Take a picture once a day, whether you need to or not

[cmlancas]

If I ever start a roller derby team it's going to be the Clam City Rollers Bumpers.

Heh. I amuse myself.

[Sky]

This guy was found a couple days ago under the shrubs in front of the library. Has a cold and kinda young, but otherwise healthy. All black and polydactyl. I adopted him, he's guarding my new house.

[WayAbvPar]

Cute! Black cats rule.

[voodoolily]

Awwwwsnuggawumpagus!

[Signe]

Awwww.  Looks like my Magenta!  I'm not getting another kitty until we move again, though.  At some point I want five.  I get a Righ sigh every time I say so. 

Oh, and three tiny white dogs and a mini trampoline. 

[WayAbvPar]

Tell him it is either 5 kitties of 5 kiddies. He will carry you to the pet store on his back!

[Signe]

He knows I would do and have done just about anything to avoid having children, so he'd laugh at me.  I pamper my kitties, though.  Last night when I fed them, I kept moving their food to the middle of their dishes so to make it easier for them to eat.  He rolled his eyes so hard, I could hear them click.  I tend to obsess, I think.

[Sky]

I have to admit that I'm at an obsession stage. A sick abandoned stray? Ima spoil this dude! Forgot to mention his name is Bartholomew, though I'm considering vikingizing it to Bartolomaeus. Black Bart ftw.

[Signe]

Both mine are rescues and Lister was a stray kitten with a choked mew and a scabby nose.  Now he's like 15 lbs of almost tubby tabby and the king of the house.  I really keep meaning to post pics.  I am DEFINITELY going to post pics of their first cricket soon.  I have to be careful, though.  I'm thinking of blocking the closet and under the doors and stuff and doing it in the master bath the first time.  I don't want noisy crickets hiding in the house making a racket in the middle of the night.  If they're quick enough, it'll be the living room next time.  Also, raw food is the best thing I've ever done for them.  Lister keeps his coat and it looks incredible.

[bhodi]

Also, raw food is the best thing I've ever done for them.  Lister keeps his coat and it looks incredible.

Could you explain? I don't remember you talking about this.

[Signe]

I'm transitioning my cats to a raw food diet.  I buy them Nature's Variety raw food medallions.  They're still eating a wee bit of dry (grainless) and I mix the raw with just a little of the Prairie canned.  Lister likes variety and a stronger flavour than Magenta so I alternate between lamb, chicken, venison, and rabbit.  I wanted to make the food myself but I'm just not up to grinding bones.  By next month, I'll have them completely off dry and down to my ultimate goal of all raw with a dollop of human quality canned.  Dry food is probably the source of most cat tummy and urinary problems. 

Within days of starting them on raw, I noticed a difference in their energy level.  Lister used to be a total couch potato and now he has about 10X the energy.  I started seeing a difference in their coats a couple of weeks into the transition.  Lister barely sheds at all and Magenta (longer hair) is improving constantly.  Both their coats are way shinier than before.  They have no hairball problems and their breath smells 100X better.  My sister feeds her dog the same raw food and has had really great results, too.

Because this is a picture thread: 



My nephew and my sister's dog at Xmas wearing some of the pressies I got them. 

[Engels]

We have our two cats, Burger and Binkie, on prescription diet dry food, something called w/d. Binkie is a fattie at 15.5 pounds, with Burger not too far behind at 13.8. He eats less than she does, and does more exercise, so he's thinner. The problem with trying to keep one of two cats un-fat is that you have to either lock one up in a room while the other eats, or they both get a chance to pork out.

Guess which one's which.

[Viin]

We have the same problem - I actually do lock up one of the cats while we are at work and he gets his own food in our guest room.

[Signe]

Even prescription diet cat food, w/d is Hill's I think, has more calories and carbs than canned or raw.  Lister was a fatty, too, and now he's just almost a fatty.  He has energy and he's slimming down and toning up since I decreased their diet.  I also fed them the Hill's Science dry food, which is nearly the same as the prescription dry food.  Luckily, I'm here when they eat (I'm always here!) and I can move Lister so Magenta gets food.  Lister is obedient like a dog anyway.  He's very odd for a cat.  I'm in a good position to be able to ween them off of dry all together, though even a switch to human grade canned would probably help with Lister's weight management.

[Viin]

Not that this is a cat thread, but I've always hated wet canned food and I think it makes their teeth rot a lot faster. My cats have always had dry - usually Nutro, doing weight management for our fatty. Good stuff as far as I can tell.

[WayAbvPar]

My cat always shits all over his fuzzy pants if we feed him anything but dry food. Look at his fur, for Christ's sake!

[Signe]

I don't think dry cat food does anything for their teeth, except get caught between them. Do crackers and cookies clean our teeth?  I brush my cat's teeth but one of the best things for them is raw chicken necks... if you can find them.  Never cooked.  Switching them away from dry might cause some poopy problems at first, didn't for me though, but the benefits of getting them off of dry outweighs them.  Then again, most people don't obsess the way I do and dry is way more convenient for humans.  Cats are obligate carnivores so they do benefit from some plant matter and the raw I use has the small percentage that they might need.  A lot of experts also thing that dry food is also the main cause of diabetes in cats, especially obese ones.  Diabetes almost only occurs in cats who get only dry food. 

Also, did I mention how I obsess on my cats? 

[Engels]

Our cats won't eat anything but their dry food, mango juice and brocolli. Maybe popcorn. If it has olive oil.

I offered them fresh baked salmon. No way. I offered them italian prosciutto. Nuh uh. I offered them little bits of rare sirloin. Not touchin it.

My cats are freakin nuts.

[Signe]

It was hard for mine to switch to raw but once they did, they can't get enough... well, Lister anyway.  Magenta is also goofy.  She goes crazy over apples and watermelon.  Even the smell makes her crazy.  Lister wants meat, meat, meat and more meat.  He's the tubby one.  Magenta is very small and strange and besides fruit, she only begs to play.  In fact, kibble, pieces of paper, and a bit of cardboard on a piece of wire are her favourite toys.  I have spent hundreds on toys and she plays with kibble.  I don't know what she'll do next month when there is no more kibble to be had.

Maybe some nice mod should move our pet talk to a different place.  We've buggered up the picture forum.  Sorry.

[Miasma]

How dare you feed your cat a diet that it would be eating if it had the misfortune of living in nature.  I hope someone calls the SPCA on you.

[Samwise]

[Signe]

Do you have crickets, Samwise?  I won't do that.  I'll just pick up a couple a week at the local pet store.  It's more for their entertainment than anything, really.

[Merusk]

I think those are baby Mantises, not crickets.  If so that's awesome.

[Signe]

Are they?  I can't tell what the heck they are but it would be awesome.  Of course, raising crickets in your house is also awesome(ly weird).

[Samwise]

Yep, mantises.  That photo was taken a matter of hours after they emerged from their clown car.  After a week and a half I was starting to wonder if the egg was a dud, and then I got home from work one day and that was waiting for me.

Truly the cutest bugs ever.  They're like little spindly kittens.  Sometimes a fruit fly will run by one and it'll get so excited that it falls over.

[Lantyssa]

I love mantises.  You've brought me such joy.

[photek]

Yay a picture thread. My tomb / crypt / grave / office is so dark I'm suprised I got a picture in this lighting thats somewhat viewable. This is only one third of it or so.



Ow yeah, here is my kitteh named Booby. Don't worry you don't have a dead pixel. Its just a blue spot on the picture for a reason.

[voodoolily]

Sam make sure and either release them or re-cage them or they'll cannibalize each other. Not so cute.

I need to head to the nursery and pick up a sac for my garden. And restart the pond. My minnow and brown bullheads got nabbed by the 'coons while we were in Japan.  But my Sarracenia is getting ready to bloom! Stay tuned...

[NiX]

If VD wasn't so big on bugs I'd say start a mantis fight club.

[SnakeCharmer]

Holy shnikies, photek.  That's like a little room of thermal radiation.  GLOBAL WARMING! 

How hot does that room get?

[photek]

Holy shnikies, photek.  That's like a little room of thermal radiation.  GLOBAL WARMING! 

How hot does that room get?

Ow its just one third of the room on the picture, the crowded part, but yes it does get hot. I got like.. 5 PC's in here, 1 laptop, consoles, tv, turntables, projector and speakers running daily, so during cold Norwegian winters I barely need any heating. During spring-summer time (now) I need to have windows open during daytime and I'm thinking of getting some cooling rig.

Here is the other part.

[Samwise]

Sam make sure and either release them or re-cage them or they'll cannibalize each other. Not so cute.

I've released some of them, but it hasn't stopped those that remain from taking swipes at each other now and then despite the overabundance of smaller and easier prey.  I'd probably be disturbed if I hadn't been raising triopses for so long.  (Each triops litter starts with about a hundred siblings and is whittled down to the three biggest and fastest through about a week of natural selection.)

[Engels]

Sam make sure and either release them or re-cage them or they'll cannibalize each other. Not so cute.

I've released some of them, but it hasn't stopped those that remain from taking swipes at each other now and then despite the overabundance of smaller and easier prey.  I'd probably be disturbed if I hadn't been raising triopses for so long.  (Each triops litter starts with about a hundred siblings and is whittled down to the three biggest and fastest through about a week of natural selection.)

Sorta like the primaries.

[Ookii]

Yeah f13 weekend.

[voodoolily]

How many pairs of shoes do you bitches need?