abditoryforyou

[abditoryforyou]

Illustrator | 百宵

[abditoryforyou]

Part 1

[abditoryforyou]

maomao~

[abditoryforyou]

Is there beef with the Holstein cows and you or what was that joke lol

It's kind of wild It's just never come up on this blog before, but I HATE holsteins. Bottom 10 cow breeds for me. I hate how they're so common they account for the majority of milk produced. I hate that they're the "default" cow to the point where some don't even know cattle HAVE other colors. I hate their tiny horns (IF THEY EVEN HAVE THAT. LOSER ASS HORNLESS COW) and their painfully massive udders.

Legit I'm trying so hard to not launch into a No Mouth Must Scream style AM speech-- shoot my hand slipped.

(AM speech about why i dont like holsteins below the cut)

For starters, I have to give a brief lesson on what these terms mean; the "Holstein" is the American strain of the "Frisian" breed. Frisians are an ancient breed from Frisia, in the north of what we now consider the Netherlands. Crosses between the breeds are "Holstein-Frisians."

(There’s even more to this but im keeping it as simple as possible. Also one of my friends is Frisian and she is probably going to kill me for describing it like that.)

Historically, livestock was adapted to the environment they lived in. Frisians were bred by the Frisii people for hundreds of years in extremely grass-rich, lush, flat environments. The "polders" of the northern parts of the Netherlands. They're huge and eat a LOT of food.

Traditional Frisians were developed to produce as much meat and milk from a single individual as possible, without compromising the health of the cattle with constant inbreeding to get quick gains. We are talking about a breed that is over 2000 years old. They had the perfect environment to make The Ultimate Food Cow and by god they did it. I can respect that.

So, take that, drag it across an ocean to a place that does NOT have polders, and add the rapid enshittification of capitalism to it. BAM you've got a fucking holstein.

There is ONE goal for "improving" the holstein. Make More Milk. As long as the black and white milkbag leaks enough, nothing else matters. Health? Fertility? Feed ratio? Ability to not die of infection? WHO CARES. MILK LINE GO UP.

Over 90% of holsteins are inbred to start with, because Milk Line Go Up. To the tune of having an average COI of 8%-- where extreme negative effects (think Hapsburgs) start to crop up around 10%

Holstein bulls are aggressive bastards (many dairy bulls are), so no one wants to keep intact males in their herds, meaning most cows are artificially inseminated

Not being limited by the natural lifespan of a living bull means that the same stud can keep having direct offspring for decades after his death

Toystory the bull had 500,000 calves before he died, and hit over 1 million offspring in 2015. That's ONE animal and to put this in perspective, there are 9 million holsteins in the US.

DON'T WORRY IT GETS WORSE

Not only can 99% of holsteins be traced back to just two bulls-- 99% of male holsteins share one of two exact Y chromosomes with those two bulls.

The gene pool is so small that it's equivalent to about 60 individuals. Warrior Cat allegiances are larger than that. That's barely bigger than modern ThunderClan.

"Massive lack of genetic diversity" does not begin to capture the existential dread of this situation. Mark my words, WATCH, when the Bird Flu finally mutates a strain that rips through a mammalian population, it's gonna be in the USA and it's going to be through our dairy cattle.

This is not prophecy or me laying a curse on the land, this is the natural consequence of basing the stability of US milk production on the equivalent of 9 million clones of two classrooms worth of individuals, and then packing them in close quarters

And we don't have to wait for doomsday for the impacts to be apparent on the cattle themelves

Holstein fertility has also dropped by half since the 1960s when the intensive inbreeding really kicked into high gear

Because their whole body is dedicating all of their resources to milk production, they have a notoriously "bony" frame.

Show judges, however, like this because they think that's a very "feminine" look for a 1600 pound ruminant. Very normal thing to think.

Like. I don't know if i can communicate this to people who don't look at cows a lot (it's not quite as obviously dramatic as a pug skull) but here is a comparison of an "ideal" show holstein and an "unselected" holstein from a herd that's been established as a sort of "control group" for what they looked like back in the 1960s;

The way that the artery on the "modern" cow's belly runs to the udder like a big pink worm freaks me out the most ngl

The udder also bulges out from between the back legs

The show cow is so thin

And then compare these both to a Holstein-Frisian cross who leans more on the Frisian side;

Proper weight, developed legs. Its biggest "problem" is actually just the udder shape-- deep udders, which "hang" low like that, aren't optimal for milk-focused breeds because the higher away from the ground the less chance there is of infection. In that department, the "unselected" holstein clearly outclasses the holstein-frisian.

But it probably won't be surprising to hear that the "show holstein," with its massive, swollen udder, is SUPER prone to infections such as mastitis.

But it is also just more prone to getting sick generally

And, to keep up with these insane demands, holsteins need a TON of food. You aren't going to just turn these things out into a pasture and be done with it. Even its ancestor the Frisian needed premium Dutch polder grass to be such a good cow-- crank that up to 11 with these Monuments to Humanity's Hubrice

The Texas Longhorn developed in semi-feral conditions and can eat a bush to become the best thing in a 10 mile radius. The Scottish Highland was iron-forged in upland moors with a steady diet of turf and rain.

Meanwhile if a Holstein has less than 5 homemade meals a day without poland spring bottled water it will die to death.

And the WORST part? You have to use these if you want to make money in dairy farming. It's WAAY too expensive to just run a suboptimal farm. Their milk isn't great, but they sure do make a lot of it.

...so Holsteins and Holstein-Frisians (and other "super efficient" breeds) have absolutely decimated heritage cattle. The American Milking Devon is a deep reddish brown with gorgeous horns and low maintenance; rare. Randall Linebacks are painted with lines of white speckles down the back and can be used for any purpose; critically endangered. The Niata was a pug-faced cow who could fight jaguars; extinct.

And THAT'S what makes me hate them most of all. I LOVE cows, but whenever I see a reference to one, it's a holstein. It's always boring black and white splotches with big pink udders. They're practically synonymous with "cow" when their homogeniety is actually hiding much cooler breeds from you.

Did you know cows can be tiger-striped?

And that England has its own type of longhorn?

Or that cow horns can twist upwards like an antelope?

And that they can have REALLY LONG ears?

And that they can be blue?

And that's not even getting into some of the cows that have gotten a small crumb of attention lately, such as Highlands, Ankole-Watusi, and Texas Longhorns. There's so many cool cows out there! And they're all really different from holsteins! MOST of them are also a lot healthier and produce tastier milk and meat!

TL;DR yeah i don't like holsteins and I like sniping at them. For reasons both legit and petty.

[abditoryforyou]

summer’s just around the corner

[abditoryforyou]

heres ei!!!!

[abditoryforyou]

hi im too tired to draw so instead i will be sending psychic waves into your brain about the coolest drawing i could hypothetically ever make what do u think

[abditoryforyou]

these are from very late 2023.. i never posted them because i didn't finish the second pic (i was sick and just never got around to it afterwards) but looking at them again i think they're gold i might as well post it

[abditoryforyou]

KAEDE!!!!!

[abditoryforyou]

Was thinking back at the whole "Apparently Riordan confirmed Nico and Will religions" post I made a couple of weeks ago,and I realized that the demigods don't really worship the gods.

We have the offerings during every meals,sometimes they pray to them,but that's usually when they are in danger and needs help,and also sacrifices something to them,but that's it. They don't have altars (you don't really need them but they are useful to remember your path in more of a tangible way),no hymns,no libations,they don't do rituals. And even the few prayers we read weren't really that...respectful? Yes,praying to your mom/dad to help you survive the day,and do the bare minimum in your life,can't be awesome but at the end of the day they are still Gods.

PJO Greek Gods are totally different than the hellenic Greek Gods,some more than others (Looking at you Ares),and we all agree that Riordan rappresentation of them isn't that good,but they are still Gods and they need to be treated and worshipped with respect and the right methods.

Chiron should be in charge of teaching them everything about that part of their lives,but he barely does something useful other than have some conversations with Percy and teaching Thalia. He is totally useless when he should be a guide to demigods,helping them embrace and understand that part of them,teaching them the proper ways to address Gods and in general the religion.

He doesn't and most of the demigods are straight up disrespectful to them. Which,again,the Gods in PJO are asshole most of time so it's fair for the children to feel like that,but you can't being disrespectful to a God without fearing a punishment from them (Looking at you HoO).

Rachel is basically one of Apollo's priestesses,the most important one,but it's talked only for a bit in the Hidden Oracle,and we got robbed of seeing her embrace her role and devotion to him. Apollo is basically her God from the moment she welcomed Delphi and accepted to be the new oracle. Where is the importance of that at??

Worst thing? it's just crazy how I started to realize this only now,after years of being in this fandom and reading the books.

On the side note I kinda understood how the whole double religion work. It's s like when you have multiple faiths and believe in more than one religion,right? I'm an atheist,and while I respect all religions,it's a bit difficult for me to understand certain things,especially when you believe in both a monotheistic and polytheist religion.

But even with this,I still stand on the ground that it was a dumb move since half of their identity is about pagans gods. I don't see anything wrong in having multiple faiths but they are children of greek gods,so for them is a bit more than"I choose the religion I want to practice" like we do,when we want to follow a different religion than the one our family has.

[abditoryforyou]

how it feels to have no social media presence as an artist

[abditoryforyou]

Found a really cool pose I wanted to draw, so here’s a little drawing of my sweet boy

[abditoryforyou]

Here’s another muichirou painting!!! On the back of the canvas he looks like I trapped a soul into the painting however.

[abditoryforyou]

Lets stare at the clouds with Muichiro

Will be available as a sticker and keychain!

[abditoryforyou]

i also have an idea for shinobu and muichirou too

Muichirou and misturi outfit swap wip but their uniforms are my redesigns

[abditoryforyou]

Muichirou and misturi outfit swap wip but their uniforms are my redesigns

[abditoryforyou]

I tried to oil paint for the first time, no idea how to clean the brushes