A man owned a prize show horse with a beautiful long flowing mane and tail. One day the owner went to groom his horse and was surprised to find two sparrows twittering away, building a nest in the horse’s mane. The man didn’t want to harm the birds, so he tried picking them out of the mane. When that failed, he tried scaring them, first with a pistol shot, then recorded hawk calls and, finally, a stuffed owl stuck on the fence beside the horse. Nothing worked; the birds always rebuilt their nest.

In desperation, the man called his vet, who advised: “Every morning for three days, sprinkle two tablespoons of brewer’s yeast on the mane. That ought to work.”

The owner did as directed, and sure enough, after three days the birds were gone. Happy, he called the vet back. “Doc, it worked!” he exclaimed. “How did you know what to do?”

“Simple,” the vet replied. “Yeast is yeast and nest is nest, and never the mane shall tweet.”