Holiday spoiled pets- what do you do for yours?

@Kyeh Aw, sweet Toby. Give him some love from me.

@Pony Thank you!

@Kyeh He needs more head skritches. Please pass along a few from me.

Those “cat” bowls are cool too.

@yakkoTDI Thanks, I’ll be sure to give skritches!

@Kyeh he’s so cute!!! All the pets!

@sillyheathen Thanks!

@Kyeh @sillyheathen
How’s he doing ?

@chienfou @sillyheathen He’s better than he was last week, but still not his old self. He’s taking steroid pills that I chop and hide in pill pockets, and eating, but doesn’t come looking for food, or sleep on the couch or bed.
“Vants to be alone …” Which is kind of worrisome.

@chienfou @Kyeh @sillyheathen hsppy to hear he is at least eating. Hopefully he gets to feeling better. Give him love from me!

@chienfou @sillyheathen @tinamarie1974 Thank you!

@Kyeh lots of chin rubs and ear scritches to dear Toby.

@ironcheftoni Thank you. He’s decided to hide in the cabinet under my bathroom sink now. It’s kind of amusing, but I’m worried that he’s hiding because he doesn’t feel good.

@ironcheftoni @Kyeh Best wishes for you and Toby.
We recently went through a rough patch with one of our cats, Molly. She had some sort of infection that caused congestion and drastic swelling around her left eye. And she pretty much stopped eating. At first the vet prescribed a steroid, and that seemed to help right away, but after a day or two it got worse again. Then she was switched to an antibiotic, but it didn’t appear to help. She pretty much quit eating and we were preparing for the last one-way trip to the vet. Then, after another few days, there was some improvement and she continued to get better over the next week.
Now she is back to healthy/normal. But it seemed pretty dire for several weeks there.
Oddly, her brother (from the same litter) was right there with her the whole time and never had any symptoms at all.

@ironcheftoni @macromeh Well, that’s somewhat encouraging - how old is she? Today is the first day I’ve had trouble getting him to take his pill-pocketed meds, but I finally did, and he’s had soft food and a tube of Churu. I even coaxed him onto the sunny windowsill for a bit but then he went back to the cabinet.

@ironcheftoni @Kyeh They are 9 yo. Not all that old for cats, but not kittens anymore, either.
Yeah, giving cats meds is challenging. The initial steroid was liquid - we used a syringe to squirt it into her mouth. Usually I was the one holding her and often some of the dose wound up on me instead of in her mouth as she struggled. The antibiotic was a (fairly large) pill. It usually took several tries to get it down (regardless of what yummy treat it was hidden in). But at least the full dose got administered.
I really don’t understand why they don’t make pet meds tasty.

@ironcheftoni @macromeh I was thinking that exact thing today! Why the heck can’t they make the meds taste like liver or something, instead of making us do it? They make children’s meds more palatable. I bet if someone did it they’d make a fortune. It can’t be that hard, most pets like really strong flavors, right?

@Kyeh @macromeh One time, I was given antibiotics for my cat that was chicken flavored. I don’t recall the brand though. Most of the time they give them amoxicillin and there are pink stains everywhere when they sling it out.

@ironcheftoni @macromeh Yeah, so if they can make amoxicillin pink & bubblegum flavored, they could also leave out the pink and make it chicken flavored for cats, dammit! Someone needs to do this.

@chienfou True dat. Back in our early days of chicken herding we tried butchering a few (quickly deemed Not Worth The Effort). I beheaded the selected bird as the rest of the flock looked on. One of the watchers darted over and grabbed the severed head. Soon, several of them were fighting over it.
Nasty, nasty feather lizards!

@macromeh definitely agree. My only purpose for keeping chickens was A) eggs and compost machines. (That’s weird. If I put a b with a parentheses I get that weird sun face! Sorry)
It was super handy being able to throw all the kitchen scraps in the pen and they would scratch them in, poop on them, and then turn everything into rich black compost that was amazing in the garden.

@chienfou Yep - I just shoveled out the chicken coop and put down new litter a couple days ago. Much easier to do before the really wet weather comes, turning all the layers of muck into concrete come spring. Dumped it all on the compost heap to break down into rich garden topping for spring.

@macromeh
I always just threw all my grass clippings and picked up leaves from the acre we own into the pen as litter. Never really had any problem with it aggregating into concrete but it definitely would get sloppy sometimes if it rained for days in a row. I would go in a couple of times a year with the tiller and till everything up then shovel it into the trailer and take it to the garden. Probably helps that I had a lot of space for the few chickens (6ish) I had.

@chienfou Yeah, I also toss raked leaves and lawn clippings into the pen for them to scratch around, but I put wood chips/sawdust/straw inside the hen house. Absorbent and fairly easy to clean out when mixed with droppings.

@chienfou @macromeh

That’s weird. If I put a b with a parentheses I get that weird sun face!

Because the B looks like sunglasses on their side, next to the right parenthesis that looks like a smile! [B)]

@Kyeh @macromeh
Okay that makes sense. I guess not having colons on either side kind of threw me.

@chienfou Our chickens love to play “chicken football” with mice. It’s quite entertaining to watch.

@chienfou @Pony I love it when I see “vegetarian” fed chicken eggs in the store. That’s like “uncured” cured meats. Make me laugh. Those birds are absolutely omnivores. When I had my little farm, a poor unfortunate swallow or small bird of some kind made it into their enclosed run. Yeah. They were very entertained and it didn’t end well for the little bird.

@Pony @sillyheathen
Yep. They are aggressive little peckers!