Saturday, May 23, 2009

Goldfish Influenza?

I'm not even going to get started on what I believe is a bit of an over-reaction on the part of the Japanese community at large in terms of the swine influenza outbreak because we have bigger problems in our house right now. I'm not sure if I should be reporting them to the government or not, but..... our goldfish have been slowly dying. There, I said it - here's hoping there is no one monitoring this blog who will report me to the authorities for not reporting these deaths.... I didn't check their temperatures, but each morning we have been waking to find a sad sight in the tank. Today we removed all the water (after giving the goldfish a temporary home in another bowl), all the pebbles and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned so hopefully the remaining 3 goldfish (all females I might add... says something about the strong ones in this household) will perk up a bit and we won't have to have any more grave digging tomorrow morning.
It has been a bit of a sad week in terms of our "pets" as one of our new chickens has also had to be put into isolation after one of its fellow friends (they are still separated from the brown ones) decided to peck its head open. We are hoping that it will heal and that we will slowly be able to put it back with her "friends", but for now she is taking a rest in a big orange container...
Speaking of taking a break, I took off to Fukuoka on Friday for a day of movies and shopping. The students that were supposed to be staying on Friday night as part of their school trip cancelled (refer to paragraph one... over reaction!) so I had an unexpected free day. It was great to be able to go to a movie that didn't involve cartoon characters, high school singers, or toilet breaks in the scary bits! The worst part of the day was the stupid roads around here where if you get stuck behind a truck (big or small white one) you have to stay behind it for over an hour as there are no passing lanes and the speed limit is only 50 km/hour... on the open road! Another long story for another day!
I hope you and your pets are all well.... hope to be able to say we have the goldfish influenza under control tomorrow!

4 comments:

  1. Where the fish from Mexico? Had you been feeding them pork? Or fogetting to make them gargle and wear masks?? I have some spare ones if you need to save any more of your pets.

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  2. Or have you been overdoing it and alcohol spraying the poor fish each time you leave the house and come back in? ;P

    And I feel for you on the roads- aghhhhhh!!! there should be at least two lanes on any road- one for k-trucks and one for people who actually want to get somewhere today!

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  3. As you might know, we have heard that a lot of fishes that live in fresh water like pond, river die at one time now and then because of "Koi" herpes. But, it is contageous disease, not conneceted with the death of your goldenfish, I think. It might be just "a life span"(寿命).

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  4. Oh no, poor fishies, maybe they thought life on the other side was a better option than risking swine flu...? I agree with the over reaction, it's quite amusing for the sane ones though.
    That sounds rough for the chicken! Hope this week is a better one in yor animal kingdom!

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