A chicken beat me in Tic-Tac-Toe

Now, before this gets moved to chit-chat, there is a point to this thread, and that point is to counter all those folks that say humans are the only animals that devastate their environment. I'll get to that.

It was 1993 at the Tulsa State Fair, and the chicken beat me 2 out of 3! Not ties, actual wins! I blame the distraction of it being a chicken, and I was on a 3rd date with a very pretty Indian girl from Quapaw, OK, and of course there was alcohol involved, but the chicken won fair and square. The chicken had a wire floor, and she got a shock if she lost, or a treat of she won, and she liked WINNING! But, overall chickens are pretty stupid. They say chickens are smarter than cats, but I don't believe it. Of course, I've never played a cat in Tic-Tac-Toe, so its hard to compare.

Now to the point. I just spent the last 4 hours cleaning the chicken coop and putting chicken wire around my blueberry bushes, and creating some barriers around my tortoise garden.

Oh ya, I've also got some African Sulcata Tortoises, and they have their own coop, with their own garden of Kale, Radishes, Pansies, and Hibiscus. (They LOVE yellow flowers.)



So, it is oft-repeated on ATS that humans are the only animals that devastate their own environment.

Did I mention I have a 120lb mutt of some kind? Maybe part shephard, part heeler, part american bulldog, but that's just a loose guess. He is a monster though.

NOW, the chickens are free-range chickens. They have a coop, but they roam the yard, and roam the 3 acres of woods behind my yard, but at night they come back to their coop all on their own, and right before I go to bed, I close it up to keep the raccoons and foxes out. They eat bugs, and frogs, and lizards, and grass, and spiders, and they get a serving of chicken scratch from me once per day. They are very, very healthy chickens, and we are getting about 4-6 eggs every day.



The chickens decided they liked my blueberry bushes, and since I like eggs more than I like blueberries, I figured let them have at it. What I didn't know, is that when they ran out of blueberries they would eat the leaves, and when they ran out of leaves, they would eat the sticks, and when they ran out of sticks, they would scratch it up out of the ground and kill the bush! I don't mind sharing my blueberries, but I don't want the bushes dug up and destroyed.

While I was out there, I realized my Tortoises had also destroyed their garden. They have a very large coop, with good sodded grass, which is their main staple, and the garden is just for their amusement. If they get too much nutrition, they will actually grow too fast and their shells could become deformed, so they are not supposed to have a constant supply of vegetables, it is just a healthy treat for them. BUT, they eat the leaves, and then the stems, and then they dig up the roots and bulbs and eat those TOO! They don't naturally dig, they are not burrowers, and they do not hibernate like many North American turtles. These are desert turtles. They require very little sustenance. So, now, I have re-planted their garden, with landcape stones around the trunk of the plant, and the bulbs and vegetables below the stone, so only the green foliage is accessible to the tortoises, and there is no room for digging. I'll still have to re-sod their enclosure every year, but I can live with that.

While I was out, I also ended up picking up white fuzz and fabric from the entire yard, because the dog decided to shred his dog bed this week, which he does routinely, and once the bed is destroyed, he sleeps on my picnic table, which gets him in big trouble, but he does it anyway. We buy him a nice dog bed about once per month, and he sleeps on it for about 3 weeks, and then shreds it one day.

So here's my point.

The tortoises destroy the plants planted for them, even though they have an abundance of food at their disposal. Instead of snacking randomly on the smorgasboard before them and allowing everythign to grow, instead they eat one plant at a time until it is entirely devastated and won't grow back, and then they move on to the next, until there is nothing green in their entire coop, and if it weren't for my human intervention, they would starve to death.

The chickens do something similar with the blueberry bushes, and the leaf beds that form around the trees, and the hay in their coop. Not to mention they defecate over everything in their coop, including the nests where they lay their eggs. Now, they are free to come and goe as they please, there is no reason for the mess, but they are just dumb chickens. If it were not for human intervention, they would die of disease from their own biological waste, and their chicks would be born into a disease infested filth. They also defecate in their water dishes until it is so nasty they won't even drink it. We clean the water bowls almost daily.

The dog destroys his own comfy bed, and endures a monthly beating, that he knows is coming, because the day he does it, and he sees me, he hits the ground and rolls over nad starts apologizing immediately.

If you've ever grown up around horses, you know they also do this to the grass and hay and trees. Most animals do.

In nature, a balance is often reached between predator and prey, but if something throws that balance out of whack, and some species is left unchecked, they will destroy their environment to the point that it is unliveable, and then they will die. It happens in fish ponds, it happens to deer, it happens everywhere.

Humans are the ONLY animal that is cognizant of its own environment and takes intentional steps to mitigate our impact! We are not perfect of course, and we make mistakes, and we over-indulge, and we often create unintended consequences. We screw up a lot of things, and it is important to try and remember to be "green." But, at least we are aware, and we try.

And we haven't even talked about the things we do in our environment for our own benefit, like piping in fresh water, piping out sewage, collecting refuse and hauling it out to a highly engineered landfill, or recycling.

Humans do a lot of damage, but we do a lot to mitigate that damage. Animals do a lot of damage, and without human intervention or some balance of nature, they just die from their own mistakes.

So, it is oft-repeated on ATS that humans are the only animals that devastate their own environment.

You're confusing the word destroying/devastation with eating.

I'm sorry but turtles never added poison to the land and water.
They never destroyed the rainforest on a whim.
They eat plants, that's much different from destroying plants.
Their actions never made holes in the Ozone layer.


There's a BIG difference.

reply to post by darkhorserider

 

In nature, a balance is often reached between predator and prey, but if something throws that balance out of whack, and some species is left unchecked, they will destroy their environment to the point that it is unliveable, and then they will die. It happens in fish ponds, it happens to deer, it happens everywhere.

True to an extent but Humans plan ahead,
We are omnivores so we farm produce and raise livestock for slaughter. Could we be doing a better more environmentally friendly sustainable efficient manner?


Yes

reply to post by SLAYER69


Certainly, we could be doing a MUCH better job at it.

We have a unique problem that there is no natural balance for us. If I allowed my chickens to breed unchecked, they would devastate my yard and the surrounding acreage until they starved and died. Nobody is checking the population of humans.

In fish populations, when the predators are limited, the fish become less healthy, more prone to disease, smaller and less robust, etc. Introduce a few big bass to a population of Bream, and the Bream that don't get eaten begin to thrive, because the slower and smaller and weaker of their species are eaten by the Bass.

There are no big Bass to introduce to the human population, so if we were not such an intelligent species, we would suffer disease and famine, and we would die out to a more natural population level. We counter that natural balance with forethought, planning, farming, medicine, and environmental friendly practices.

That was my point. We DO try to live in harmony with our environment, but we still need to do a better job of course. Unless we want to discuss population reduction, but I don't think anyone really wants that, so we have to continue to strive to find other ways to mitigate our impact.

But we do mitigate it, we do make the effort, we do give it the forethought, and we do plan ahead.

A lot of the comments I see on ATS make it seem as if we are just ravaging the planet without a concern in the world.

reply to post by Ghost375

You're confusing the word destroying/devastation with eating.

I'm sorry but turtles never added poison to the land and water.
They never destroyed the rainforest on a whim.
They eat plants, that's much different from destroying plants.
Their actions never made holes in the Ozone layer.

Sure, humans create a lot of waste for reasons other than eating. Like driving vehicles and mining gold to wear on our necks.

But cows destroy the ozone. Red Tide destroys the sea life. I also have ducks, and the duck feces destroys the pond I built for them. Hoards of Ants do destroy the rainforest once in awhile.

My tortoises are native to the Sahara Desert, and if I left them to their own devices, my yard would look like the Sahara desert when they were done with it, LOL!

IN a way, I am defending the actions of humans, but I'm not saying we don't do a lot of terrible things, I'm just saying we are an animal, like all other animals, except we are the ONLY animal to actually make an attempt to limit our impact.

And as Dostoevsky said,
"People sometimes talk of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beast. A beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. he would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to."

reply to post by Ghost375


Doestevsky apparently never watched his house cat rip a baby bunnies guts open just for fun, and slowly play with the entrails without eating a thing, then getting bored and moving on to chasing a moth, while the bunny suffers and finally passes away hours later without serving any purpose whatsoever.

reply to post by darkhorserider


that quote still stands true.

Beasts can be cruel, but humans can be "artistically cruel."
He wasn't saying animals can't be cruel. He specifically says that tigers do indeed tear and gnaw. He was saying that humans take the cruelty to a different level.

A friend of mine bought some x battery hens, and he was gutted when they ate his entire garden, even the roots

How about a picture of the BIG dog, I love dogs

reply to post by darkhorserider


I too thought that chickens were stupid creatures but after owning a bunch that were left by the previous owner at my place I realised that they were far more intelligent than I thought. They come and watch what I am working on out of curiosity and call out to us if they see some kind of predator. They seem to have a kind of behaviour or language/code they use when they find food which is different to the way they act when they find water.
How about a photo of that big dog?

well, although I'm a MASTER at tic-tac-toe, those other chickens aren't.
They just put corn kernals out and the computer program is what beat ya

I've tried a half dozen uploads of the dog, and all of them are getting error messages? The others went up with no problems? I don't know if it is ATS or my browser, but I'll try again in a little while.

Originally posted by PurpleChiten
well, although I'm a MASTER at tic-tac-toe, those other chickens aren't.
They just put corn kernals out and the computer program is what beat ya

I thought the same thing, but it was a pretty low-tech device, and this was in 1993. The guy running the booth said the chicken gets a little jolt of electricity when it chooses wrong, and it gets feed when it chooses right. Over a short amount of time it becomes very proficient at Tic-Tac-Toe, LOL!

Now, even if the chicken were an expert, there is no reason anybody should ever win or lose at the game. It should always be a tie, but when you factor in all my distractions at the fair, the alcohol, the girl, and the wonder of competing against a chicken, I was probably a pretty easy mark!

The girl I was with ended up paying $2 to milk a cow, and she got peed on, so my loss wasn't all that bad, at least I didn't get peed on. (The pee splattered, no bull jokes, it was a real cow.) Fairs are fun!

reply to post by darkhorserider


That's why you always milk into a small bucket and dump it into a big bucket

reply to post by PurpleChiten


LOL! I've heard my mother say that before. We never had cows or horses at my house, although I was around them quite a bit as a kid, but never at my own house. We had chickens though, and now my kids have chickens.

My Mom grew up with the whole self-sufficient mini-farm, where they walked out in the yard and wrung a chicken's neck for dinner. They had 1 milk cow, and dozens of chickens, and a couple of goats, and my Dad had horses and pigs. I hope to create something similar for my kids before they get too old to appreciate it.

reply to post by darkhorserider


It makes for such great memories

...and if TSHTF, we're all set!

reply to post by darkhorserider


......okay sorry but we humans are much worse then chickens or turtles. just because they do stuff like that in CAPTIVATED does not mean thats how they are in the wild.

we humans are stupid thinking we are any more special than the rest of the kingdom

Originally posted by SolarIce
reply to post by darkhorserider

 

......okay sorry but we humans are much worse then chickens or turtles. just because they do stuff like that in CAPTIVATED does not mean thats how they are in the wild.

we humans are stupid thinking we are any more special than the rest of the kingdom

My chickens are not captive, they are entirely free, I don't even clip their wings. Once in awhile some will even disappear for a day or two and then come back.

My turtles are necessarily captive, because they are not native to North America, and they would likely die on their own, but the resources and space in their enclosure is probably 400% of what they need.

This is EXACTLY how they would act in the wild.

reply to post by darkhorserider


What you are talking about has little to do with predator and prey. You are confining animals in a condfined space. That is why they are destroying it. Chickens are originally jungle birds. They would scavenge the landscape for food. Not be confined to a small area...

Originally posted by purplemer
reply to post by darkhorserider

 

What you are talking about has little to do with predator and prey. You are confining animals in a condfined space. That is why they are destroying it. Chickens are originally jungle birds. They would scavenge the landscape for food. Not be confined to a small area...

My chickens are not confined in any way. The tortoises are loosely confined, but in a very large area. They are not destroying things because they are out of food or out of real estate. There can be 10 other identical plants with foliage on them, but instead of eating a little off each plant, they eat one plant to death, destroy the roots, and then move on to the next one. In time, there are no more plants, and I have to re-plant.

I understand what you are getting at, but you are wrong. The issue is their habit of devasting one thing before moving on to the next. This isn't an overpopulation issue, and this isn't a limited resource issue. This is just stupid birds destroying the very things sustaining them, and if it weren't for me, they would eventually kill all their resources for no reason at all.