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Everything is an opportunistic carnivore. I once came across a turtle chowing down on a dead frog.
by zmj 2y ago
Everything is an opportunistic carnivore. I once came across a turtle chowing down on a dead frog.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoApparently cows are happy to eat nestlings if they happen to find a bird's nest while they're grazing. If you're an animal, there's no food better than meat.
- BadHumans 2y agoEverything will eat anything if its hungry enough but to say there is no better food is a broad statement I'm not comfortable agreeing with.
- nradov 2y ago"Better" is kind of a vague term. A more precise and limited statement is that meat has the highest protein quality index. There could be some other disadvantages, depending on your species.
- scns 2y agoHorses snacking chicks. Videos easy to be found.
- manquer 2y agoThat would only be true if you have the stomach biome to digest and extract the nutrients. What is the point of eating something that is hard to process and digest and has no nutritional value for you For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food .
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoYou're wrong. Cows will eat meat, horses will eat meat, pigs will eat meat, chickens will eat meat, deer will eat meat. If they can get it in their mouth, they will eat it.
- lostlogin 2y agoMad cow disease didn’t just happen. Though the idea that cows would preferentially eat brain and spinal cord tissue doesn’t seem likely.
- jiggawatts 2y agoIronically mad cow is one of the rare transmissible diseases that “can just happen” with no external causative agent! It’s just a misfolding of a protein that starts a chain reaction of similarly misfolded proteins.
- manquer 2y agoAnything can any thing , that is not what I said . OP implied they like it if they can get it, and is the better food for them , that is not true
- thaumasiotes 2y agoIt is true. If you prefer grass to birds, you can just go around the birds as you find them. The grass isn't going anywhere.
- hulitu 2y ago> pigs will eat meat, chickens will eat meat, pigs and chicken are omnivorous.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThe point of eating meat is that it's easy to digest. This isn't a case where two things are difficult in different ways and you want to do the thing you're specialized in. Meat is easy to digest, and plants are hard to digest, no matter what.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoI don't know but I once watched a deer eat a bird so they clearly have some incentive
- HankB99 2y agoI recall a study that identified deer as a major predator of bird nests. I don't recall if it was eggs or young that they went after. I can't find a reference to the study at the moment.
- tarboreus 2y agoIt's plants you need a fancy setup for. Also, the microbiome thing, surprisingly, isn't universal, a lot of animals have no stomach microbiome to speak of. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/animals-microbiome-gut-bacteria/610201/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/animals-...
- heavyset_go 2y ago> For herbivores, meat is objectively bad food . We feed cattle the leftovers from processing meat. It's how we got mad cow disease.
- nkrisc 2y agoMost herbivores I’m aware of will at least occasionally eat meat or insects. Even grazers. I would be kind of surprised if there’s any “true and pure” herbivorous vertebrate. Meat is rich in nutrients that even herbivores need and is difficult to get entirely from plants. Vegans are the anomaly.
- mannykannot 2y agoI would guess that a digestive system that can extract adequate nutrition from grass will extract something of value from meat. On the other hand, if the meat content became a significant part of the diet, I can imagine it could become harmful, for example by messing with the digestive process or by delivering toxic levels of certain products.
- PepperdineG 2y ago>What is the point of eating something that is hard to process and digest and has no nutritional value for you Wouldn't that make it dietary fiber then? What's functionally dietary fiber varies from species to species, but like with humans we eat things exactly like that for GI health. Birds of prey for instance eat casting (fur and feathers) which is functionally like dietary fiber for them where it would be unhealthy if you just gave them a steak without having them also eat the indigestible bits as they wouldn't be able to properly form and regurgitate pellets. Certain animals might not need something that functions like dietary fiber but for at least certain animals - like humans - eating certain indigestible things is important for good health.
- lacy_tinpot 2y agoYou should try raising cows on a carnivore diet.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThe cows would be happy, but that would be significantly more expensive than feeding them plants. Note that mad cow disease came from feeding cows to cows. Giving them meat isn't exactly an innovation.
- lostlogin 2y ago> Giving them meat isn't exactly an innovation. True, but the results were.
- lacy_tinpot 2y agoIt's as deluded as raising cats on a vegan diet.
- m463 2y agoLook, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog
- aeonik 2y agoEven trees will take nutrients from animals with a little help from fungal networks: https://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/salmonforest.html https://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/salmonforest.html https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/pal/salmon-dna-in-trees/ https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/pal/salmon-dna-in-trees... (note, Salmon DNA isn't in the trees, just nutrients, in case you don't read this article).
- RajT88 2y agoTurtles are carnivores, no? They are bitey as hell. All of them. You catch them on cut bait, worms, minnows when fishing. Even the ones without very sharp mouths, like softshell turtles.