Thoughts from our students of 2012

This week I thought I would acknowledge some of the work our National Certificate in Animal Care students have been doing writing blog posts for their Monitor health and provide husbandry units relating to reducing the environmental impact of these animals as pets.

Here are some of the top posts selected by the programme coordinator.............

Rabbits and Rodents

From Ashley:

Having owned and bred rabbits during my childhood and adolescence I developed many ways of making my experience with them more sustainable and economical. After I had out grown my play house my family and I decided to convert the building into a spacious rabbit hutch which also included a raised deck for the rabbits to sunbathe on and a large, fully fenced outside area. By reusing my old play house I was able to create an ideal captive environment for my rabbits.

Planting a small vegetable garden close to the hutch helped me to provide my rabbits with plenty of nutritious food and also taught me from a young age about horticulture and cultivation.

Composting the rabbits used bedding, cutting our own hay and providing home-made toys also helped to create a more sustainable rabbit ownership.

From Lisa:

Our course materials have given us some great ideas for sustainable practices so this is hard to top! For me as an organic gardener I can't think of a better way than to share this with our pets. Even if you don't have a large garden with space for a vegetable patch or fruit trees it is still possible to feed your pets organically. Small raised beds are easy to manage and if you have even less space container gardening is another option. Not only does this keep our environment and soils free from pesticides and insecticides it is a far healthier option for both ourselves and our pets. This is also a great way to get children involved in something that will hopefully stay with them throughout their lifetime.

From Esther:

I have two mice at home so I will focus on them but when it comes to sustainability for rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice the are all very similar. These are all small animals that like to play, hide, chew and run so toys are very important for them. Toys don't necessarily need to be expensive and brought from a pet shop, you can use things you find around your home. My mice love to run through toilet paper rolls and chew on the cardboard. We also use ropes around the cage for them to climb on and foliage from the garden. They seem to love nothing more then a big fern leaf to hide under and make little nests out of. I think you sometimes need to go back to how the animals would live in the wild to get ideas on how to get environmental enrichment.

From Carrie

When it comes to cleaning the hutch/cage you do not need expensive chemicals. White vinegar is a great cleaning agent which can be diluted to make a good quantity.

From Olivia:

I don't buy many packaged goods and subsequently have very few items to reuse as enrichment for a companion animal, so I've been thinking about ways to use food to contain other foraging items.

I'm a huge fan of using the daily diet as part of an enrichment toy, not just "yummies" and treats. Here are a few ideas I've been working on which you can adapt to suit rabbits, guinea pigs or rats:

Stuffing hay, veggies or fruit between the florets on a head of broccoli or cauliflower heads
Gauging out and stuffing holes in carrots
Bell peppers are already pretty hollow so they can be filled with regular diet and holes made in the sides of the pepper to make it apparent that there are things inside.
Stuffing a ball of hay with veggies and greens

Bacteria has a sweet tooth, so as a cautionary note I would add that fruit will spoiler sooner than veggies so err on the side of "not much", especially as fruit isn't a substantial part of rabbits'/guinea pigs'/rats' diets.

Rats are very good at manipulating things with their forepaws, so things like the broccoli can be tied or suspended by the stalk using soft leather strips, which are reusable and won't cause harm to teeth.

Things like this only take a few minutes to make and are a great way to engage youngsters in learning about the different proportions of food types within a companion animal's diet.

Birds

From Teresa

Working in a bird related field there are a few things that we do at "Animal Facility - Name removed" to reduce our carbon footprint for our birds

Eco-perches- made from 100% recycled products
Bamboo - bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants in the world, it is more environmentally friendly than plastic or wood made from slow growing trees. You can use bamboo to make swings, mobiles, perches and live bamboo plants for larger bird cages
Instead of buying lots of expensive toys for birds to climb on you can use real trees, ideal ones would have a lot of defined branches for climbing and chewing on.
In your backyard you can use a solar powered bird bath and fountain, this would reduce cost to run an electric fountain and also attract alot of wild birds to your garden.

From Michelle

Just by doing this birds unit standard I have learnt a lot!!! I think owners should do a little research into what their birds needs are, what behaviours would they carry out if they were in the wild. Spend time watching their birds finding its likes dislikes and how it behaves. The information the owners gain can benefit their birds lives. Owners would then be able to incorperate toys, and evironmental enrichment that would keep the bird occuped and can give their bird the opportunity to carry out behaviours they would carry out in the wild (or close to).

Some natural enrichment toys that would not cost a lot and could be used over over again are:

Coconut, are durable and the coconut husks and shells can be used for long periods of time for the bird to play with.
Bamboo to perch and chew on.
Hemp can be used as a type of rope its a perfect matrix for hanging chewing toys.
Some suggestions are to change the perch positioning to make it easier of more difficult to get to a particular area of the cage this would encourage birds to use thier puzzle solving skills.
Foraging enrichment- Use problem solving skills again by weaving greenary through cage bars.
Fruit and vegetables stuck on the kebab stick then suspended in the aviary.
Social enrichment: Personally talking to and playing with birds in your house
Hang "toy-trees", hang multibranched section of bird safe branches from the ceiling of the cage.
Old rope (bird safe) from wall to wall of the cage, change the postion of rope and have different types of rope (cheap from hardware stores) to provide exercise and stimulation.
Treasure bags ( canuse small cardboard boxes or paper towels) that are cheap, put plasitc army men or creature toys inside the bag along with other materials such as straws/small crumpled paper plates/ cups bits of fabric and cardboard plastic hair rollers.
Tuck special items like those above into folds of fabric for the bird to find.

From Janine

As we progress thru the course my mindset has changed regarding sustainability. Prior to the course I used to think i was doing my bit, by recycling, using canvas shopping bags instead of plastic... etc. However when it came to thinking of my pets and sustainability in the same sentence, I must admit I struggled for a while. I think I do a good job with our cat and dog, and the chooks, but when I think of pet birds/wild birds, I have to think hard - how could I assist with enhancing the most sustainable creature??

I remember at some point in my childhood making dripping bombs with bird seed in them to hang from the tree and feed the wild birds, well, my elderly neighbour, still does this, she goes one step further by making a bird feeding station every monday afternoon. Thru out the week she collects up the left over green veg from her vege garden, crushed egg shells from her chooks and she adds this to a wild bird seed mix, she then uses the left over fat/dripping from the traditional sunday night roast to bind it altogether, then the best part, she hangs it in a hand crocheted mesh bag from a tree in her back yard. What a fantastic idea, and a way to benefit an already sustainable creature!

From Ian

If sustainability is a large concern for someone they should think chickens. Chickens are an obvious one because they can be locally sourced and they have low to no electricity requirements. They can produce eggs, meat and compost which you can consume or sell at local markets. You could use their products to barter with other locals for labour or goods, lessening the need to have things shipped or imported. They are great for keeping bugs down in your home garden and will eat a lot of the organic waste from our table or garden. They largly take care of themselves and will often love human interaction. Have fun with them, make them part of your life and sustainability might not seem like such a chore.

From Lisa

While searching for sustainable ideas for birds I came across the following website which has recipes for homemade cleaning and disinfecting solutions for bird cages. I think this a great alternative to purchasing expensive prepackaged cleaning and disinfecting solutions. Full instructions are given including the safety of your bird while cleaning and disinfecting and there are some other interesting articles too.

Cats

From Schemell

Well I was so pleasantly suprised by the cattery that I went to, which is literally like a palace holiday while their owners are away.

While there I was introduced to the new concept of using garden bark in their litter trays, now I had never thought of using this at all, but I think its brilliant and if you think about it totally natural if your cat was to go outside I can almost bet they would use the bark.

The great thing is if you live more rurally the litterbox can be taken further away from the house and put into the garden where nature can do its job. Well I was so impressed as I was going through a 15L bag of kitty litter every week and a half (indoor cats) so I just had to try it, so I went out the next day and bought a 40L bag of bark nuggets for a low price of $7.00 and tried it out straight away, no worries at all and the cats seem as happy as before!
Great way to save money and be more sustainable to.

From Marie

The benefits of Micro-chipping your cat. Firstly, the cost (when I say cost I mean both financial and the cost to the environment as well) of cat collars and name tags can be quite high over a cat's lifetime, especially if you have a cat with a knack for removing collars. the use of petro chemicals to produce synthetic collars has a hugely negative impact on the environment, and is not sustainable.

Now, if we had got the cat micro-chipped, we could have got a fancy one that reads the temperature of the cat too (excellent time and stress saving option for the vet nurse and the cat on the next visit to the vet clinic), for just $56. A one off cost with less carbon footprint than synthetic collars.

When cats are not micro-chipped, there are extra costs when the cat gets lost. Printing out posters and resources used for scouring the neighbourhood can be minimised, as well as less resources used by SPCA if they pick up your cat and it is instantly identifiable. So no vaccinations wasted on cats with an unknown vax status, and nothing better than reuniting animals with their human companions.

From Alyce:

I have three cats at home and decided to buy a cat bed that looks like a cushion shaped box that has a whole in the front of it for one of the cat to get into and sleep in. Turns out they prefer a cardboard box that was left on my dinning room table. I agree that we find the cat bed in shops more appealing than our cats. Since then i now have 3 boxes for my 3 cats and they love it. Safe money, time and reuse a cardboard box instead.

From Emily:

I think one of the biggest issues around domestic cats in New Zealand is the threat they pose to our native wildlife (birds, lizards, geckos and invertebrates). New Zealand has an amazing and unique range of birds and animals that have evolved on an island without mammalian predators, many species are very vulnerable. Domestic cats and ferals cats (a population fed by the domestic cat population) have been filmed preying on eggs, chicks and adult birds of many native species. Ideally, people living near wildlife reserves with vulnerable wildlife should not keep cats. However, if you really must have a cat...the Department of Conservation (www.doc.govt.nz) have a list of things you can do to make your cat more 'conservation friendly':

Have your cat neutered so they won't produce kittens that may end up homeless.
Feed your cat a balanced meal at a regular time, because hungry cats go hunting.
Put your cat in a cattery when you go on holiday so they don't wonder off and start hunting.
Feed cats inside an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset, because that's when birds are most active in the garden.
Keep cats inside at night, as night time is prime hunting time.
Fit a collar with bells to your cat, this will warn birds that a cat is nearby.
Put animal guards around trees that have nesting birds so your cat can't climb the tree and attack nesting birds and chicks.

Dogs

From Rebecca:

In order to give my dog a healthy, balanced, yet sustainable diet, i have moved away from conventional kibble feeding. Instead, I order raw chicken carcasses from various Dunedin poultry stores and pair this with fresh veges and eggs etc. I have found this method not only made my dog look and feel better but I have little or no packaging to deal with. The chicken carcasses are an inexpensive feed and also make use of the frames after these stores have extracted all the meat. Homemade treats are also a good option - filled with liver etc they provide a great alternative to the expensive (and often wrapped in a ridiculous amount of plastic) store brought treats.

And finally from Ian (probably with a bit of tongue in cheek):

I think nearly everything (if not everything) to do with viable ways of making dogs sustainable has already been said. fact seems to be that making your own litter, poo fertilizer, Eco-friendly toys and all those good ideas will help a lot but to some degree its limited by dogs being dogs, they consume resources, we consume resources. So shy of eating them, the only other thing i could come up with is maybe putting them on a hamster wheel with a virtual reality image of a field and sticks to chase and hooking it up to a dynamo and battery pack to power your house or car. They could run for say 2 hours over the course of the day and potentially generate a substantial amount of energy. It would keep them entertained, exercised and more sustainable long term. I know it sounds like slavery but we work to sustain our future, this is a way they could too.
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I hope you enjoy these ideas. Remeber they are ideas and opinions of individual people and when choosing any of these options you should use due diligence to check out what you plan to do properly, prior to making the change.

Thank you to the Animal Care students of 2012 at Otago Polytechnic for really getting into this concept of sharing ideas around a topic we perhaps haven't thought much about before. I really wish I could have shared ALL of your ideas here. I believe each and every one of you are on the way to becoming sustainable practitioners.

Have a great weekend.

Kind Regards
Francesca

Thursday, September 6, 2012