Cattle

Posts Tagged ‘manual’

There are a good deal of factors that ought to be taken into consideration when it comes to choosing the style of chickens coops that is able to best fill your requirements. The number one issue is the amount of chickens you are going to be raising. The greater the number of pullets, the larger the housing will have to be.

Day-old chicks need a lesser amount of room than started pullets or grown pullets. Immature chicks must be provided additional heat, so depending on the temperatures in your locale you will be required to supply some heat or insulate your poultry housing. Cooler places may make it necessary for you to construct a totally enclosed poultry coop, but warmer climates may permit you to get away with larger outdoor areas made with wire.

Fowl sheds come in a lot of different sizes and varieties. The littlest type is the chicken tractor, also known as a chicken ark, and is diminutive housing appropriate for just a few pullets. It will have a small wood house segment and an outside portion made from wire. The reason for its diminutive size is to make transporting it a simple task. Chicken tractors are portable.

This sort of house will permit hens to scratch for a portion of their own food. After your pullets have pecked a specific area clean, the complete home can easily be dragged to a brand new region of the yard where there are more fresh plants and grasses to munch on. Chickens love to peck around for food so this type of chicken shed is perfect for maintaining a happy and healthy flock. In addition, cleaning up is merely transporting the chicken tractor to a different spot.

Successfully growing larger quantities of pullets will require you to either assemble a larger stationary edifice or multiple portable chicken arks. Larger housing will be in the form of chickens coops, also recognized as chicken sheds, and will certainly be costlier due to the fact that additional wood and additional wire will be needed. It will also take a little extra consideration and planning. Be certain to obtain a first-class set of plans before beginning on a larger project as you don’t want to make expensive mistakes and discover too late that you constructed it improperly and spent more cash than was needed.

With a small chicken tractor you can simply purchase an inexpensive feeder, waterer, and nest box and position them in the housing. On the other hand, with bulky chicken houses you must create them with efficiency in mind. Contrasting the chicken tractor, the larger coop should be cleaned consistently, which means you should plan ahead. You may very well want to put in an all-wire bottom two feet off the soil. This will prevent droppings from building up in the housing itself, and will make it less of a problem to transport them to your backyard garden location when required.

With larger coops you must plan for ventilation, nest box locations, maintaining hygienic feed and water, and a host of other things. Windows are required to keep fresh air blowing through. This will usually permit the coop to stay drier and is able to eliminate odors from building up. It can provide light which is considered necessary for optimum egg production. Artificial lighting ought to be added to your shed if you would like to have your hens laying all year long.

You may also want to place your nesting boxes so that you will be able to collect eggs from the exterior of your poultry housing. A great deal of planning is needed if you wish to sidestep mistakes. You may suppose you know precisely what you want, but it’s best to purchase a first-rate chicken coop guide nonetheless. You may possibly discover efficient procedures for doing things that you never considered before. And in view of the fact that first-rate chicken coop manuals are easily found online, it would be an intelligent idea to get one.

Dogs and Cats. Eternal enemies, right? Through proper dog obedience training you can teach your animals to live together.

The first mistake that most pet owners make when introducing their pet dogs and cats is to allow them to make their own introductions. This is a mistake! As I stated above, these two species are eternal enemies. You can’t just set one down near the other and expect great results. (Ok, I know that can happen and does happen, but my job here is to teach you about dog training. My version of training calls for prevention with dogs and cats rather than creating a problem and then being forced to fix it. As Mom used to say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.) There is a good deal of prevention that should be used before allowing your dogs and cats to co-exist.

Whether you are introducing a new cat to a home with a dog or vice versa I want you to start out the same way. Start out by using your trusty dog crate. Put your dog in the crate and allow the cat to be in the same room. There are several possible outcomes to this action :
1. Your dog shows complete indifference. This is ideal. If your dog behaves like this you will have a quick transition.
2. Your dog shows fear. This is not ideal but it will make the transition easier than some other outcomes.
3. Your dog shows nervousness and anxiety. He whines, he paces in the crate, paws at the door of the crate, etc. This behavior tells you that he wants out. There is something about that cat that is exciting and he wants to know what it is.
4. Your dog shows overt aggression. He barks, claws at the door of the crate, and he knows exactly what he wants to do with that cat. This is going to be the toughest dog to train, but it can be done.

For the first few days don’t let your dogs and cats near each other. Keep the dog in the crate. This doesn’t mean you need to keep him in the crate 24/7. When you want him out of the crate just make sure that your cat is shut off in another bedroom to avoid contact. What you hope to accomplish with this action is to train your dog to be indifferent to the cat. You want your dog to view the cat as ‘background noise’. The cat is inconsequential, the cat doesn’t matter, there is nothing interesting or exciting about the cat. In other words, your dog is safely tucked away in the crate and casually observes the cat move around the house. For categories 1 and 2 this will be simple. It will take no more than a day or two for your dog to think of your cat as just another ‘thing’ in the house. Categories 3 and 4 will take more training and time.

For categories 3 and 4 you need to attach a negative association to showing cat aggression. To do this, get a spray bottle. Fill the bottle with either plain water, water mixed with lemon juice, or for very stubborn dogs, water with vinegar. At this point, your dog is still tucked away safely in the crate. The next part of training will be conducted while you are sitting near the crate, ready for action. The instant your dog shows aggression (barks at the cat, claws at the door, whines in frustration, etc.) toward the cat spray him in the face with your spray bottle. Every time he shows aggression spray him with the bottle. When he isn’t showing aggression give him soft praise, “Good boy”.

Make sure that your dog never gets a chance to show aggression toward the cat without having a bad experience. This means that you must always be ready with the spray bottle or make sure the cat isn’t near the dog. If you aren’t vigilant and your dog has the chance to show aggression with no adverse consequence, you are training him to show cat aggression.

If you are consistent with this exercise you will soon notice that your dog will show less and less aggression while in the crate, it just isn’t worth the squirt in the face for him. You are on your way to getting your dogs and cats to co-exist.

When your feel comfortable that your dog is indifferent to the cat move on to the next step. As I said, for categories 1 and 2 this is probably one or two days after beginning the crate training. For categories 3 and 4 get your dog to the point where he is indifferent and maintains that attitude for several days if not a week.

The next step is to get your dog out of the crate and get those dogs and cats together at last! You are going to move slowly, though. Put your dog training collar and leash on your dog and make sure that he is always wearing it around the house. Keep your dog near you and allow your cat to be in the room. If your dog makes any move whatsoever to chase the cat, bark at the cat, or perform any of the stereotypical behaviors that dogs and cats do, give him a very strong correction with the leash. You want this leash correction to be a very memorable one so it must be very strong. You want to form a very negative association toward cat aggression.

Be consistent with this training. If you do this properly you will notice that your dog has less and less of a desire to chase after or bark at the cat. As you notice your dog changing his behavior give him more and more freedom by allowing him to be closer to the cat and further away from you. Eventually you will phase out the use of the dog training collar and leash.

Even if your dog isn’t showing aggressive tendencies, never let him chase after the cat in the house, even playfully.

Even some of the hardest to train dogs will respond to the above method. There exist, however, certain dogs that have such strong prey drive that only drastic measures will cure them of their desire to chase and kill cats. For these dogs I employ an electric dog training collar.

Read the instruction manual on proper fitting for your electric dog training collar. With a stubborn dog that needs an electric collar the method is simple. With the collar on his neck and turned on to a high level of stimulus you are going to correct your dog every time he even looks at the cat. As your dog even sneaks a glance at your cat press the button to deliver the correction. Don’t say ‘no’, don’t react in any way, just correct him for looking at the cat. Do this as many times as it takes. Let’s examine this from your dog’s point of view. He wants to get to the cat, wants to chase, wants to kill. But the very act of looking at the cat causes him pain. You don’t tell him anything so he doesn’t associate the correction with you. He soon will learn to believe that the cat is ‘evil’ and he had better not even look at it because it the act of looking causes pain.

As with all training, you must be very consistent. Your dog must never have a successful chance to even chase or want to chase the cat. Be consistent, though, and soon your dogs and cats will be able to co-exist.

I used to wonder curiously about clicker obedience training for dogs. But then, my neighbor said that clickers are not meant for obedience training and they are only fit for making a dog perform circus-like tricks and stunts.

At first, I agreed with my neighbor. Those clickers seemed annoying to me and I didn’t believe that anyone would be able to teach obedience training commands to their dogs with that constant clicking sound.

I couldn’t be more wrong!

Listen, one day I was browsing a video site and this clicker obedience training video caught my attention. It was really well-shot, unlike some of those flimsy homemade clicker videos you often see on the web.

The video was made by a team of professional dog trainers specialized in clicker obedience training for dogs. So they designed a comprehensive clicker training course with videos which I downloaded straight to my computer.

After several home training sessions with my dog Brylow…

I must say their clicker training principles and techniques are spot on!

The 3 “super trainer” tips that helped me the most during training are:

Tip 1 – To clicker train your dog effectively, you need to employ a large variety of positive reinforcers. This means you should allow your dog to play with several different toys/object. The same goes for treats. Use many different ones for better end result.

Tip 2 – High clicking rate is crucial during the first few training sessions. Make sure your dog is able to earn a single click at a rate of every 3 – 5 seconds. This method works really well when I first conducted a clicker crate training session with Brylow.

Tip 3 – Minimize sloppy training. This means you should avoid the following during clicker obedience training: bending over your dog, repeated cues, nagging, and luring.

Anyway, if you’re interested in discovering everything from A – Z about training your dog with a clicker, follow this link: http://www.positivehomedogtraining.com/ to get download details. Apply the steps outlined in the complete manual and remember to watch those videos as well!

The use of electronic training devices has become increasingly widespread. In 2006 pet owners worldwide purchased more than 500,000 remote training collars, over 1,000,000 containment systems, and almost 900,000 bark collars.

Why the popularity? These training systems have become much more affordable, and pet owners are finding them to be a safe, effective means for controlling the various behaviors that they find unacceptable.

As sales of these products increase, so do the not so favorable opinions about them — that they make dogs aggressive, that there is a greater chance of failure than success when using them, that the shock they deliver is painful, that they will result in significant injury to your pet.

These can all be classified as “myths”, since there is very little hard data available to prove or disprove them. However, recent studies are providing results that allow for a more reasoned analysis of this technology.

Last year, one of the major manufacturers of electronic training products retained an independent laboratory to compare the level of correction produced by a pet containment system receiver to the shock produced by other common circumstances and devices. The evaluation demonstrated that the “shock” produced by a containment system is nowhere near the intensity that some people believe.

The “shock” produced by the containment system is nearly 40% less that than that one would receive from walking on carpet. (Please note that static shock will vary greatly depending on the relative humidity: the lower the humidity, the higher the shock.)

Further, this study demonstrates that the training “shock” is one-fourth the level of a cattle fence and one-twentieth the level of a stun gun, two devices to which electronic training equipment is often unfairly compared.

But even this study tells only half the story. It compared the voltage put out by these devices…the intensity. You also need to consider the duration. Reputable brands of electronic training equipment correct for only a short period of time. The brand that has the UL mark of approval on its receiver features a correction that lasts only 1/40 of a second — less time than it takes the average person to snap their fingers.

But what this study does demonstrate is that not all “shock” is the same. And that the correction in question is not “painful,” “powerful” or even “uncomfortable.” “Surprising” maybe, but none of the above.

Still, every animal will react differently to the correction. So you should always approach a training situation with caution when using this kind of equipment. As is usually the case, education is the answer. When you are training a pet, you need to have as much information as possible…and a behavior management plan to support you, as you would with traditional training techniques. When looking at selecting a product select one that provides you with both instructional manuals and videos.

If you choose a product that supplies you with these necessary educational materials you will greatly increase your chances of success when attempting to improve your dog’s behavior. To help demonstrate this fact let’s look at a survey that was recently completed by a leading manufacturer of electronic training equipment.

This company surveyed 1,025 dog owners that had been using one of three types of electronic training equipment (remote training collar, bark control collar or containment system) for a period of not less than 90 days.

The most significant findings came as the result of asking the pet owner the following question, “Since using the electronic training product how would you describe your pet’s overall behavior?” The owner was asked to respond with one of the following: a) better behaved (and specifically how), b) no change in behavior or c) worse behaved (and specifically how).

The results are staggering. Slightly over 2/3 (860 of 1,025 dog owners) responded that their dogs overall behavior had in fact improved since using the electronic equipment.

Reasons that these dogs would show an overall improvement in their behavior would include that the owners used the equipment correctly. Correct use includes spending a significant amount of time working with and socializing with your dog. When a dog receives an increase in time and attention, his behavior will usually change for the better.

This survey also helps to dispel another myth about the use of electronic training equipment – that it causes dogs to act aggressive. None of the dog owners surveyed purchased the equipment for the purpose of eliminating aggressive behavior. However, approximately 12% stated that another positive side effect of using the equipment was that their dog no longer exhibited occasional aggressive behavior that had been seen in the past. Also, of those owners stating that their dogs behavior worsened in some way since using the equipment, none reported the worsening being in the form of aggressive behavior.

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