said it was better for her because she’s still quite
close to being ‘wild’. I havent really found any information disproving
it but after you post about raw diets I started thinking. Was I
misinformed? She does quite well on her current diet so I didn’t
question it before…

Don’t feel obliged to change the diet if it’s doing well and not contrary to your vet’s advice, but do be aware of the risks that come with raw feeding, particularly with bacterial contamination and toxoplasma.

Bengals in Australia are relatively low content so they have their quirks but they’re still cats.

I’m a bit skeptical that bengal cats are all that different from housecats in terms of diet needs. If the diet is working, I don’t see any reason to change it, but I’m pretty sure a bengal will eat the same things as other cats. 

pulldogs:

I had my safety glasses pushed up on my head today and I went to put them back over my eyes but I forgot I had a hammer in my hand and bonked myself on the head

unsafety glasses

profeminist:

“BREAKING- Good news for anyone who wants to enroll in ACA coverage but hasn’t yet.

You can call 1-800-318-2596 any time before December 15 & your place will be held in line. You will get a call back after 12/15 and can still enroll!

And lots of coverage is zero or low premium.”

– Andy Slavitt, former head of Medicare/caid

IF YOU ARE IN THE U.S. AND DON’T SIGN UP FOR A HEALTHCARE PLAN BY THE 15TH / TOMORROW, YOU WON’T BE ELIGIBLE TO SIGN UP FOR ANOTHER YEAR.

Call 1-800-318-2596 any time before December 15 & your place will be held in line. You will get a call back after 12/15 and can still enroll!!!

SHARE / SIGNAL BOOST TO STOP THE 1% FROM KILLING OFF CITIZENS BY DENYING THEM HEALTHCARE FOR 365 DAYS. THEY CHANGED THE DATE AND DIDN’T ADVERTISE THE DEADLINE.

drferox:

drferox:

I would most definitely take a job at Jurassic Park, IF I got to make recommendations that would be actually listened to and wouldn’t be fired for swearing. The job of a veterinarian should not be to do what you are told by your employer, it should be to solve problems and advocate for the welfare of the animals in your care.

• The Tyranosaus get’s enrichment, the sauropods get enrichment, the stegosaurs get enrichment, everybody gets enrichment.

• Misuse of the clicker in clicker training will result in the device being inserted somewhere uncomfortable.
• We are not feeding Jurassic carnivores meat from mammals which they are likely ill-suited to digest and metabolize. We know aquarium fish, which are not adapted to eating mammals, develop cardiac and fat distribution problems if their protein is supplemented with beef so let’s aim for a slightly more ‘natural’ diet of bird and reptile proteins (crocodile, anyone?)
• Like, seriously, let’s not train a prehistoric reptile, brought back to the modern world with no parents to teach it about food, to see mammals as a source of food. It shouldn’t have any innate instincts to do so, so lets leave well enough alone.
• In fact, let’s not give them live prey at all. I think not training the dinosaurs to hunt is probably a good idea.
• Lets get somebody who knows what they’re doing to design enclosures so we can see the animals, and give them enough space to not go stir crazy.
• While we’re at it, the enclosures for larger animals can have more safety features – bolt holes for humans that the biggest critters can’t fit through,  honestly we even have these in livestock handling facilities, it’s not that hard!
• We are not going to introduce DNA from modern species which are potentially parthenogenic
• So, so much quarantine.
• Some modern reptiles would need to be kept in order to seed the local environment with suitable microflora and microfauna for the dinosaurs to pick up. You might have cloned a dinosaur, but I’d bet dollars for donuts you didn’t clone it’s intestinal flora!
• Quarantine again. Nothing is getting off the island, and ideally nothing from visitors is contacting anything in the exhibit.
• Ian Malcom has to walk around being opinionated about everything, and suitably paranoid.
• The roof of every building gets an evacuation point for a helicopter.
• The stegosaurs get extra treats.

(Image reads: #there would be fewer catastrophes #and boring movies #but I’m here for this)

Oh no no, we could have the best movie ever.

We just need a really good, enthusiastic, Steve Irwin type character who just thinks these dinosaurs are wonderful, let him do whatever he wants, and make Ian Malcom follow him around.

Steve: This is a T Rex.

Steve: She’s a beauty.

Steve: I’m going to wrestle her.

Ian: I, uh, must politely protest.

Another suggestion: fewer fences. Instead, dig very large pits, quarry-sized or so, for especially large or strong dinos. Lower them in with a crane or lead them down a temporary ramp, and they can’t get out. Dig little (reinforced) caves into the walls as human boltholes. They can’t break down the fence if the fence is the entire world!

And play with the assorted raptors via an oversized version of those fishing-pole-style cat toys.

phoenixyfriend:

If I ask if a food is spicy at all, and you reply “No, not at all! You can barely feel it!” then that is a contradiction. It is spicy. It may not be very spicy, or even moderately spicy, but it’s still spicy. Please just tell me that straight-out.

I know there’s a good chance you’re mocking me in your head when I say that I cannot handle spices at all, and that even the mildest of sauces, that you insist are barely there, are going to hurt, because I’m mocking me too. I know I’ve got a child’s palate when it comes to spicy food. I know it’s almost laughable, how badly I react to even table pepper in more than the most minuscule of doses.

But if I ask “is this spicy,” and you answer “not at all,” and then proceed to tell me that it’s mild, then I will still consider it too spicy.

If I ask “is this spicy at all” and you say “no” while knowing that it is, just a tiny bit, because you can’t imagine anyone reacting, then please don’t be offended when I take one bite and then throw it out, because I asked for a reason.

It’s a dumb thing to talk about, but… yeah. Just do your cannot-handle-spices friends a favor and be honest when they ask. Mild is still a level of spice.

(This goes doubly for strangers, because if they have a digestive problem like, IDK, ulcers or something, then spicy food can irritate the stomach lining further and cause extreme pain. Some people claim that capsaicin can be used to treat ulcers, but you know… just play it safe, yeah?)

Let people be babies about spices! It doesn’t hurt you any. 

lmaonade:

lmaonade:

i’ve got disease disorder 

they give me ,  medicine pills 

glumshoe:

isityellowtho:

glumshoe:

What’s the best way to do major water changes in an aquarium? I have two 5 gallon buckets and a siphon for my 10 gallon tank, and while moving the water isn’t a problem, I don’t know how to get that amount of new water up to temperature in a timely manner. ‘Buy a second tank just for water and put a heater in it’ seems impractical but might be the best bet.

You should only change the water 25-30% never major unless you suspect something in the tank or your ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/PH levels are off. One Bucket is enough for that. To maintain temperature try and keep the water no higher than 76F and no lower than 72F for a betta, they can survive in higher and lower but it’s not recommended

I don’t have a betta. My tank is only plants now. I’m doing several major water changes over the next few weeks in the hopes that whatever parasite or bacteria that might have killed him does not remain in the water column and infect future inhabitants (probably just shrimp, I think).

My main concern is how to heat the water. I hesitate to use warm water straight from the tap because hot water heaters can introduce minerals and metals that I don’t necessarily want in my tank, but heating it manually even for small water changes has been a pain in the ass. I’ve boiled a little and mixed it, and I’ve filled a gallon with dechlorinated water and then let it sit in warm water until it comes to temperature, but if I do that for more than 2 or 3 gallons it’s going to take hours to do a water change.

Actually, bettas should never go below 78 degrees. Most tropical fish shouldn’t. Some people keep bettas at more like 80 degrees. 

The vast majority of parasites that infect fish don’t infect shrimp, they’re too different. Also, they’ll all die out if you just let the tank sit for long enough without fish in it, they need hosts to survive. 

A big bucket with a heater stuck in it should do the trick. Plants will definitely tolerate a pretty big temp swing all right, though.

bara-paladin:

In 2019 we grow from sex positivity to sex responsibility, meaning we:

• call out shitty people who are just abusers and using kink/polyamory to mask it and stop supporting them
• recognize that sometimes hypersexuality can be a form a self-harm for some people
• keep kinks and fetishes in appropriate spaces and not bringing them out into general public spaces and thereby involving people in scenes they aren’t consenting to 
• understand that some fetishes are inherently unhealthy and some illegal to actually engage in for good reason and ignoring that is irresponsible at best