Painting by Jean-Baptiste Huet, "Fox in a Chicken Yard," 18th Century.
Teddy Moritz sends me the story of a "murder most fowl."
It seems a fox broke into a chicken coop and managed to flip a small table over. The table brained the fox and knocked it out, and the four chickens in the roost proceeded to peck the fox to death.
Chickens can be vicious little things. No surprise, I suppose. They are, after all, descended from dinosaurs.
Chickens in egg houses routinely peck each other to death, and a chick with the slightest weakness will be pecked to death by his brothers and sisters while they are all still in the incubator.
If you have never seen it, I assure you it is a horror.
Of course if you are having problems with a fox getting into your chicken coop, there is no excuse for not having a secure coop, with a secure welded- foxwire fence, and a hot wire around the perimeter (and perhaps at the edge of the coop too).
Does a hot wire work?
Like new money.
But don't tell that to anyone who is opposed to mild aversives when training animals.
You see these folks will tell you an e-collar is never to be used in any circumstance, but when it comes to a fox in the hen house, they will tell you to put a hot wire around the perimeter and jolt the hell out of the fox. One zap and the fox will never be back!
They are right too.
But do these people not see that the fox has just been trained, and trained quite rapidly too?
An e-collar is not the way I train my dogs because it cannot get, or encourage, a correct action, only dissuade an incorrect action. That said, I own an e-collar because at one point I thought I might have a problem with one of my dogs busting on deer. I cannot have that; we have too many deer in my area, and a dog that chases deer is a dog that is soon dead from vehicle impact.
A few hours walking through the local deer-laden nature preserve with an e-collar on, however, and that dog no longer pays the slightest bit of attention to deer.
A lesson there!
Of course if your dog never leaves the couch, and is one of those Kennel Club breeds that can barely breathe or walk, you may never need an e-collar.
You can look upon your dysplastic dog with the heart murmur, or your wheezing brachycephlic dog with soft palate, or or your hairless dog with chronic skin problems, and tell yourself you would never be so cruel.
.
Teddy Moritz sends me the story of a "murder most fowl."
It seems a fox broke into a chicken coop and managed to flip a small table over. The table brained the fox and knocked it out, and the four chickens in the roost proceeded to peck the fox to death.
Chickens can be vicious little things. No surprise, I suppose. They are, after all, descended from dinosaurs.
Chickens in egg houses routinely peck each other to death, and a chick with the slightest weakness will be pecked to death by his brothers and sisters while they are all still in the incubator.
If you have never seen it, I assure you it is a horror.
Of course if you are having problems with a fox getting into your chicken coop, there is no excuse for not having a secure coop, with a secure welded- foxwire fence, and a hot wire around the perimeter (and perhaps at the edge of the coop too).
Does a hot wire work?
Like new money.
But don't tell that to anyone who is opposed to mild aversives when training animals.
You see these folks will tell you an e-collar is never to be used in any circumstance, but when it comes to a fox in the hen house, they will tell you to put a hot wire around the perimeter and jolt the hell out of the fox. One zap and the fox will never be back!
They are right too.
But do these people not see that the fox has just been trained, and trained quite rapidly too?
An e-collar is not the way I train my dogs because it cannot get, or encourage, a correct action, only dissuade an incorrect action. That said, I own an e-collar because at one point I thought I might have a problem with one of my dogs busting on deer. I cannot have that; we have too many deer in my area, and a dog that chases deer is a dog that is soon dead from vehicle impact.
A few hours walking through the local deer-laden nature preserve with an e-collar on, however, and that dog no longer pays the slightest bit of attention to deer.
A lesson there!
Of course if your dog never leaves the couch, and is one of those Kennel Club breeds that can barely breathe or walk, you may never need an e-collar.
You can look upon your dysplastic dog with the heart murmur, or your wheezing brachycephlic dog with soft palate, or or your hairless dog with chronic skin problems, and tell yourself you would never be so cruel.
.
E-collars are fine.
ReplyDeleteIt's when you use your hands that I draw the line.
If I had to choose between an e-collar and a choke chain, I pick the e-collar.
If you read the directions and the manuals that come with them, they are a great tool.
Choke chains are far from idiot proof and easy to put on incorrectly.
My dog doesn't chase deer. She plays with them. She and a couple of yearling fawns get together and chase each other.
A dog that really runs deer won't likely be hit by car here. He'll probably get shot first.
What I don't get is the notion that invidible fences are somehow acceptable, but when the stim is connected to a remote of any kind, all of a sudden it's BAD. Or the exclusion that hot wires work just FINE for horses and cattle, but when it comes to the fragile puppers, it's BAD. The whole double-standard thing, basically. (Or really, what your whole post is about.)
ReplyDelete"Chickens can be vicious little things. No surprise, I suppose. They are, after all, descended from dinosaurs."
ReplyDeleteI laughed until I cried. And then I laughed some more. Then I pondered pickled Velociraptor eggs, but figured they would be a bit on the stale side and wouldn't fit neatly into a jar.
FYI: Temple Grandin thinks e-collars have their uses:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=123383699
Excellent! Thanks scribemjp -- going to promote this to its own post for tomorrow.
ReplyDeletePatrick