Problematic feeding incidents

[darthchinchi]

I hope things have cooled down enough for me to share these cases.

Feeding anything but pellets, hay, branches and maybe the odd raicin, is a big NO-NO most places. One of the issues being if one person experiences problems, this one issue will become the norm. It doesn't matter how many used it or uses it with no issue at all, as long as one experienced and issue it will be deemed not safe for chinchillas.

I think this is about 10 years ago. A friend of mine and I visited a Norwegian chinchilla forum on a regular basis. One day a chinchilla died. Just before it died it was fed dried banana. Nobody did a necropsy on the animal and yet the consensus was the animal had died from eating this one piece of dried banana. The theory was that the banana had swollen in the stomach and killed the animal.
Problem was and still is, lots of people used dried bananas as treats from time to time with no issues what so ever.
Yet a group of reputable breeders and keepers held on to their conclusion and tried to get the word out to the nordic community.
Luckily it didn't happen as we disproved the idea via consistent argumentation based on the fact that for example my own animals had dried bananas as treats and never had any issues. And the fact that nobody preformed a necropsy made it clear it was impossible to conclude what killed the animal.

When I first got into the community online, nuts was seen as not chinchilla safe. Nuts has previously caused issues with obesity and other healt related issues. At this point chinchilla diet was even more of a mystery than it is today. There were a lot less commercial feeds and people gave them all sorts of bad treats and gave too many treats. Back then, when mentioning nuts as treats, people almost spoke about them as if the mere sight of a nut could cause obesity and would kill the animal.
Some of us started feeding nuts again but in a more controlled manner. Not on a daily basis and most of us tried to give the nuts with shells as stimulation for the animals.
Today nuts (peanuts, hazelnuts and almonds) are common treats for chinchillas here. We do not see an increase in obesity and there is not an issue with fatty liver disease, even though nuts are rumoured to cause this even in very small amounts. When I say common it's not a daily thing, more of a weekly or monthly thing. This is a lot different from the time where they might be given nuts on a daily basis and a couple a day.

We face a big issue when 1 person can experience a problem, and this outweighs the 100 persons who didn't experience a problem.
This is not to try and make people stop talking about issues. We just have to listen to both sides and if the positive outweigh the negative we really have to take this into consideration.

[randomname]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation


I may get this wiki page tattooed on my face one day.....

[darthchinchi]

Problem is when the majority do not get this.

If we look at the genetics we have two types of fur variatons. The curly and the angora. These used to be seen as dominant mutations (only needing 1 of their max 2 genes to show). Over time they have mysteriously changed into recessive mutations (both genes are needed for the mutations to show).
Think is, the "carrier" form of these furtypes can show a difference in the fur but as it is not full blown curls or long fur, it is not sought after. Problem is, the definiton of a dominant mutation is that there is a difference, no matter how subtile. Sometimes we see "carrier" angoras with mohawks or longer fur around their bodies. This is a fundamental truth when it comes to genetics. At shows here, judges even report the so called carriers to vary from the normal furtype it's just nok easy to see. But not people selectivly breed shorter fur in the hetero (1 gene) form of the angora, or reather the hunt for angoras made people buy what ever they could get their hands on only thinking to improve the homo (2 genes) form. Thing is, it is not uncommon for dominant mutations to change character when om homozygous form. In reptiles they often refere to this as the "super" form.

I actually made an article on the subject where I asked a scientist who knows about this, and still people said this is not correct because the show world prefers the homo form...

[moletteuk]

I think human emotions can be such a big hindrance to factual information sharing, especially when it comes to something so charged as much loved pets. Panic and fear and shame make it difficult for people to report things objectively and then similar feelings in the readers make it difficult to weigh up any new information fairly. With a little patience with each other and time for the strong feelings to fade, I think it's important for people to report things and hopefully at some point people can be calm enough to discuss everything rationally. I think any communication, even if it goes a bit wrong, is better than no communication.

[randomname]

I honestly think people are thinking less & less critically & scientifically as time passes. Was talking to someone about something yesterday, they asserted something so I asked for sources - they looked at me like I was crazy. All I wanted was a webpage, a news article or something to go on, but they just kept asserting their assertion because it happened to them once.

I want critical thinking taught in every school, people only get taught to obey blindly, not how to think for themselves.

And what's so wrong with saying I don't know? People nowadays (lol I sound like my mum) hate to admit they don't know something. Or they think any opinion is better than none.

I have read a little philosophy around this & I try to remind myself that the more I know, the more there is to know. Therefore I will always be ignorant.

[moletteuk]

The whole world is turning into a thin, shiny, brittle veneer, below which there is just a black hole of ignorance. If you teach people critical thinking, then they immediately critically analyse the teacher and authority of the school - the teachers and schools must have something to hide or fear to want to avoid this??

My best friend watches Big Brother and every year is more appalled at the complete lack of communication skills of the people involved. As well as critical thinking, people need to learn how to disagree and debate with each other without animosity, without it being personal beyond the subject. We all need to learn how to separate emotions from reasoning.

Imagine how much better people's lives could be if they learned how to think and how to discuss things!!!!

[darthchinchi]

The Internet has pushed the evolution of the hive mind. I can't remember the name of the documentary that explored this. We do tend to rely on the hive mind for remembering things that is not important to us. Someone else must remember, so why should I. And fact is we really do not have to remember ad much ad we used to. Not only because of the sheer number of people with specialities all over the place but also because of all the information we have stored online. A whole generation has to learn about sources and how to be critical in a new way because of the Internet. Here schools had to ban Wikipedia as a source of information in papers. Wikipedia can be a great source for further references though.

One of the biggest TV hits here is about a guy who wants to do things for himself. He's learning the old ways and build his own house out of materials they either repurposed or made. He has a lot of contacts who helped him out. He has a small farm and doesn't use machines to harvest or sow. This is really about knowing your stuff and getting back to basics. We need more like this. It's called Bonderøven if you want to try and find it.

An other issue is the 15 minutes of fame syndrom. People get famous for not being able to so anything other than looking great and saying idiotic things on TV. When young people look at this and want to try out for this mindless **** it dumbs down a big part of a generation.

Here we also have an issue with University being the only cool thing. I personally would still love a degree in biology, but this is due to a big passion of mine. Not just because I want a degree and what to be the best. When I went to university a lot of the really smart people sounded so incredible dumb when talking amongst one another. They used words they didn't have a clue what meant. Nobody said anything they just followed the leed. Seriously one time I felt so stupid because I'm not good at using these big words in conversation. I know what most of them mean though, and then it hit me, half these people didn't know how to use the words correctly they just wanted to come of intelligent.
No wonder being critical is an issue when people are like this. It's almost ten years ago and still gets my blood boiling.

I don't know about you guys, I personally enjoy learning new things. I don't mind asking if I don't know what someone is talking about. I do get why many might not want to ask though as you can't help but bump into knucklehead who don't mind pointing you out as an idiot if you admit there's something you don't know.

[randomname]

Every day I read see things online that interest my curiosity. Can be about anything. Then I spend a while following links, reading a bit around it & enjoying the "ahh" moment when things click in my head. I've just been reading about the concept of learned helplessness after seeing a random Reddit comment. I knew of the concept, but not any details. It was literally the first thing I did today when having my morning cup of tea. I do this 5-10 times a day. If I hear a word I don't know, or have a question pop in my mind (Like yesterday - what's the difference between a hurricane & a typhoon?) I google it straight away. I just want to understand everything lol. I love the internet
I asked friends what they do online - turns out mostly tv/films, social media, shopping, gambling, work/study etc. No one seemed to do what I do. I'm not saying I don't do stuff like that (at the moment I have last nights' Fear the Walking Dead on one tab, am typing this in another & have a few pages open as I'm researching cat enrichment) but I wonder if people are generally filling their lives & minds with work/tv/sport/drinking etc - just slogging through life, never thinking, just work/entertainment 'til they die. That seems to be what most of the people I know do.
I totally agree with Darth that people think they don't have to learn anything as "it's all on the internet". They see something on a website, don't bother to check the sources, studies or opposing viewpoints. Their curiosity is dead. Might as well be a zombie!

I don't think I've ever had a day pass in my life where i haven't learned something new which leads me to the knowledge that the amount of what I don't know is always vastly huger. An iceburg of knowledge