Pawprints & pipedreams

08/08/2024

The Reptile Academy is offering a specialist residential training course which will teach you how to care for a huge range of reptiles to the highest standards during an exciting and engaging stay.

Open to all animal management or science students aged 16-24 🐢🐍🦎🦖🐊

04/06/2024

Not all foods are created equally, the same way all pets have different needs.

You CANNOT judge a pet food by its ingredient list alone and anyone who tells you they can, does not know enough about nutrition for you to listen to their advice.

A pet food ingredient list tells you nothing about;

🐶 The formulation of that diet - is it suitable for your pet, their lifestyle and nutritional needs?

🐱The digestibility of the diet - how much of the nutrition in the food is actually digested by your pet and used by their body

🐶 The skill of the person who made the recipe - do they know what they are doing? Do they know how to balance meals for the health of your pet and how the ingredients work with each other and with the body? What are their qualifications?

🐱 The quality control and batch testing the company does - how are they ensuring their diets are safe and actually contain the nutrition they claim?

🐶 The research behind the diet - this is particularly relevant for therapeutic diets designed to treat and support medical conditions like kidney failure, IBD or allergies

All of these things are far more important for your pet's health and nutrition than a simple list on the back of the bag.

So how can you tell if a food is any good? It isn't actually that easy!

Sometimes the answers to these questions are on the bag but not often, sometimes they are on the companies website and sometimes they are nowhere to be seen - which always makes me highly suspicious and unlikely to want to feed the meals to my pets or recommend them to my clients.

I could go on about this for hours but the fact remains - you cannot judge how 'good' or 'bad' a pet food by it's ingredient list, no matter how bougie or how budget it seems!

If you are interested in finding out more about this subject, I can recommend;

https://nutritionrvn.com/2020/12/19/investigating-ingredients/

https://wsava.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Frequently-Asked-Questions-and-Myths.pdf

https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2016/06/why-you-shouldnt-judge-a-pet-food-by-its-ingredient-list/

https://www.petmd.com/dog/nutrition/pet-food-ingredient-and-label-guide

03/06/2024

Gross that this even got published

30/05/2024

Job opportunity!

27/05/2024

From June 10th 2024, all cats must be microchipped (just as dogs are!) under England microchipping laws.

23/05/2024

This is a huge benefit to animal welfare and I hope that Pets at Home follow suit, and those hideous Perspex displays disappear from stores soon!

🏆 Pet Retailer of the year 2019/2021
👪 Family owned
🥩 Natural treats and raw food specialists

20/05/2024

Asian hornets are decimating honey bee populations. They are an invasive species and any signs of them should be reported.
At the moment, we are only finding them in and around Kent but like all flying insects, they have the ability to spread

18/05/2024

😁

09/05/2024

01/05/2024

Job opportunities with animals :)

Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital is seeking an Outside Team Leader & Animal Care Assistant. This is a part-time, permanent position working 8am to 5pm, Thursday – Saturday (with Friday and Saturday working in the Outside Team Leader capacity and Thursday working as an Animal Care Assistant).

The closing date for this vacancy is Monday 13th May 2024 at midnight.

For more information on the role and how to apply please visit our website at: www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/vacancies

26/04/2024

Oh no!

Why is this idea not as fabulous as it appears? Because under animal health legislation, it could be ILLEGAL 😱

Remember, livestock animals must not have access to ANY food that contains, could contain or could have been contaminated by meat or other animal products. They are not allowed access to kitchen or catering waste, and cannot have access to animal feed that may contain restricted proteins.

If you are concerned that any livestock animal, ‘pet’ or otherwise is being fed anything other than regulated, manufactured, species specific feed, then please let the local council or DEFRA know so they can check in.

Only through education and regulation can we ensure that animal and public health are protected 👏

20/04/2024

19/04/2024

We love Devon 👏

Providing the cover you need for Farmers (arable & livestock) Smallholders, equine and house pets

17/04/2024

Animal jobs available in Suffolk 🙂

Suffolk.ac.uk

11/04/2024

Muzzle train your doggos to keep everyone safe, happy and stress free 🥰

Dangerous behaviour with their mouths is more than just biting! 👇

This could include; eating dangerous items, hard mouthing or grabbing or pulling at stitches when a cone isn’t appropriate.

Assuming that any dog is wearing a muzzle because they may bite is a sweeping generalisation! 🙅‍♀️

That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with dogs that have a bite history - any dog can bite under the right set of circumstances!

Share if you think more people need to know this! 🙂

26/03/2024

Heartbreakingly, brachycephalic breeds can have a significantly shorter lifespan than other breeds, with French bulldogs having a life expectancy of just four and a half years 😢

These breeds have been selectively bred for exaggerated features over the years and as a result, many dogs cannot function like normal, happy, healthy animals and their lifespan can sadly be cut short.

Say no to extreme breeding and yes to health and wellbeing: https://bit.ly/3V5cb1G

14/03/2024

❤️

Just a note about our prices….

Recently we have had a few comments about our prices and whether we can offer services cheaper or even for free. As much as we appreciate everyone is struggling at the moment, we work very hard to keep this self-funded farm running and we can’t pay our bills on good will. So just to break it down to show you what the costings look like at our end:

Take our goat yoga sessions for example. We charge £20 per ticket for an hour of goat yoga based in a local village hall.

We provide 20 spaces which means the total from the tickets would be £400. Our website takes 2% of each booking. The payment providers (stripe/paypal) also take around 2% of each booking. So we are down roughly £16 just to take the bookings.
We then hire the hall at the cost of £37.50 and pay our instructor (no qualms here because she is fab!) for £50.
So if my maths is correct our costs are already up to £103.50.

We then have to pay 2 members of staff for roughly 2.5 hours each on the night, as well as an additional hour at least of admin work to organise the event. So for arguments sake let’s say the staffing costs £100 for the number of hours required.

We also provide some mats, bring along cleaning products and have to drive to and from the event on the evening. So if we allocate £20 for miscellaneous costs that takes our total to £223.50 leaving us just £176.50 to go back into the farm.

Our vet bills for this year so far are over £2,500 and our feed bill is roughly £1,200 per half term (every 6-7 weeks)

There’s also the “hidden costs” that no one considers. Our website subscription is £120 a year, the trailer and vehicle we use need insuring, taxing and an MOT/service once a year, even down to the towels we bring along need washing and our washing machines only last about 12 months.

This is not a post to complain, we work hard to make sure this farm and all its provision will be available for years to come and we are truly very passionate about it. But please, before you argue over prices, remember what it takes to keep this here and what will happen if we can no longer make it financially viable.

09/03/2024

👏

08/03/2024

WHEN YOU PUT YOUR DOG ON DISPLAY

Apparently, the folks who put dogs on display at dog shows are a little unclear that their dogs are on display (hence the word "dog show") and can be photographed by others at these shows, and that those photographs are then the property of the people who took the photos, not of the dog's owner.

What this means is that if you breed and show dogs that look like miserable wrecks, don't be too shocked if photos of them appear on the Internet as examples of morphological dysfunction.

Now, I consider it bad form to single out the owners of these dogs by name, and I generally do not name the dog itself, as it's always best to focus on principles rather than personalities. That said, when a dog wins at a show, the animal's name and the owner's name are trotted out all over, so if a dog is a monument to dysfunction, perhaps it should also work the other way around? I can see the point, though I myself chose not to observe it.

The dog here, of course, is a Dogue de Bordeaux with pinched nostrils (I do not think the term "stenotic nares" does much to illuminate the issue with the public) who will be in some form of respiratory distress almost every moment of its life. Other breeds that frequently have the same problem include the English Bulldog, the Boston Terrier, and the Pug, to name just three.

What's it feel like to be this dog? Basically, every moment of your life would feel like you were being "water boarded" or nearly suffocated.

But don't take my word for it; go ahead and pinch your own nostrils almost shut, and then try to breathe like that for just 10 minutes on the watch.

How's that working for you?

Yet the Kennel Clubs have whistled past the graveyard with this problem for decade after decade.

And no, the term "graveyard" is not a metaphor. The average Dogue de Bordeaux is dead at just 5 and half years of age.

Let's be clear that intentionally breeding dogs like this is institutionalized animal abuse.

No wonder the Kennel Club is now terrified of cameras at dog shows, and no wonder that owners of dogs like this don't want to be identified.

Who wants to me associated with keeping dogs in permanent misery?

Who wants to be associated with breeding defective dogs that will require expensive surgery to not be in permanent misery?

Of course, the solution is simple: Stop breeding dogs like this, and start disqualifying dogs that look like this from participating in shows.

Dogs shows, after all, are supposed to be improving dogs.

It's hard to see how anyone can say that is actually being done when breed after breed is selected for such obvious defects as smashed in faces, wrecked backs, dysfunctional coats, dwarfism, excess skin, coat colors associated with eye and ear dysfunction, and even baldness, to say nothing of the requirement that these dogs then be in**ed within laughably small closed gene pools in order to preserve the painful and misery-causing mutations and dysfunctions.

Breeding better dogs?

Better for WHAT?

Not for health, which is afforded ZERO points.

Not for temperament, which is afforded ZERO points.

Not for work, which is afforded ZERO points.

If dog owners and the Kennel Club are proud of these creations, then they should not fear the camera, OR the veterinary evidence.

The fact that they are NOT proud, however, tells you quite a lot -- it shows a certain level of mens rea or scienter -- the kind of thing a court might consider if animal abuse charges ever were filed against the Kennel Club or a dog breeder.

27/02/2024

Job opportunity in saffron Walden

With our continued growth we have scope for another animal technician to join our small team.

This will include the basic daily animal duties at the very minimum, with opportunity for growth into a more varied role involving students and/or the public interactions.

The minimum requirement is 2 mornings a week to include cover on the weekends.

If you are interested and would like to know more or apply for the role, please email a CV to [email protected]. Closing date is Tuesday 5th March and interviews will be held the week beginning 11th March.

27/02/2024

Today we are channelling…
💖✨ eat lunch then pass out in the bowl ✨💖

16/02/2024

Cropped ears are MUTILATION and ILLEGAL in England.

16/02/2024

All are welcome to join in for GCSE science support 👏👏

Are you, or do you know someone, taking science GCSES this year?

The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) are running a FREE 5 week online course to help students increase their grades!

Each session will cover topics which are traditionally challenging in exams

They will show you how to get extra marks and the grades you need to reach your goals.

You don't have to want to be a vet, all are very welcome to attend.

Register for your place here;

https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/rvc-is-open-for-all/get-your-grades-online-programme

05/02/2024

Please participate :) supper education!