Pet Care Tips, Advice and Information

Trees provide birds with song-posts, roost-sites, nesting-places and food, either directly through their seeds, nuts or fruits, or indirectly through the insects they attract. Anything with reasonably thick foliage might provide a roost-site; ornamental evergreens are best for this, but beyond planting a few of these there are not much you can do.  You should not worry too much about providing song-posts; most birds will use whatever is available, including roofs, television aerials, wires, as wells trees and bushes.

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Many of the plants available commercially for garden ponds will be suitable, but, for a more natural look, much better strategy is to introduce a majority of native species—the sort of things that grow in real ponds in your district. However, the law places certain restraints on the uprooting of wild plants, even common ones. Be sure that you have the necessary permission before going to your local pond for supplies; take only a few plants of the kinds you need and cause as little damage as possible while doing so. Choose only places where these plants are abundant. In many ways, it is often better to scrounge what you want from neighbors or friends with established ponds. Hornwort is an excellent oxygenating plant. Some other useful species you can introduce include water mint, waterforgetmenot, water planting, marsh marigold, marestail,yellow flag iris, bog bean, purple loosestrife, frog bit(floating), amphibious bistort (floating) and (at the deepest parts) water lilies. Reed grass (Palmaris) will grow well around the wet edges, as will bog arum, primulas and various ferns. Reed mace will form big, attractive stands and may need some control as your pond matures; unless you have a lot of room or are prepared to carry out continuous management it is probably not good idea to introduce the highly invasive and fast-spreading common reed (phraginites).

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Making an artificial pond is an exciting prospect (at least, it is once you’ve dug the hole). This is in any case popular and common practice among gardeners, and many of the better gardening books give excellent advice on what to do. A formal garden pool—even a fairly sophisticated water garden—will provide good conditions for birds, but in many ways a purpose-built pool is better. The only constraints are how much you want to spend and how much space you have available.

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If you move into a house with a river frontage, or a lake or decent-sized pond at the foot of the garden, spend some time watching what happens before planning any changes. Find out which waterside plants are growing there and which birds are using them for food or shelter. Large areas of reeds or so-called `bulrushes’ may extend right across your frontage, and its perhaps tempting to clear them away to give a clear view across areas of open water—but it may be much better to create a couple of large gaps in the cover, retaining some of it at either end and in a clump or two in the middle. This broken edge effect is likely to prove more attractive to more bird. Species than either a clear shoreline or a continuous, unbroken line of vegetation. Fly producing little bays and inlets you will provide loafing spots for duck, feeding areas for snipe and open crossing points which might help you to spot More furtive birdlike the water rail_ You might also attract a fishing heron and, if you provide one or two strategically placed perches, regular visits from a kingfisher.

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In planning a bird garden, it fall into two categories—wholly new, untouched sites and existing gardens. The first type obviously provides a lot of scope and can be planned from scratch, whereas in the case of an established garden it is a question of taking stock of what is already there and thinking about how it might be changed or added to.

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Pleasure begins, perhaps, with the simple appreciation of color and all the marvelous ways in which plumage details vary. Some birds are immediately striking, like a kingfisher or any of the woodpeckers, while others are more subtly attractive, like warblers and finches, or even (when you bother to look at them more closely) the more commonplace starlings and house sparrows. Then you begin to notice that birds move in many different ways: some hop, some run, others waddle. Some climb adroitly or, like tits, are accomplished acrobats. Some are very tame, even confident, while  others are wary or unobtrusive. Once you have started to notice these things, you are already a birdwatcher. The next step is to learn which bird is which and to find out more about their lifestyles.

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Horse botflies specialize in attacking animals of the horse family, though occasionally a young larva, or bot, burrows into the skill oaf human being. Three of the four species of these flies are common in the United States.

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Mange, scabies, scab, or itch in equines is caused, as in other animals, by three species of mites, the sarcoptic, psoroptic, and chorioptic. Usually the disease is transmitted by direct contact, but it may be carried in other ways, since both the mites and the eggs can live for a time off the host animals; hence when mange appears, the premises and equipment should be cleaned and disinfected, and all the horses should be treated.

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Dourine is essentially an equine syphilis caused by one of the microscopic parasites called try panosomes and transmitted by sexual contact. The first symptoms, which appear on the sex organs, may be entirely unnoticed. Secondary symptoms, appearing some time later, consist of wheals like hives, on various parts of the body. Months or even years after the disease first strikes,it may give rise to marked disturbances of the central nervous system which when end in paralysis and death. A mortality rate of 50 percent is not uncommon. There is no known cure.

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An ancient disease of horses, mules, and asses, glanders can do an immense amount of damage, especially where these animals are concentrated in large numbers; over 58,000 had it in the French Army alone during the last war, and many of them had to be slaughtered. Occasionally other animals and human beings get the disease. Fortunately, glanders has now been practically eradicated in the United States.

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