I think I'm done with Craigslist

This same topic was raised on Iherp back in October, and some good points were made.
http://www.iherp.com/Public/Blog/Detail.aspx?uid=88434

Post #16

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Actually, the natural choice of food for a lot of my snakes would be more along the bird and lizard variety, they have to be taught to accept a rodent diet.

I see rabbits and guinea pigs bagged up and offered for snake food, those are definitely pet creatures in most people's eyes, especially the guinea pigs. Puppies? Sure, ok, add them to the frozen food menu as well for the sake of discussion. May as well put ferrets on there too since I'm going there. My point is that all of those animals that we feed our snakes have value as companion animals, they're all domestic. At one point in my life, all I had for companion animals were my rats and I know first hand that they have amazing personalities and make great companions. I don't see bags of frozen rats as the same thing as the neat minds I knew way back when, I can dissociate and just think of them as food items. I can't imagine feeding kittens or ferrets because they're both obigate carnivores and I doubt the nutritional value would be the same as it would for a herbivore or omnivore. Besides, what snake in its right mind would eat a stinky ferret...lol. Puppies would probably make a very nutritious meal, perhaps even a bit too fattening. Kittens I may be able to disassociate with, though I've known and owned (gasp!) some pretty cool cats in my time (clearly the minority!) so its hard to say. Puppies, I highly doubt I could cross that line given my relationship with the dog species as a whole. Yea, I don't think I could go there. I don't agree with scamming stuff off of CL to feed to snakes because its just wrong on so many levels, but were there puppies and kittens on the frozen menu at RP alongside the bunnies and guinea pigs, I'm not sure I'd judge someone else for buying them to feed to their snakes.

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I really don't care one way or another if the rabbits do get used for food. What upset me was that people were instantly posting about how the rabbits were going to get purchased as snake food. I think people really can't imagine someone wanting a pet rabbit in addition to a pet snake. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Kinra

I really don't care one way or another if the rabbits do get used for food. What upset me was that people were instantly posting about how the rabbits were going to get purchased as snake food. I think people really can't imagine someone wanting a pet rabbit in addition to a pet snake. :rolleyes:

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Lol..Its sad to say, but I own a rabbit and have owned probably close to 30 over the years. :P it is hard to own a rabbit and to even think about feeding It to a snake. But hey..that's just me!

It's always sad when one bad apple ruins it for everybody else.

A lot of nuts out there. I worked at the Humane Society years ago. There was a foreigner that used to come in and adopt the rabbits. I don't know how they found out but they said he was eating them:O. They stopped adopting them out to him.

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Originally Posted by zeion97

Lol..Its sad to say, but I own a rabbit and have owned probably close to 30 over the years. :P it is hard to own a rabbit and to even think about feeding It to a snake. But hey..that's just me!

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If I had a snake that needed to be on rabbits then I would bulk buy frozen; I have three indoor bunnies in addition to my snakes and there's no way I would even think about feeding them to something! -shudders- I don't think I could even feed live random feeder bunnies to a snake after owning my own rabbits.

BTW The buns are kept safely away in a closed-off bedroom :)

I raised rabbits for 10 years so I know this feeling. I have tried watching feeding videos to desensitze myself but when I hear a rabbit scream it's like hearing a child scream to me. I never even knew rabbits could scream until I saw a feeding video. So if I were to ever get a snake that had to eat rabbits, I would by them frozen is bulk. No way I could feed live.

Interesting thing about people having reservations about feeding rabbits...to me, feeding rats is far harder. My family raises meat rabbit for us to eat- I live on a farm. We eat cows, rabbits, sheep...they're all food items (although we're very kind, and treat them well.) I've had many pet rabbits over the years, as well as rats, and I didn't get nearly as attached to the rabbits as I did the rats. I've never felt that the had too much of a personality. I Honestly wish I could feed my balls rabbits, instead of the rats. :( But I really understand either way. It's hard to feed off anything. Dissociation FTW!

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Originally Posted by MasonC2K

I raised rabbits for 10 years so I know this feeling. I have tried watching feeding videos to desensitze myself but when I hear a rabbit scream it's like hearing a child scream to me. I never even knew rabbits could scream until I saw a feeding video. So if I were to ever get a snake that had to eat rabbits, I would by them frozen is bulk. No way I could feed live.

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A lot of aniamals have horrible death screams, its so much worse to see the brutailty of an animal killing an animal. I think thats what people have trouble with. I shot a huge coyote clean two winters ago by the canadian boarder and he let out his howl. Normaly thats it, they run a little, they lay down and die....but this time 2 of the younger pack males attacked him and tore him apart. It was the most violent thing I ever saw in my whole life. Ironically I was hunting the coyote to preserve the snow shoe hare go figure:oops:

One of the things that bothers me is that so many people look down on snakes and snake owners because they are predators, and that they (snakes) have to kill their food to survive. When in all reality their pet cat and dog are themselves predators, and in a natural environment they would be hunting and killing their food. Thanks to dog and cat food companies they don't have to partake in the predatory process, they just have to open a bag of pressed nuggets.
Just because a dog or cat doesn't have to kill or way whole prey doesn't make them any less of a predator.
I've watched my cat catch, and kill a chipmunk on my front porch, it was not a pretty sight.