Crazy animal facts from Ben the Vet

Ben the Vet has some really interesting some might say crazy animal facts to give us in this short video. He had no idea about them before he went to vet school and perhaps unsurprisingly a lot of them are to do with reproduction, procreation, sex!

The first crazy fact that he mentions in the video is to do with the pig's penis which is cork screwed. You might have known that already actually because it's quite a well-known fact. The next fact positively isn't. They produce up to 400 mL of semen every time they ejaculate. Ben then goes on to show us how much that is which is an amazing amount.

In comparison, bulls only produce 5 mL so this is not about the size of the animal. 5 mL is about one teaspoonful. A tiny fraction of the amount produced by boars.

Rabbits and horses and other species can't vomit because the sphincter muscle at the top of the stomach is too tight. This, in effect, creates a one-way valve which stops any gases coming up to allow the animal to belch or vomit. If a horse has colic their stomach can be dangerously filled with gases and fluids which need to be extracted with a tube by a veterinarian.

When guinea pigs are born, unlike humans, they are fully formed, able to run about and eat solid food. I'm feeding a pair of male guinea pigs for my friend who is away in Germany at the moment. They are indeed cute. They are passive and affable. They love lettuce above all else. They don't appear to be that intelligent but I believe that a lot goes on in their brain that we don't know about.

Female ferrets can die if they are not able to mate. When they come into heat they produce oestrogen and if they don't mate the oestrogen is continued to be produced for many months which can lead to bone marrow suppression which can prove to be fatal.

Rabbits have two cervixes. And Ben educates us by saying that animals have different uteruses

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Veterinarian gently chides a TikToker for facilitating animal abuse

 Ben the Vet who, as you might know, has his own TikTok page likes, sometimes, to comment on the work of other TikTok users. And I think it is fair to say that some TikTok users use the platform to abuse their companion animals. This is not a direct ploy to abuse animals but in order to create an interesting TikTok video they end up either mildly or even perhaps sometimes greatly end up abusing their companion animal or allowing it to happen.

@ben.the.vet #duet with @honeycat vet reacts - not sure tiktok needs to see a cat vs. duck fight #catsoftiktok #duck #animalwelfare #fight ♬ original sound - honeycat

This is an example. The TikTok user being criticised videoed their cat batting their pet duck around the head. It looks unpleasant. It probably is for the duck who persists in trying to approach the cat.

As you can see, Ben suggests that it might be a good idea if the cat and dog were separated and that the TikTok user did not video the encounter in the first place. It is an example, once again, of pushing too hard to try and make a good TikTok video to get those precious high viewing figures. There has to be a limit.

TikTok, to the best of my knowledge, is known to be a social media platform which allows animal abuse to be presented on it. In this way, it actively promotes animal abuse, you could argue.

Wives should not tell husbands to take their cat or dog to the veterinarian (the surprising reason)

The TikTok video below on Ben the Vet's TikTok page is very short but very clear! Ben has used a TikTok facility called "duet". This is when you take the TikTok video of one person and put a video of yourself next to it in a split screen effect. I presume you can also comment on the video but this is impossible when, as is the case in this example, the female delivers a rant about not letting your husband take your pet to the vet!

But Ben does not disagree with her. The point that the lady is making - and I presume she is either a veterinarian or a vet tech - is that when wives tell husbands to take the family cat or dog to the vet without being emotionally engaged and/or without full knowledge of what is going on, they are unhelpful to the veterinarian in diagnosing the illness.

Without knowing more, I have a feeling that this advice mainly applies to domestic cats and not dogs. It is fairly common knowledge that the husband will be more invested in the family dog than the family cat. And it works both ways because the wife is much more likely to be invested in the caregiving of the domestic cat. They may also be equally involved in dog caregiving but it might be fair to say that the 'man of the house' - to use a classic old-fashioned term - is the person in charge of the dog. Is that fair comment?

RELATED: Disgruntled pet owners disillusioned with private equity-owned veterinary practices in UK.

Wives should not tell husbands to take their cat or dog to the veterinarian. And Ben the Vet on TikTok does not disagree! Screenshot.

And the presumption here is that veterinarians like to receive decent input from the patient's owner in the consultation room. They need to ask questions of the owner to hear the history of the disease sometimes.  The backstory and lead up to the current symptoms. This allows them to better understand the presented health problem.

I have always said that a cat caregiver who knows a little bit about cat health can be useful to a veterinarian. It also allows the caregiver to keep an eye on what's going on in a knowledgeable way.

Not all professionals are good at their job. Not all veterinarians are good veterinarians. An intelligent cat caregiver of long-standing who has read up about the domestic cat's behaviour and health may know almost as much as a recently qualified veterinarian.

You don't want to get into an argument with a veterinarian about diagnosis and treatment but you do want to provide useful input to speed things up and improve the accuracy of the diagnosis and therefore the treatment.

Reason why Ragdoll cats have blue eyes

Ben in his video below explains why Ragdoll cats have blue eyes for the standpoint of physics. But it isn't just Ragdoll cats which have blue eyes. Kittens have too and Siamese must have blue eyes and other breeds are allowed to have blue eyes under their breed standards. 

The physics behind the blue eyes of cats including the Ragdoll. Screenshot.

The Ragdoll breed standard states that Ragdolls must have blue eyes. EYES: large, vivid blue ovals. Wide set and moderately slanted, complementing wedge.

And the anatomical reason and the physics behind the blue colour of their eyes is explained in the video below. The same reason applies to kittens when their eye colour is developing but not yet developed.

Blue eyes caused by scattering of blue light not pigment. Image: MikeB

And the same physics applies to the blue sky. The color blue has a shorter wavelength than the other colours and it is scattered more by the particles in the air which is why the sky is blue.

RELATED: Why are kittens’ eyes blue?

It is this scattering of blue light and not the other colours which accounts for blue eyes in Ragdoll cats.