Hi folks,
Boyd was lucky when he ran into Jess, who came close to running him over in the road near hour house.
Every now and then Jess comes home with a lost soul, be it dog or bird, and here is the latest, now known as Boyd. As the resident veterinarian, I was recruited into service, so I looked up advice on rearing orphan bird chicks on the web. Boyd now seems to be doing well, and we think that he is putting on weight. He certainly makes a fuss if he wants to eat. Boyd really likes ground beef that we recently replaced with mealy worms from Wild Birds Unlimited, In Chapel Hill, NC. We’ll see how it goes, and let you know. He makes a lot of noise, and we have no idea what kind of bird he/she might be, but it is good to see progress being made, plus we have our own wakeup call in the form of gentle tweeting and nascent song.
It feels heart warming to help a fellow creature found staggering around in the road with a damaged wing.
Here he is today:
I wonder if Boyd will make it. I hope so. Funny how attached one can become so quickly - he has character.
Boyd also seems to really like attention. I hope we can get him/her back into nature, but I guess that will depend on the degree of damage to his/her wing. We’ll see! At least he is singing happily today, and not sitting in the belly of a snake.
And what has this to do with aneurysms and Ironman training? Everything! How you live your life, kindly or indifferent to the pain of others, will determine how you approach your sport and how you will handle the inevitable vicissitudes of life. Jess provides a great role model when it comes to empathy for poor creatures like Boyd. She is also a great runner (and singer and dancer, too!).
-k @FitOldDog
Important Note: These posts do not provide medical advice. You should always consult your physician before undertaking or significantly modifying an exercise program.
Copyright © 2010 Kevin T. Morgan aka FitOldDog, Old Dogs in Training, LLC.
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She’s not still sore about us offering to grill him up is she?
[Seriously, though... so glad Boyd is doing well and will hopefully fly again soon!]
Boyd is very upset that you wanted to have him/her for dinner. I understand his/her feeling that way. -k
Quite right, more a light snack than a full dinner.
Saved a sparrow a few years ago. She used to sit on my window sill and come back into my room after released.
I called her Madge. Madge the spadge that is. (Spadge, local name for sparrow)
She was a house sparrow. Full of personality and desirous of attention.
Hi Trevor,
I met a Crapie (local fish) like that when river diving one day. We underestimate other species so badly, so we eat them.
Spadge is a great name for sparrows.
-k
I bet that cow we ate Sunday was really nice, too.
Just saying.
[I fight my guilt daily because they are SO delicious.]
Hi Meg, well, it wasn’t a cow, it was a steer, but yep, I bet he was a nice chap. This is a difficult issue, and I have gone vegetarian several times, but after a while I seem to not feel so good, usually a few months, and then I eat a steak and I feel better. Maybe I should eat one steak a month, and you should eat one boyd a month, and then lettuce and stuff. This is a real ethical challenge if you decide that it is. -kevin
Is it different in England? As far as I know [or at least in The States] the general term for a bull [with balls], a steer [without balls], and a heifer [lady bits] was cow. And yes, we most often eat steer as they are raised solely for their meat. But, isn’t a steer a cow just like a square is a rectangle?
As for the ethical stuff… I used to lose sleep over it on a regular basis. Was vegetarian all through uni and a few years beyond. Then I ate very little meat. Then I got pregnant and ate everything in site. Then I gave birth to two vikings. Now the only thing that keeps me up at night is getting them to 18 alive and [as least mostly] well-adjusted. I’m eating roast beef as I type this.
Hi Meg,
Not in England. A cow was a heifer until she had a calf, and then she is a cow, not a steer or a bull. Most of the beef we eat is steer.
I really like roast beef, and I struggle with the ethics, but it is a food-chain world, and I’m part of it. I spent a lot of time working to reduce animal experimentation through encouragement of the use of applied mathematics in Toxicology. Made a tiny teeny bit of progress. We each have to decide for ourselves.
Can you take some photos of Boyd before he flies away? I’ll pay, as I want them for this blog. I’ll call about it.
Have fun, and thanks for commenting.
See y’all next week.
-k
Bravo to work to reduce animal experimentation! I would have been happy to take pics of Boyd - you guys are like family. So sorry about what happened - you did everything you could and then some, Kevin.
Rescued a fledgeling crow yesterday caught up in a crumpled chicken wire fence and soaked in the rain and very cold. I now have a bad tempered and hungry house guest completely lacking in any charm. I guess not all of nature is cute! It is feeding so will probable survive.