The Live vs F/T debate

I-Many,

That is a valid way of killing a rodent yes. There is another less..skull bashing way that works.

Cervical-dislocation my friends.

http://www.utexas.edu/research/rsc/i...uideline04.pdf
https://www.google.com/search?q=mous...2&ved=0CEIQsAQ

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Originally Posted by SnakeBalls

I-Many,

That is a valid way of killing a rodent yes. There is another less..skull bashing way that works.

Cervical-dislocation my friends.

http://www.utexas.edu/research/rsc/i...uideline04.pdf
https://www.google.com/search?q=mous...2&ved=0CEIQsAQ

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Thanks I was looking for something like this, I had no idea what cervical dislocation was.

Definitely watch a few videos on it first.. I had to have my sister in-law show me. She's a lab hand and does it all day long appearantly. I've only done it once or twice that I can recall and that was because I had a batch of crazy mice.

In Sweden it's forbidden to feed live animals to other animals(bugs are seemingly not included in the rules). I have no statistics of how many people own snakes, and it could be that people simply shut up about it, but it seems like most snake owners who talk about feeding online only talk about f/t feeding. It's a big nono to feed live without trying f/t, only out of desperation. It's forbidden to sell rodents knowing they will be given live to animals, but frozen, or for breeding feeding animals that will be humanely killed before given is ok to sell. I think you can get a permission from the government, but I would guess most people skip getting that.

So, it seems relatively easy to get snakes to eat pre-killed, at least that's the joint voice from breeders and the small snake community. But that doesn't apply to all snakes, people admit that.

People who have rodents as pets get pretty vocal when someone promotes feeding live.

So we all know feed lots are terrible and that we really shouldn't cram livestock stomachs with corn...
We milk cows to the point that their utters (that’s breast, so the moms know how a baby can feel, imagine what a machine pumping away for hours feels like) bleed and puss and consumers end up drinking a lot of this.
We mass produce turkeys and slaughter them for thanksgiving. We mass produce chickens and slaughter them year-round. Both these fouls live in cramped, disease/bacteria ridden 'barns'.
Koreans eat dogs, cramming them into tiny cages, while they're dragged to slaughter.

But we're the villains feeding precious rodent to vile snakes.

Next time you're eating that burger, steak, holiday dinner, please remind yourself how cruel you are for supporting these practices.

Not for the kiddos :)
https://www.google.com/search?q=slau...ell=1&imgdii=_
https://www.google.com/search?q=kore...q=chicken+farm
https://www.google.com/search?q=kore...=1849&bih=1019

NONE of my feedings ever result in any of what happens to YOUR (human) FOOD. Please tell me again how cruel it is to feed my pampered mouse colony off to my snake. Yes they even have a wheel!

Who came up with F/T anyway? Live is the way nature made it.......seems like F/ T came about to be more convenient. I'm sure a freezer full of rats is a lot easier to care for than my colony of rats are. I could care less how other people feed, I perfer live. I'm certainly not going to judge people for the way they feed....

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Originally Posted by the I-Many

Well i guess thats your opinion, baby doll.

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Wow. You talked to a mod like this and called her baby doll, talk about disrespect. This entire thread has just become ridiculous. I do feed exclusively feed f/t but there are times when my snakes don't want f/t so I can and WILL feed live. There are people on here who have been raising snakes for a very long time and they feed live because it just works for them and some people don't have the time to thaw out feeders.

You are being very cruel and sadistic when you kill a feeder rat by whacking it against an object and Deborah is correct, you really have no business owning snakes. Heaven forbid you should have to take care of one of your snakes that has suddenly fallen ill, there is no telling how you would remedy such an issue. Would you whack that poor snake too instead of getting it the necessary treatment?!!

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Originally Posted by Zincubus

I really don't get this LIVE feeding malarkey . I've kept loads of snakes from Garters to Burms and I've never had to resort to feeding LIVE.
Even the fussiest Royal Python will eat warmed up d/f when they're ready . I currently have a matching , non related pair of Albino Royals who will only eat if it's warmed up and dangled in front of their face .. It sometimes takes three or four attempts but so what - just put the time and effort in and don't take the easy route of feeding LIVE . It's cruel to the rodents and risky for your snakes !!

I read a post the other day where this woman said she hated feeding live due to the harrowing sound of the rat pup crying in pain for 25 minutes whilst it was slowly eaten alive !!!
She said it sounded like a crying baby !!!

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I haven't read most of this thread, but just wanted to drag it back on topic. If this is your attitude you probably have not BRED any snakes. Snakes that you BOUGHT from other breeders were probably already feeding regularily. Once a snake is feeding REGULARILY it's often (not always) possible to switch them to frozen thawed. However getting hatchlings to eat the first time can be very tricky. And YES, in the 20 years that I've been breeding snakes I've had many hatchlings that would rather starve themselves to death than eat. Any breeder who tells you they've never had a hatchling starve itself to death has probably not been breeding very long. The ONLY way to get a lot of reluctant hatchlings to feed is to feed them live. Once they are feeding REGULARILY it's possible to trick them into taking frozen thawed.

I myself am currently feeding frozen thawed. All of my adults eat frozen thawed. I used to feed live or fresh killed for many years but I found that I was spending more time with the rodents than I was with my snakes and as time got more pinched something had to go so I got rid of the rodent colonies. It's nice having the extra time to spend with my snakes. My CHOICE to feed frozen thawed has NOTHING to do with whether or not it's cruel to feed live, because it's NOT. The snakes can kill their prey much more quickly and efficently than I can.

Realistically I'm probably going to have to go back to breeding mice at least. It's pretty expensive to buy a load of live hopper mice every week for the hatchlings that I haven't been able to switch yet.

As far as killing rodents, this is my prefered method. Got to a welding supply store and buy a canister of CO2, a regulator (get a cheap one designed for beer kegs) and the shortest hose you can find (this unfortunatly will be about 25 feet) The canister of CO2 will be expensive, but then when it's empty you can exchange it for a full one for a LOT cheaper and a canister will last a long time anyway. The initial outlay of money will be expensive (should be less than 100 bucks though) but will last forever. Attach the regulator and the hose to the canister. Take your live rodents and put them in a large heavy duty plastic garbage bag (construction bags work the best) stick the end of the hose in the bag and clamp it shut with your hand. VERY SLOWLY, crack the valve on the CO2 canister, the bag should fill up very slowly so as not to panic the rodents. Once you hear them stop scurrying around, fill the bag the rest of the way and give it a few twists to hold the CO2 in and loosely tie it off and let it sit there for a few minutes (I usually let it sit for about 10 minutes). After letting it sit for a time, open it up and dump out your dead rodents and feed them to your snakes or freeze them for later.

Oh and your story about the woman feeding a rat pup is a load of anthropomorphic baloney. First off. Rat pups sqeek when they're away from their mothers, that sound that they make is them calling for mom and yes, they can get quite loud and insistant even when they're NOT being swallowed by snakes. To say that they sound like a baby is laughable, they sound NOTHING like a human infant (as I said earlier, anthropomorphic baloney). And 25 minutes? obviously the meal was way too big.

14 pages! Come on guys, this isn't really a debate. Live can be fed safely and F/T is not 100% foolproof either. If the rodent is still frozen or had thawed for too long or partially thawed and gone bad you can have safety issues just the same.

In terms of ethics, constrictors have evolved for millions of years to be efficient at killing fast and effectively. As noted, human food supply is not all sunshine and rainbows. The meat industry is one of the most nightmarish dirty secrets out there. Even if you're a vegetarian, nasty environmental damage is done through most of our farming techniques.

All I've ever done is feed Demi, my Ball Python, live mice. I think its cruel that people would heat up dead mice! She has never skipped a meal. She eats every Monday. Right on time.