Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Ughhhh. HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) has made it to Michigan backyard flocks. It’s still across the state from me but that won’t last, and it’s been found in backyard flocks in several other states now as well. AI is a flock eradicator; if any of your birds get it, the whole flock must be culled and there’s a wait period before you can start over.
PLEASE bring in your bird feeders for the next few months to discourage birds from gathering together.
Even if you don’t have outdoor birds like me, you can help protect flock birds in your area by removing feeders and bird baths etc from your yard. This will help to slow the spread to flocks like mine.
If you are in the USA and have flock birds
Bring them in if you can. If you only have a couple, set them up indoors if you can. If you’re like me and you can’t, do your best to move food and water sources into the coops where wild birds won’t see them. You can buy bird prevention netting to wrap your run in, and tarp the top of it to prevent falling excrement from reaching your birds as wild birds pass overhead.
It should go without saying, but I’m gonna say it. You should also avoid going to places where others have birds (like auctions, swap meets, visiting farms or friends that have them), or allowing anyone that’s been where there are birds to visit your property. If you must have visitors, a 10% bleach solution in a tub for them to step in is the bare minimum of biosecurity so they don’t track it in on their shoes.
There are tests for Avian Influenza, which can be done without killing the birds. If you are concerned your birds may be showing symptoms of AI (sudden deaths, decrease in egg production, decrease in water intake, or other illness symptoms), you should contact your state agricultural department (in Michigan, MSU ag department and MDARD handles this kind of stuff, not sure for other states) and inquire about what steps to take to have testing done. They will be able to advise you on what to do.
Good luck to those in states where this is moving around widely now. I hope everyone’s flocks stay safe. Please feel free to add resources for your state if you know them. Many states offer free AI testing!
For people wondering YES if you have exotic birds like parrots this is still something to be worried about. And i would follow Kedreeva’s advice
Oh yes, waterfowl and poultry are the most sensitive to this, but it’s avian influenza. It’s been found in plenty of songbirds/passerines, as well as the birds of prey that eat them, and there’s zero reason why psittacines are excluded except that most of them live inside houses.
If you do have completely indoor birds already (like parrots or pigeons or finches) then you need to be leaving your shoes at the door (preferably stepping into a bleach footbath with those shoes before removing them), not allowing your birds down onto the floor (and cleaning floors regularly with something to disinfect), and not allowing your birds outside until this passes, which could be months. You also should not be mixing equipment between enclosures, and doing your best to keep equipment clean and sanitized.
This has been steadily progressing across the US as birds migrate. A small farm in upstate NY just had to cull their entire flock of 400. Hundreds of thousands of meat birds at facilities around the US have had to be culled. Turkey farms have had to cull tens of thousands. McMurray Hatchery just lost half their heritage breed flocks to a positive test at one of their larger breeding facilities. There are a half dozen cases in Michigan, getting closer to me. Iowa has begun a blanket cull radius where any flock within 2 miles of an infected flock must be culled, positive or not, to prevent it jumping.
New cases and the major culls that follow in their wake, are being reported daily, and this is still just starting. Migratory season doesn’t end until the middle-end of May. April has barely started. The total death toll so far is upwards of 15 million birds, and that’s going to continue to go up.
Please, please, please. Protect your birds, protect the birds around you. I am begging you to bring your birds in if you can; they will not like it but at least they will be alive to not like it. I posted this originally when I thought we wouldn’t be able to coop everyone, but I have made sacrifices in order to do so since, because this is getting very bad.
Stay safe. My thoughts are with everyone’s feathered kids.
(Current as of April 6th, 2022)
Reblogging to add that there is a current and often-updated map of HPAI case locations in the USA on the USGS site. States that do not currently have cases still need to be wary, particularly the closer you are to states that HAVE had cases.
This is the map as of today, 6 April 2022:
I also want to tack this information on to this main post:
HPAI is transmissible to cats and dogs!
Studies done in 2015/16 and since have found that cats and dogs can pick up this virus from infected meat (as in when they eat wild birds they have caught) as well as through respiratory transmission. Cats and dogs are not generally susceptible to LPAI, the normal strain in north america, but both were found to be susceptible to HPAI.
So, in addition to removing bird feeders and keeping any pet birds on lockdown as much as possible, folks with cats and dogs need to be aware of the dangers to their animals as well. Cat owners should keep their cats indoors or allow them out in covered catios only (you’ll have to read up and decide if leash time is safe, I haven’t looked into it) until migratory season ends. Folks with dogs should not allow dogs off-leash outdoors where they might be able to catch birds or touch bird carcasses. While HPAI mainly causes death in waterfowl and land fowl, songbirds are a reservoir species and can transmit it to mammals interacting with them or their carcasses or feces.
Please be careful out there. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
I know this is already long, but I’m adding on a list of resources and prevention methods for if you own flock birds (poultry, waterfowl, game fowl etc)
Searching the web for “HPAI guidelines 2022” brings up a bunch of links to state agricultural departments pages regarding HPAI in individual states, which should have info about who to contact and what to do if you think you have a positive case. You can find a lot of official scientific info with quick searches, because this is very serious.
Prevention Info for Backyard Flocks
Coop your birds if possible, inside of the entirely enclosed wooden part
If your coop is too small, cover the top of your run completely with waterproof tarp to prevent fecal matter from entering the run. Ensure it is able to drain 2+ feet away from the wall of your run, so that it doesn’t just infect your soil anyway
Do not allow free ranging. They’re gonna be mad, but they’ll be alive to be mad.
If your run has anything other than ½" hardware cloth for wire, wrap it in ½ mesh bird netting to exclude wild birds from getting in.
Sanitize footwear in 10% bleach before entering any enclosure. Bleach solution must be made daily as it degrades fast, contact kill time is usually anywhere from 3-10 minutes. Alternately, keep footwear exclusive to the run in a bin just outside the run, and use those only inside the run. Do not share footwear between enclosures.
Sanitize equipment with 10% bleach
Do not share equipment between coops if you have more than one
Do not allow visitors on your property; if you must, have them park as far from your birds as they can, and sanitize their footwear in 10% solution before allowing them to travel your property.
Do not visit properties or events which will have birds
Do not bring in new birds. If new birds must be brought in, follow quarantine procedures; 30 days isolation away from your flock, perform their chores last, followed by introducing 1 of your current flock to the quarantine area for 2 weeks. (though if new arrivals are not dead in the first week, they likely don’t have HPAI, as it kills within the first 3 days of infection… but quarantine is always a good thing because birds can have lots of nasty diseases).
Keep an eye out for signs of disease, and contact your designated state department to have testing done on any sudden deaths in your flock. Signs of HPAI in poultry can include sudden death; lack of energy, appetite, and coordination; purple discoloration or swelling of various body parts; diarrhea; nasal discharge; coughing; sneezing; and reduced egg production, or soft-shelled or misshapen eggs.
Even if you don’t have any confirmed cases in your state, consider at least making a plan for what you’re going to do if it heads your way or pops up nearby. Being prepared makes this a LOT easier to deal with.
I’m going to bed. If you have questions, try a search engine first. Right now this post contains basically everything, and links to find out anything the post is missing.
i don’t know who else needs to hear this (apart from myself), but other people’s perceptions of you are not always very objective. especially if they’re strangers. it’s easy to get caught up in the ways people see us and perform our whole lives in order to be seen in a certain way, but i promise you that you know your life better than them. you’ve been with yourself for the longest time & you know how your experiences have felt, where your heart feels the most alive and how much pain you’ve endured. i know it sucks to have your experiences & traits misunderstood or taken away from you, but the way people see us ultimately have more to do with themselves than us. it’s okay if you want to feel validated and loved, okay? just please remember to validate yourself too.
a redwood will never return to its roots, never crawl back into its seed. you cannot be what you were at the beginning. you can only move towards the end.
Genuinely gentle reminder not to treat “trans men” and “transmasc” as synonyms, nor “trans woman” and “transfem.”
They are not. They are overlapping terms. Transmasc identity - for example - includes people who are transmasculine but not men, are only men sometimes, and are men all the time.
My brother is a trans man. I am a non-binary butch. He is a man. I am a man the same way that salsa is spaghetti sauce. We are both transmasc.
just making it dead clear that this blog does not support russia’s invasion of ukraine, however also fuck off with that shit if you are demonising regular russian civilians who have nothing to do with this and didnt want a war just as much as everyone else did. politicians are not an excuse for your xenophobia.
Western media WILL use this to push a broad anti-slavic rhetoric much like during the cold war. Watch out for attempts to enforce bigotry.
Here’s the thing. Practical self-care, such as showering, feeding yourself, talking a walk, cleaning your space, getting rest, ect. will not solve every problem you have. Especially the big, serious ones. But it will solve a ton of smaller problems that are building up, adding to your stress, and using the energy you need to cope with those big serious problems.
You can feel as awful as you want, just eat a sandwich first.
real, & also I think something that makes this harder is the all-or-nothing mindset - I don’t know how common this is but for me, once things build up to a certain point, it’s hard to do any of it because I don’t have the energy to do all of it. like okay, big deal, I could take some cups from my room to the kitchen, but what’s the point when there’s twenty other things that need done around the house too?
except the littler things do matter. even if I don’t do anything else, at least there’s not dirty cups in my bedroom anymore. & chances are, once I get to the kitchen with the cups, I might as well wash them since I’m already there, & since I’m washing a few cups it wouldn’t make sense to not wash the rest of the dishes too…
& I still probably won’t get everything done. but if some dishes get clean, or if I take the trash out, or whatever tasks I do end up doing, those still improve my environment.
Bi girls realizing they’re lesbians? Powerful. Amazing. You’re not contributing to the idea that bisexual people “pick a side”, you’re just coming to terms with your attraction to women in its entirety. And that’s ok.
Lesbians realizing they’re bi? Wonderful. Beautiful. You’re not contributing to the idea that lesbians can be forced to like men. You are who you are. And you’re lovely.
for me, as someone who also does shelter work, the biggest disservice i think we do to the public is acting like returning or surrendering cats is evil.
typically when someone surrenders a pet there are two situations going on:
1) the person has really thought about it and feels terrible about it but doesn’t feel they have another choice. and usually they don’t! they are moving somewhere that doesn’t take pets, or losing their home, or can’t afford to take care of their animal, or have health issues, or whatever. people in this case aren’t just casting away an animal they don’t care about. they’re making a really hard decision. i have seen so many shelter workers be so mean to people in this situation, and i hate it. there is nothing to be gained from not just saying “you’re making the right choice, we’ll find your pet a good home, good luck with everything”.
2) the person genuinely doesn’t care about the animal at all, or doesn’t like it, in which case jesus christ yeah please surrender it! i’m not going to try to shame someone who is making the correct choice of giving their pet the chance to get a better home.
i think a lot of people go into pet ownership unprepared for how much of a responsibility it is, and if they end up having to surrender their animal for whatever reason the least we can do is be compassionate about it.
the second most important thing to tell adopters is that cats don’t pee outside the litterbox for no reason and if that’s happening ftlog take the cat to the vet before you do anything else.
Forgive me, but I don’t understand - can someone explain the difference and why not knowing it is dangerous?
So “domestic” means an animal that has been selectively bred over generations to have characteristics useful to humans, such as reduced flight distance, increased milk/wool/meat production, trainability, lower prey drive, attractive coloring, etc. These are livestock or pets, most of which have been domesticated by humans for millennia, and while they can still interbreed with their wild ancestors, are genetically altered enough to be distinguished from them by a variety of traits. Dogs, cats, cattle, llamas, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, yaks, ducks, geese, chickens: all domestic! You can also have semi-domesticated animals, where the semi-domesticated population has been more lightly managed by humans over time, still sometimes interbreeding with wild populations, and not intensively selectively bred, such as the semi-domesticated reindeer herded by various Arctic peoples. It’s kind of a continuum!
“Tame,” however means an individual animal that has been accustomed to human presence and tolerates contact with people, generally by being in close proximity to humans from birth. Most domestic animals are also tame, because ‘can deal with being near humans’ is a pretty important feature to build in when you’re designing your livestock, but it’s not automatic- even many domestic animals need human interaction from an early age to be able to be calm around humans later. On the positive side of things, tame wild animals can be ambassador animals at zoos and wildlife centers that can interact with handlers and help educate visitors without getting stressed, because they don’t fear humans. On the negative side of things, wild animals can become accidentally tamed (“habituated”) by being rewarded with food for approaching humans and our dwellings, and unlike domestic animals, wild animals haven’t had thousands of years of being bred to be easy for us to get along with, so when this happens you get human-animal conflicts, and that’s always bad news for the animal.
If it’s not already obvious from the above, the reason getting these things confused is dangerous is that people see “tame” wild animals interacting with humans in viral internet videos and go “oh, so cute! I want one!” and then they either go purchase an exotic pet they are entirely unprepared to care for or go out and try to interact with (BAD) or kidnap (WORSE) animals they find in the wild. The animals are always the losers in this situation, and it starts with thinking a tame fox is basically the same as a domestic dog, and can be treated the same way. Tame wild animals might be okay with taking food from your hand on a good day, but that doesn’t mean they’re suitable pets- cuddly-looking animals will wreck your home, smell like musk, be difficult or impossible to housebreak, become aggressive when frightened, and, once tamed, be unable to survive in the wild. A lot of wildlife centers have permanent collections of surrendered pets living out their lives there, because some asshat who decided they were too cool for house cats and what they really wanted was a pet bobcat was met with reality. Even if the animal doesn’t end up in someone’s house, it’s still bad news. If you’ve ever been to a park that gets a lot of tourist traffic, you might find wildlife that has lost its fear of people thanks to all the free handouts, which leads to more people trying to feeding the “tame” “friendly” animals, which leads to pushier animals, and that leads to attacks and wildlife being put down for the sake of public safety.
And people just kidnapping their own local wildlife is the less globally harmful side of things- international wildlife trafficking for the pet trade is a huge problem; it’s is too big an issue to get into here (I’d recommend the book Poached by journalist Rachel Love Nuwer), but it all comes back to not knowing- or caring about- the difference between domestic and tame.
(The other, less concerning to confuse terms I mentioned in those tags: wild is a non-domesticated animal and feral is a domesticated animal that was born outside of captivity and lives like a wild animal (eg feral cat colonies, most pigeons, mustang horses).)
It cannot be overstated just how *deep* domesticated vs. wild goes, either. You can catch a mustang - feral, but still the descendant of domesticated horses - full grown adult, take it off the range in Wyoming, and with care and a little patience it can be gentled into a pet that’s no more or less inherently dangerous than a horse that’s so pampered it’s never been rained on. Even a feral horse is still a domesticated animal.
On the other hand, you can breed a zorse - half horse half zebra - handle it from birth, do everything absolutely right, and still one day find that it has gotten into an argument with one of your other horses and attempted to, or managed, to kill it. Even a tamed from birth HALF zebra is still a wild animal and the instincts of wildness cannot be erased by taming, it may eat out of your hand, but if you’re smart you will never, ever trust it. (I’ve seen incredibly experienced horse people say that if you’re truly smart, you would never own a zorse, period.)
The point here is that tamed, no matter how thoroughly, is NEVER a substitute for domesticated. There’s a reason why Fiona the hippo, for all the cuddling she got when she was a premature infant struggling to survive, now only interacts with her handlers on the other side of some truly massive bars - no amount of care and love will make her into a chocolate lab. She’s a hippo, and adult hippos are a highly damned dangerous creature.
