A Mann And A Bull

All the day of Saturday we passed in the agricultural show in Bastia Umbra (North of Italy if you see it from us). We go there sometimes, because we can go there and turn back in one day. There are 400 km one side. I wanted to write some posts about animals I saw there, and today I wanted to begin with this story that I hope you will like.

This beauty is a bull of a Chianina breed (breed from Chianin is better as a translation). It's a champion, and his master took him in the center of the place to attract persons to visit his agricultural farm. They are very popular now in Italy.


The man was sooo little near this beast, and you could not understand who allows him to stay here in center of the crowd with this potential bomb. Nobody of other cattlemen remained with their animals out of the special places. If they had, they took the animal away with all possible speed. But not this man.
There were so many persons there with little babies near them. Everybody was some afraid and stand about a meter far from them (as it could help, this meter if the bull wanted to do something).


But it was absolutely incredible to stay with them even some minute and to hear this man speaking with the bull and -the animal that did everything the man wanted from him. Like this:

- Look here, you stay too near to this line. It's not good. Go back! -and the bull makes a step back! -No, not so, more back, more, go! -and the bull makes a step back!!!


- He is so quite, I said, with all these persons.
- He is accustomed to stay with people all the day, answered the man, he is the main attraction of our farm.
- How old is he?
- 3 years.
- How many years can he live?
- I don't know. He is a champion and we will give him in the other farm now.


I could not resist to make a photo with this Power. Even if I was a little afraid the same. When I watched the photo now, I said, animals are incredibly tolerant with us. Imagine, everybody wants to touch him all the day, everybody makes photos... And he has so quiet "face".


Related posts:
Funny bull ?
What is "Bos"
Italian Cattle Breeds (second post about this agricultural show)

Kittens or Babies?

This is one of funny stories I'v read now in " Aaaugh!". I agree with the author and think it's possible to ad here many numbers more.

Top 10 reasons why kittens are better than babies:

10. Veterinarians have evening hours.

9. Your kitten won't be able to disturb the whole movie theater with its crying. Hell, you don't even have to take the kitten with you, and if you don't, you don't even't have to worry about whether or not the sitter is available tonight.

8. Your kitten won't grow out of those cute but expensive clothes within three months.

7. Kittens look cute if they haven't had a bath this month.

6. You probably don't have to lie awake nights wondering how you are going to finance your kitten's college (or high school) education.

5. No one will accuse you of being an unfit mother if you don't want to breast feed your kitten.

4. No one will accuse you of perversion or sexual abuse if you fondle your kitten.

3. Dan Quayle can't accuse you of destroying the moral fabric of the country if you aren't married to the father of your kitten. In fact, nobody will ever ask you if you know who the father is.

2. No one will question your abilities to function normally at your job when they hear you just got a kitten.

And the Number 1 reason:

1. You only have to change a litter box once a day.

Two Marry Foxes Visited Our Henhouse This Morning

This morning was very sad even if the sun decided to show us it's face.
When I went in the henhouse I found all our hens killed. There was only one alive, she was in the nest making the egg, when 2 foxes found the way to enter there.

The poor hen is now so much afraid of everything, that she doesn't want to return in the henhouse more. She is very fortunate. Because she is old. All the young hens are dead.

What is the most interesting in this story, that the foxes not only could enter, they went out and ... took one hen with them. All this we could read on the fallow field that is covered with the steps of great entertainment. They played with the hen, ate a little, played more, ate and at the end took it home, because foxes have cubs in this period, we think.

The way of happy game:

They came from there. And we think they have their house on that hill in front on the right. My husband had seen once a fox that runned behind a cat on the path there too:

And this is the fence about 1,80 m high that the foxes found possibility to climb over. Taking with them a hen. That had about 3 kg.
Foxes are not too big here. We think not more than 5-7 kg, they are a little bigger as cats. But soooo clever and powerful...


Other Henstories:
Who made this egg?
A Hen and an Egg

Related post with photos of foxes
Sad Swift Foxes

New-killer or StingRay's Attacks

I will be not surprized if the next action film of the Hollywood will be about stingray-killers that organized an enormous military force and attacked humanity.

This photo is from National Geographic's article about stingrays. I did not think that it's a fish, you know. And that they can live so long, till 25 years in wild...

So, this an... pardon fish is an other time a protagonist of a killing story ( freep.com, photo too ). An other person is dead from it's attack. Practicaly it was not an attack here. Stingray jumped out of the water and fall on the woman in the boat. It's a big animal, about 2 metrs large and they can weight till 350 kg, so it's possible that the woman banged her head on the boat.

The most known case of stingray's attack is the story of Steve Irwin. But he was under water.

A year befor Steve Irwin's death, an 81-old man was in the same situation of the woman in the boat, he was punctured by the burbs, but that man could survive, fortunatelly.

Is unknown why the stingrays jump out of the water. Somebody says they are afraid of something and that is why they punctured the persons in those boats. But there are very spectacular photos of flying mantas (links in the bottom). Why stingrays could not like to "fly" from time to time too?
Flying Manta Rays
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a flying mobula ray soaring high off the Mexican shore

Mother Walrus And Her Calf

Photo WikimediaWe watched a documentary about walruses yesterday and I wanted to learn more about these animals. I looked for videos and found this that is a part of the film I've seen. I was touched how this mother huges her cub. She was very patient with photograph too and became nervous only when he came practically close to them. And they say that walruses are extremely impatient!

So, what I learned about them.
First of all there are 2 (maybe 3) types of walruses. Atlantic (Odobenus rosmarus) and Pacific (Odobenus rosmarus divergens). Those atlantics have more fine tusks. Odobenus means "tooth-walking sea-horse" because walruses help themselves to go out of the water with tusks sometimes.
Did you know, that they can "walk" better as some seals?
And did you know that they are NOT seals? Only relatives.

In the middle of the 20-th century they were practically extinct because of hunting. Different sources tell it different, but I understood, that the number of these animals is growing today.

Now, some numbers.
Walruses are about 4, rarely till 5 meters long. They say, they were longer earlier, till 6-7 m.
Their weight is about 1000 kg (earlier it was till 1500 kg)
Tusks arrive till 80 cm and grow always.
Their skin is 4 cm large and the fat arrives till 10 cm.
They can make 24 km/h and emerge till 80 m -so they don't sweem more far than 90 m from the earth.
Walruses live till 40 years
they born 1,5 m long and have 45- 65 kg, sometimes there are 2 calves.

Interesting is that...
Very great (maybe greatest) problemof the life for walruses are all sorts of internal and external parasits.
They like to take the sun and become red when feel hot.

Photo National Geographic

Walruses have hairs. More the animal is old less hairs it has and the eldest are completely nacked.
There are cases when walrusses assailed narwhals, belugas and seals.