Episode 22 Wild Mouse, Veganacious Podcast, Farmers Perception
Hello and welcome to the twenty second episode of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals
On this episode, I'd like to introduce a friends new podcast, talk about teaching people to respect small animals, a perception of farmers, killing deer in national parks and killing sick race horses.
I'd decided to dedicate this episode of my show to my friend Barbara DeGrande , of Veganacious.com, who has now started her very own podcast promoting Abolitionist Veganism, but I have a sad story to tell about a small visitor. While respecting my friendship with Barbara, I'd first like to talk about a very small friend, who I found in a bad way.
If you check my flickr page,I've included a link in the shownotes, you should be able to see it in the lyrics section, or on my blog coexistingwithnonhumananimals.blogspot.com , that the inside of my glasshouse was covered with Chickweed and clover ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaywontdart/sets/72157622983995776/ ), in the "Few Day Old Chicks" photo album, you will notice its like a little green forest, with clover roughly the same height as the few day old chicks. When the chicks were small, we would keep the chickens safely in the glasshouse during the day, sealed up to protect our little friends from cats. I have friends who have cats, and they laugh off what cats do to other animals, "oh, last night mittens was playing with a bug", well, the bug was fighting for his or her life to escape. Chickens, and baby chicks especially do not like to play with cats, they are terribly afraid of cats. Im not sure if they would behave the same around dogs or other animals, but around cats, they freak out, making special noises I only ever hear them produce around cats. Its a special alert, "theres a cat trying to kill us". So, I made sure to keep them safe from cats, during the day while I worked, they would be safe in the fairly large glasshouse. Well, that little forest of clover and chickweed, that made a lovely carpet to walk over, was soon reduced to a muddy slop if I hosed inside the glasshouse. I've been trying to reseed the chickweed, it grows just fine everywhere else in the garden, but doesn't seem to like inside the glasshouse anymore. I'd been keeping the door closed, so the chickens couldn't enter, so that some chickweed and other weed like plants I'd left inside could have a chance to take off. Its strange I know, but I don't really care what starts growing in there, as long as theres something over the mud! The chickens will manage it once it takes off, now the Chickens are allowed to go anywhere in the back garden on their own, they wont be forced into strip grazing the glasshouse bare.
I'd been watering inside the glasshouse, when I noticed a chickenwire screen shaking. There was a hole at the bottom, and a little wild mouse had become stuck. Its body was threaded through a couple of holes at the bottom, much like a shoelace going through the eyelets of a shoe. I have no idea how, or why the mouse had gotten into that state, but it had happened, sometimes things don't need to be further explained. I was horrified when I realized what had happened, the pain the mouse must have been in, it must have been immense. Its little body was twisted every which way,I suppose it had somehow tried to bend to exit through another hole, and just made the situation worse. It had its head out one side, its ears stuck back behind the head hole, its main body was tightly pulled between that head hole, and a second hole where its feet were stuck. It had one back foot bunched up in pain, it could clench and unclench this foot, and swing its tail, but nothing more. I was very upset, and part of me wanted to take a photo to share with you, to show other people how the mouse had positioned itself. But this isn't a time for rotten.com submissions, there was a little friends lif...