Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 3]

[RammyMP]

Wiccan of Darkness said:

Feet and ankles are the most targeted areas. Count yourself lucky, I've had the eye watering misfortune to be bitten in the worst place ever. Curse the morning wood, curse the mosquito.

Anyhoo, the mozzie (or other bitey bugger) has to inject an anti coagulant in to the bite, along with its proboscis and numby spittle, so the blood continues to flow. The anti coagulant is a protein and that triggers a localised allergic reaction. The histamine released forms that welt and the itchiness.

Anyway, all is not lost. What is needed is something that contains anaesthetic (lidocaine) to ease the itch; zinc oxide to draw out the allergens and white soft paraffin to mellow the skin. All 3 components are found in germoloids ass hole cream. It's a couple of quid from any pharmacy. Blob that over mozzie bites, bee stings etc and whilst not instant relief, it will stop itching after 3-5 minutes. Best product EVER.

There. Tip of the day ass hole cream GERMOLOIDS is the best thing for mosquito bites

The lads got football training tonight and I always get bit no matter how much repellent I put on. I'll give that a go on them when I get home.

[TheLordJohn]

RammyMP said:

They generally st in the same place so just put a litter tray there. The wife's got two rabbits for her class pets(primary teacher), she brought them home for the holidays, I suggested the above but it didn't work, they just st all over the house! Some rabbits are destined for a hutch life!

Also, I had a rabbit when I was a kid and when it was in the house it would make for power leads and chew them, just be careful.

Hate to be the one to tell you (I don't really...) but that's likely to be your mistake.
When you first bring them to a new area (say, if you have moved house) you have to make 'their' area bigger gradually.
So if you wanted them to live under the stairs you'd give them that area for a day, then allow them access to the living room and their area for a week, then the kitchen, living room and their area for a week etc.
He is very much correct about the wires etc. Seemingly they love them, and if you see yours near one, it's already too late.
We've learnt the hard way to rabbit-proof our house. So all wiring has to be firmly out of reach.

There's a thread for them on PH, believe it or not -

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=12...

DRFC1879 said:

Can you teach an old rabbit new tricks?

We've got a three-year old mini lop in a hutch out in the back garden and my boy would love to have her in the house. I'll happily give it a go if she can be taught the litter tray routine.

Thinking on, could we teach her to use a litter tray in the hutch then bring it indoors and hope she understands?

Any rabbit can learn, you've just got to be patient and have done some research.

This is Rogers house. So at night, he generally stays in here and he has the living room too as he's well trained.



With regards to litter training, this is his tray -



As you can see, we use wood pellets (cat litter from pets at home or the like) in around 3/4 of it and feeding hay in the other 1/4.
There isn't a great deal of hay as he's spending a lot of time outside during the day which means he's getting the grass from our lawn instead.
The reason for the hay in the tray is they generally poo while eating, so that's the best way we've found from our experience.

Rabbits have absolutely great personalities and you don't truly know 'who' they are when they're in a hutch.
And until you've seen one binky, or stretch and yawn, or clean his face, you haven't lived!

Black rabbits are notoriously difficult to photograph, but this is where we usually see him when we come down on a morning -



Or under the nest of tables is a favourite, too -

Edited by TheLordJohn on Wednesday 21st June 17:45

[Ayahuasca]

Wiccan of Darkness said:

SilverSixer said:

Why must an insect bite itch? Why can't they just have their bit of blood without injecting something which irritates the bitee? Surely this is contrary to evolution and survival of the fittest, as those of use who get bitten actively look to kill the creatures which bite, because being bitten is unpleasant. Surely if they left a gentle scent of lavender or bought us an ice cream or half a lager or something, we wouldn't try to kill them?

bds seem particularly keen on my feet and ankles at the moment.

Feet and ankles are the most targeted areas. Count yourself lucky, I've had the eye watering misfortune to be bitten in the worst place ever. Curse the morning wood, curse the mosquito.

Anyhoo, the mozzie (or other bitey bugger) has to inject an anti coagulant in to the bite, along with its proboscis and numby spittle, so the blood continues to flow. The anti coagulant is a protein and that triggers a localised allergic reaction. The histamine released forms that welt and the itchiness.

Anyway, all is not lost. What is needed is something that contains anaesthetic (lidocaine) to ease the itch; zinc oxide to draw out the allergens and white soft paraffin to mellow the skin. All 3 components are found in germoloids ass hole cream. It's a couple of quid from any pharmacy. Blob that over mozzie bites, bee stings etc and whilst not instant relief, it will stop itching after 3-5 minutes. Best product EVER.

There. Tip of the day ass hole cream GERMOLOIDS is the best thing for mosquito bites

Mosquitos? Meh. Try being bitten by chiggers, which don't just inject you, but they stick their whole head into you, and leave it in there to rot and fester if you pry them off. Itch like a bd. Anyway, bum cream may well work, but what also works is Sellotape! Stick a bit of Sellotape over the bite and it stops itching.

[Ayahuasca]

Nanook said:

Ayahuasca said:

Mosquitos? Meh. Try being bitten by chiggers, which don't just inject you, but they stick their whole head into you, and leave it in there to rot and fester if you pry them off. Itch like a bd. Anyway, bum cream may well work, but what also works is Sellotape! Stick a bit of Sellotape over the bite and it stops itching.

I wear my socks up to my knees, they still make a motel out of me.

Chiggers? They will crawl up your socks until they can find a way in. They normally end up in the waistline area. Best is to tuck your socks into your trousers and spray repellent over everything.

[Griffic]

DRFC1879 said:

Can you teach an old rabbit new tricks?

We've got a three-year old mini lop in a hutch out in the back garden and my boy would love to have her in the house. I'll happily give it a go if she can be taught the litter tray routine.

Thinking on, could we teach her to use a litter tray in the hutch then bring it indoors and hope she understands?

I was told by a vet that most rabbits have dementia by the age of 4 which would suggest not. That said, my rabbit did die so he might have been st vet.

[Griffic]

RATATTAK said:

Where do pigeons nest ?

Edited by RATATTAK on Monday 12th June 21:15

Last year, in my garage roof.

[TheLordJohn]

Griffic said:

I was told by a vet that most rabbits have dementia by the age of 4 which would suggest not. That said, my rabbit did die so he might have been st vet.

I am no vet but I can assure you Jessica had all her marbles well and truly in place until she was at least 8, and died when she was 9.
That was after a really terrible first 5 years of her life on a farm in North Yorkshire before we rescued her.

[FlyingMeeces]

sidekickdmr said:

Do wildlife recognise and feel compassion their own offspring once they have flown the nest?

Sat watching a mum/dad and about 8 goslings on the stream yesterday they were being very protective of them and clearly had a close bond, and we wondered, once they are old enough, and go their own way, do the parents still recognise and love their offspring, even years later?

Its only a small stream and leads to a small lake, so they are likely to see each other again, would they just swim by and not have a clue?

Same question applies to all animals, cats whose kittens get sold in the next street over, lions in the mountains, fish in the lakes.

a) Is it some sort of higher-order animal, b) how big's it's brain? c) is there any evolutionary advantage to that particular sort of social behaviour?

Fish, I am almost certain, not at all. The few species that brood their young do that and then that's it, sod off.

Reptiles are weird and I don't know. Amphibians are even weirder.

Birds - some, yes, definitely. A lot of species live in relatively cooperative communities, and especially if contact is never broken between parent and chick then there would be something, I reckon. More so for those large and long-lived species with a long period of parental dependency and much less so or not at all for anything little, squabbly, or solitary. Not mallards, once they're grown they're just competition.

Mammals - varies. Nearly all primates yes to degrees that vary, correlating closely with brain size (there was a really good BBC documentary a few years ago on this). Gorillas and such, great apes, emphatically yes and to pretty much the same degree as we do. Dogs and cats somewhat, maybe. Horses do a bit - again as with birds, if it's something that spends a really long time rearing its babies, and especially if it's something that lives communally, those bonds will likely be life-long. Elephants have got to be the shining example of that, and will acknowledge family members they haven't seen for YEARS, but even just bog standard domestic dairy cows will interact differently with their daughters, if they've been kept together.

I think this might be my favourite Tyawtktat post ever.

[Dr Jekyll]

Why are 'electronic cigarettes' not called 'electronic pipes'. If you throw away the remnants after smoking it's a cigarette, if you refill it and relight then it's a pipe.

[Ayahuasca]

Physically disabled airline passengers- those who need to use wheelchairs to make it onto the aircraft, and normally board first.

Is there a wheelchair user protocol for emergency evacuation? In the event of an evacuation, WTF happens to them? Do they leave the aircraft last, do they wait for cabin crew to help them do they rely on the help of other pax, are they allowed to impede the exit of others, e.g. if they sit in an aisle seat thus blocking the aisle, do they receive a special briefing in this regard?

Sorry if the question seems mean, and no disrespect intended to wheelchair users - just that there must be a protocol for this and I wonder what it is.

[FlyingMeeces]

Ayahuasca said:

Physically disabled airline passengers- those who need to use wheelchairs to make it onto the aircraft, and normally board first.

Is there a wheelchair user protocol for emergency evacuation? In the event of an evacuation, WTF happens to them? Do they leave the aircraft last, do they wait for cabin crew to help them do they rely on the help of other pax, are they allowed to impede the exit of others, e.g. if they sit in an aisle seat thus blocking the aisle, do they receive a special briefing in this regard?

Sorry if the question seems mean, and no disrespect intended to wheelchair users - just that there must be a protocol for this and I wonder what it is.

Basically we're fked. Normally told to sit in window seat so we won't impede others. Those who can at least crawl (actually a significant majority of wheelies, particularly of that subset who'd even attempt air travel) will be self-evacuating, those of us who can't are basically toast. I hope cabin crew & personal care assistants (if you can't self evac you can't fly alone) wouldn't risk dying trying to haul my arse out of trouble, and know they probably would.

Aaaand that's probably quite a large part of why I haven't been on a plane since I became this disabled…

[talksthetorque]

Dr Jekyll said:

Why are 'electronic cigarettes' not called 'electronic pipes'. If you throw away the remnants after smoking it's a cigarette, if you refill it and relight then it's a pipe.

Because Marketing.

It is named as the electronic version of the thing it replaces.

Not so many people giving up pipes I would suggest.

[Hugo a Gogo]

I think if they styled them like old Meerschaum Sherlock Holmes pipes the hipsters would go mad for them

edit: dammit, google says they already exist

[Willy Nilly]

Hugo a Gogo said:

I think if they styled them like old Meerschaum Sherlock Holmes pipes the hipsters would go mad for them

edit: dammit, google says they already exist

You live in Germany don't you? Are there German hipsters?

[AstonZagato]

Hugo a Gogo said:

I think if they styled them like old Meerschaum Sherlock Holmes pipes the hipsters would go mad for them

edit: dammit, google says they already exist

Funnily enough I googled this a week or so ago. I saw a normal man (not a hipster or a crumbly old fart) on the street smoking a pipe - something I haven't seen in many a year. He looked quite stylish doing so and it struck me that this looked far better than some of the e-cigarettes (that look like a cufflink box with a tube). So I thought I had a money spinning idea. Turns out others had got there first.

[Hugo a Gogo]

Willy Nilly said:

You live in Germany don't you? Are there German hipsters?

Of course.

We had hipsters before they were cool

[SpeckledJim]

Hugo a Gogo said:

Willy Nilly said:

You live in Germany don't you? Are there German hipsters?

Of course.

We had hipsters before they were cool

We've got them long after they were cool.

[FlyingMeeces]

Hugo a Gogo said:

Of course.

We had hipsters before they were cool

[Shakermaker]

FlyingMeeces said:

Ayahuasca said:

Physically disabled airline passengers- those who need to use wheelchairs to make it onto the aircraft, and normally board first.

Is there a wheelchair user protocol for emergency evacuation? In the event of an evacuation, WTF happens to them? Do they leave the aircraft last, do they wait for cabin crew to help them do they rely on the help of other pax, are they allowed to impede the exit of others, e.g. if they sit in an aisle seat thus blocking the aisle, do they receive a special briefing in this regard?

Sorry if the question seems mean, and no disrespect intended to wheelchair users - just that there must be a protocol for this and I wonder what it is.

Basically we're fked. Normally told to sit in window seat so we won't impede others. Those who can at least crawl (actually a significant majority of wheelies, particularly of that subset who'd even attempt air travel) will be self-evacuating, those of us who can't are basically toast. I hope cabin crew & personal care assistants (if you can't self evac you can't fly alone) wouldn't risk dying trying to haul my arse out of trouble, and know they probably would.

Aaaand that's probably quite a large part of why I haven't been on a plane since I became this disabled…

Yeah, pretty much what he said.

But since 2008 (and earlier in the case of USA based airlines) it has been against EU law to force a PRM (passenger with reduced mobility, the industry term) to sit in the window seat, even if it would put non-disabled customers at risk in the event of an emergency evacuation.

I work in this area so assist customers like yourself to/from aircraft and have done for many years now, and when I first started there were far too many times when we had passengers arguing with cabin crew about where they were sat in relation to a disabled customer, always as if the disabled passenger was not there at all when they were stood right next to them.

Thankfully though, the odds of this ever actually being an issue are minutely low so as not to be something really to worry about.

[FredClogs]

FlyingMeeces said:

sidekickdmr said:

Do wildlife recognise and feel compassion their own offspring once they have flown the nest?

Sat watching a mum/dad and about 8 goslings on the stream yesterday they were being very protective of them and clearly had a close bond, and we wondered, once they are old enough, and go their own way, do the parents still recognise and love their offspring, even years later?

Its only a small stream and leads to a small lake, so they are likely to see each other again, would they just swim by and not have a clue?

Same question applies to all animals, cats whose kittens get sold in the next street over, lions in the mountains, fish in the lakes.

a) Is it some sort of higher-order animal, b) how big's it's brain? c) is there any evolutionary advantage to that particular sort of social behaviour?

Fish, I am almost certain, not at all. The few species that brood their young do that and then that's it, sod off.

Reptiles are weird and I don't know. Amphibians are even weirder.

Birds - some, yes, definitely. A lot of species live in relatively cooperative communities, and especially if contact is never broken between parent and chick then there would be something, I reckon. More so for those large and long-lived species with a long period of parental dependency and much less so or not at all for anything little, squabbly, or solitary. Not mallards, once they're grown they're just competition.

Mammals - varies. Nearly all primates yes to degrees that vary, correlating closely with brain size (there was a really good BBC documentary a few years ago on this). Gorillas and such, great apes, emphatically yes and to pretty much the same degree as we do. Dogs and cats somewhat, maybe. Horses do a bit - again as with birds, if it's something that spends a really long time rearing its babies, and especially if it's something that lives communally, those bonds will likely be life-long. Elephants have got to be the shining example of that, and will acknowledge family members they haven't seen for YEARS, but even just bog standard domestic dairy cows will interact differently with their daughters, if they've been kept together.

I think this might be my favourite Tyawtktat post ever.

Not really true, there are plenty of large brained mammals who not only cannibalise others young but will also eat and fight their own young, including but not limited to chimps, bears and large cats. A female grizzly bear will quite happily eat her own young if it means her staying alive or she doesn't like the way they look.

Nature is red in tooth and claw, don't believe what Walt Disney tells you.