Posted on 11/25/2018 12:51:40 PM PST by SJackson
You can get wool from a cotton plant? Wow! This city boy learns something new everyday. :)
I thought of mentioning dogs. I didn't grow up on a farm, but spent summers and holidays there. When in high single digits I remember a huge, to me at 8 or 9, bull which with his own enclosure who would approach snorting when I walked by. Little farm dog, orange guy, would come roaring to my rescue biting the bull at the heels. Mr Bull would walk off. I would have nominated dogs as the smartest, but someone would argue for cats. But both are farm animals in this context. Crows though, they're smart. Horrible voice.
Yes, I expected the thread would focus on that, but I was wrong. My mom who grew up on a farm in the early 20th century hated the turkeys. With a passion that lasted for decades, else I wouldn’t know about it. Note the five are all animals I think it’s fair to say are relatively human friendly. But also probably about the five most popular.
They need a better proof reader.
In 10,000 years of selective breeding, farm animals have NEVER been selected for their smarts.
I spent a summer tending a flock of turkeys, once.
Every morning, let them out, watch over them all day and then count them before I put them back at night.
One night, came up one short.
Hunted it for hours, and found it, and for reasons only it knew, it decided to ‘nest’ in a nice, warm pool of tar.
OMG, never again.
Stupidest things on earth.
I thought the dumbest animal was A O-C, followed by Maxine Waters, Democrats in general then RINOs...then sheep...
Couldn’t agree more. They are one of the few idiot animals that will stand out in a hail storm and get clobbered. Male turkeys will attack anything that looks remotely like a threat, including their own reflections in windows and car doors.
But they join a few animals that aren’t real bright. Panda are not going to far with their future in brains. With practically no protein or vitamins in the bamboo they eat, it is hardly brain food and it certainly doesn’t provide pandas with enough energy to get up and go. That’s part of the reason they only mate once a year in the wild –they just don’t have the energy to do it more often than that.
Australia is being over run with the Cane Toad. This little stud muffin will hump anything, and I mean, anything. They’re well known for sexually attacking dead animals, even trying for hours to breed a female that has been run over by a car, but they don’t limit themselves to just dead frogs, they’ll even assault dead salamanders, snakes, lizards, mice, anything.
Another is the Kakapo. This flightless parrot has defaulted to an absolutely horrible method of defense. If you scare it, it will either hold completely still, or climb up a tree and then jump out –but since it can’t fly, it merely lands in a pathetic heap on the ground. If you don’t scare it, it very well may come out to say hi and, if it is a male, it may try to have sex with you.
So turkeys may be stupid, but they are up the brain chain from a few anyway.
rwood
Guineas have to rank somewhere in the stupidest category.
There were paths worn to bare dirt where ours would run back and forth trying to figure out how to get across a 4’ wire fence, undeterred by the chickens flapping their wings 3 times and sailing over it right in front of them.
Many days, I would leave in the morning and return in the evening and it would still be running back and forth.
At some point about roost time, it would figure out it could fly across.
The following day, it all started over again as if nothing had ever happened.
For years.
Cute article
My ex-FIL had a pet crow growing up that would follow him to school then be there when school let out and follow him home.
I’ve never paid much attention to them other than watch them chase hawks and learned something new the other day.
I throw out bird feed so my elderly father can watch the critters through the window. The other day there were a dozen dove, five squirrels, three chimpmunks and about a 1/2 dozen other birds partaking of the feast.
A crow landed about 50’ away in the yard and started walking towards the feed. Every single critter scattered to the wind by the time he got there.
I agree with those that say cattle are smarter than horses, they definitely are in my experience. Horses are actually pretty stupid and anyone from an old farm family that used mules will tell you that a mule is much more intelligent than a horse. Goats are pretty sharp too, they’re downright comical sometimes.
It's an old British expression, to call the mass of plant fiber "cotton wool." I still see this expression in the DailyMail. Perhaps there were some English settlers up there where he lived (with his German last name), and the farm people kept the vernacular going.
Crows chase hawks? Come to think of it, when I hear hawks scream, there don’t seem to be any crows and vice versa.
Crows pester the red tail and cooper’s hawks all the time around here. Usually when you hear a crow concentration in the woods it’s because they are harassing a hawk.
Are the crows just competition for the hawk or do they actually attack the hawks to hurt them? Or both. I’ve never seen them in the same skyscape simultaneously but didn’t think of it in those terms.
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