How do you feel when feeding mice, rats, etc.?

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Originally Posted by Beardedragon

Ive seen so many horrible things in my short life that feeding off a mouse or rat is almost soothing compared.

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What he said.

I don't regret feeding my snakes live or f/t. I love my snakes and that's what they eat. I think the feeding process is exciting but it is not something that I neccessarily "enjoy." I've breed a couple of litters of rats and they are super cute for the first few weeks but when it comes down to it a snakes gotta eat, so maybe I don't care for them at all but I'm trying to make myself think I do?

Whenever I used to feed live, I would be hawk-eyeing the rodent so it doesn't do anything that will harm the snake. I do feel sad that they have to die, but I can't just stop feeding rodents to snakes, its how they are, Although I do feed frozen-thawed.

Doesn't bother me a bit. It's a furry little steak for my scaly child.

sometimes i see a nice rat in my colony......watch it grow, get a little attached.....then when it's time to feed....yeah sometimes my feelings get hurt, i start to cry..........then i look back at all the racks i have to clean.........and then i smile ;););)

Pitoon

Rats can be cute. Snakes have to eat. I do my best remain detached.But every once in a while I really do feel sorry for the rat especially when they are just pups or weaned.:(

Honestly if you don't feel any kind of remorse I think there is something wrong in your brain. I breed my own as well, and I always feel bad when its time to feed. It is what it is though. Its nature, and that the food chain for you. People who can just feed them off without having any kind of "feel bad" feeling are people who IMO need help. All I'm saying is being that you are the one introducing the animal to its demise, the least you can do is care a little...I'm somewhat spiritual and I personally say a little something(in my head) when its time to feed. I just like to give thanks, kind of like grace but for my snake food.

Well, I can see a baby calf and say "Aw, how cute!" and then drive into McDonald's for a hamburger. I've had rats as pets so I do know what it's like to love one of these animals. However, it's food for crying out loud. There is a difference. I think pigs are adorable also but man I love me some bacon! I think it's all in your mentality.

Yep, don't care at all. That's why my rats have the best food, cleanest cages and water I can give, plenty of space to roam and things to do, and a lot of personal attention.

I don't feel bad when *I* eat meat, either.

Feeding F/T doesn't bother me at all.

Some of my little guys I had to start off with live mice, and I do kind of feel just a tiny bit of guilt, but it always disappears in the rush of joy when my baby is eating good.

The one I had the most trouble with was feeding a live fuzzy rat. That one hurt I will admit it. If it wasn't to the point of my stubborn snake starving or the rat, I would never have done it. But I did and I survived, even if I did sniffle a little for a while.

I was worried about my daughter dealing with my feeding rats, since she has a pet rat, but she told me, as long as it wasn't her Remmy, she didn't care. So we have a shipment on the way from RodentPro, and I know my big guys will enjoy them.

Gale

How do I feel feeding... well, usually I'm pretty tired, by the time I get around to feeding I've already cleaned 100 cages!:D

I don't feel bad about mice at all. I've had both mice and rats as pets in the past, and mice were the worst. I wish i had a snake to feed them to back then, hahaha. Rats, however, I'd feel horrible about. I had my little Ophelia trained to do simple tricks, and it was so sad when she died of some weird cancerous growth :( I decided my guys are just going to eat mice, ASFs if i decide to start breeding them (they don't really count) or frozen rats. Frozen, I'm okay with. If I fed live rats, I'd end up with numerous furry little friends. ;)

My snakes have to eat so that's that. BUT, it doesn't feel so good when you can see LIVE prey items obviously panicked, breathing hard, etc.

I recently switched them to F/T mostly because a rat scratched up my 1st bp pretty good. By the way, blow-drying the thawed prey items is GENIUS. Thank you to whoever figured that out. sorry for hijacking....

I feed F/T, but I do have to put the rodents in the tub and gas them to kill them first. I feel terrible doing it if their eyes are open. Pinkies and fuzzies are fine, but when their eyes are open it's so difficult to kill them. I think of my rodents as pets, just like the snakes, although I wish I didn't.

I used to feed live when I had my Burm (this was back in the 1980's) as live was all you fed snakes then. There really was no such thing as F/T's or P/K's. It was something I just tried to become calloused to. Not so much the rats but particularly the rabbits. In fact, Bogart refused one 7 pound New Zealand white buck once and it ended up becoming our family pet for two years before he died from cystitus. Was litterbox trained and everything.

Now with everything being F/T's and an occasional P/K when they are out of frozen I look at it as I'm already feeding them something that is dead, was bred for what I am using it for and is not an endangered species or anything and was killed humanely and quickly. Kinda removes the whole 'death thing' off my plate. I will say that I'll take the convenience and safety (for the snake) of F/T's over live food anyday.

i voted for i feel bad but i gotta do it, but really my problem is with feeding off cool patterened rats or mice if they was just whites i dont give a @#$% oh and i have a problem feeding off females....i need breeders...lol

I'm sure a lot of people have learned this, but I taught myself to separate the connection early.

I personally LOVE rodents as much as I love my reptiles, but what's gotta be just is. So while they're alive my rodents are my best friends but when it's time to go I disconnect feeling.

What worries me is the people who find it cool to watch one animal kill another. I understand a fascination with nature but if you get a kick out of the death of one animal caused by another then you should re-evaluate your reason for keeping reptiles in my honest opinion.

i feed frozen cus i am a sissy and i know i couldnt handle feeding live :p id have 10 pet mice and a hungry snake LOL

I only feel awful if the rat makes any noise. The other day, I dropped him in and before I could leave the room, Abuja struck and the poor rodent sounded as if he was screaming! I cried for a few minutes after that.

my snake wont eat frozen so what am i supposed to do ive tried piking and everything all that seems way more inhumane than jus droppin in a live.

Well, I normally think of it this way: I own snakes. Snakes need to eat rodents for food. Some of my snakes only eat live and nothing else. I gotta sacrifice a mouse/rat to feed my hungry snake. One life lost, but a healthy life gained.

If I have to take the risk of feeding live so my snake will survive, you damn bet I would take that risk. Even though it could fight back, I do have a pair of tongs that I can have the rodent bite down on while the snake eats.

It's true when they say the snake is 100% dependent on you for their survival, so sometimes you have to do what you don't want to in order to keep it alive and thriving.

When I feed frozen, I don't really feel bad because they're already dead.

I do feel bad when it's a live feeder though, although I know it has to be done and it's part of life. I just in some way feel as if I personally killed the mouse/rat so it bugs me for a little but I get over it.

I don't really feel bad when we feed rats or anything f/t. But one of our pythons only eats live white mice. They're kind of cute. But even then I don't feel bad. I feel bad when the little guys get squeezed so hard their eyes start to bulge but they're still kinda twitching. But then they die and our snake gets food. Circle of life. Stuff happens then you die.

The red eyed white rats are evil so it doesn't bother me so much. The ones with big brown eyes....well......that kinda sucks!

When I worked at my college taking care of the feeders and feeding the snakes, the way I looked at it was the breeders were pets but the babies were just food. I know it probably sounds hard to understand how such a sharp line could be drawn, but thats how I felt about it. A few of the breeders that were very obvious to tell from the others were named and even the janitors would come by and check on them and play with them. There was one male rat in particular we called stumpy, that had a missing tail. His tail came off because he kicked around too much while being put into a snakes cage as a weanling. The snake refused to feed and he then became a breeder. I think it hurt all of us a little when he died. The babies were just food though, didn't really bother me feeding them off.

Actually, now, I kind of see them all as food/disposable. But I try not to get too emotionally connected to them, even when I play with them I look at my hand after and see all the claw marks and it helps me not be attached.

I bought my rats with the intention of breeding them to feed my snakes. I think that made a difference. If I would have purchased them as pets first and then bred to feed the snakes, it may have changed my perspective. As some of the others have said, I don't have an attachment to the rats, so it is not hard to feed them to my snakes. And I must say, my snakes have been thriving since I made the decision to breed rats to feed them.

I feed my bp (prekilled) live mice every week. I used to feed her f/t's but started having problems thawing the bigger ones without them bursting one me...

I fed my girl live ones for a while, but 1/3 of the time she would get bit and i hated to see her get hurt over a mouse. So now I buy live and basically wack them in the head which usually kills them instantly. I feel soooo bad when it doesn't though cuz i don't want to cause them any pain...I've heard of other methods like CO2 cartrages and stuff to suffocate them, but personally think one quick wack is better than them choaking to death..

Basically, hate to kill any animal, but would rather kill a mouse than let my bp go hungry or continue to get bitten (and possibly sick from a bite)

I've kept rats as pets all my life and recently had to feed our new Dumeril's boa we adopted a couple weeks ago who hasn't eaten in 8 plus months, but was force fed mice twice..a little baby rat pup..I felt horrible, it was so cute and T_T I just felt horrible...but the Dumeril ate it...which made me happy...

I don't feel as bad for mice, although it still bugs me, as I don't like to see anything die, and it didn't help anything that I also had mice as pets as a little kid, and keep bonding with the feeder mice....T_T

i dont like killing any animal of any type..but its the cycle of life

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Originally Posted by CoolioTiffany

I want to see how people feel when feeding their snakes mice, rats, bunnies, ASFs, etc.

How do YOU feel when your feeding your snake a (F/T, PK, or live) mouse or a rat? Personally, to me, I don't really feel anything. I don't like rodents, I'm not scared or freaked out by them, I just don't like them. I don't find them cute, I just see them as snake food when I'm just about to put it into the snake enclosure.

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i kind of feel the same way then i rember all the money spent on the mice (even though i breed my own snake lizard and turtle food. spend all that time setting up there cages cleaning cages feeding them then pick them up flip then in the head then watch the cycle of life(never have figured out why long term captive snakes still constrict there prey.(got one green tree python she does it if the prey dont move for hours so literly got to reach in and grab the preys tail and wiggle it for a lil bit for her to eat it) but none the less to me aint no different then a cow or chicken lamb or pig raise them then send them off for food. i have found depending where you go to get even mice got to be careful of what you say or some-places wont sell to you like petsmart told them i wanted some for breeders to feed to my snakes cause only mice they had was like 5 bucks so asked them if i could get a cheaper price cause i was just going to breed the females to make snake food for my pets and they refused to sell to me and even asked me to never come in there store in Kalamazoo MI again and the funny part was they had snakes for sell to. and rabbits are even harder to get for feeders here got to go to farm supply auctions and buy a few dozen at a time and breed them till you run out but mention your going to feed a snake with it then they want allot more money or down right refuse to sell to you

After you've done it 21569564 times, it doesn't really phase you. Or maybe I'm just sick in the head.....:confuzd: ha

I feed live and dont get me wrong I feel bad for a second esp when they scream but I think of it like a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree grows to get chopped down and be glorified for a month or so and thats its destiny. The feeders whole purpose is to be a glorious meal for my snakes and I am making it happy by helping iit fulfill its destiny. I am sure the feeders are not actually happy, but thats how I get through the cute ones. The nasty lil buggers though, I dont mind watching my snakes chomp on them.

I just switched to rats and the rat pups are kinda cute
hoppers not so much

Ehh, it's just like feeding my hamster food, or feeding my fish food, it's just nutrition, nothing else. I've had Rats as pets, and feeding them off doesn't bother me at all.

i feed frozen so whatevs :P

Funny thing is, when I was younger I used to be amazing by snakes eatting when my teacher's would have them as class pets. Then I started a small rodent rescue for a few years. So when I got my first BP I couldn't stand feeding him. I used to throw his hopper's in and walk out of the room and hope I didn't come in while he was eatting it because I felt guilty.
(His first meal I gave him the feeder I purchased the gentlemen purposes gave me the cutest hopper he had because he thought I wanted to keep it as a pet.)

Now I'm back to thinking it's exciting to watch them be feed lol I even breed my own ASF's since it's cheaper then purchasing them. I also prefer to dangle meals infront of my snakes with tongs instead of dropping them in the cage with the snake. (Trying to avoid one of them getting bit.)

I'm behind the scenes at a zoo for work, and so feeding rats to snakes comes as easily as blinking does now. We can't feed live for certain reasons, but we prekill a lot of stuff before it gets fed out (not just rats and mice) and I've seen a lot of animals come and go from old age and whatnot. It used to bother me a lot, especially when I started working the birds of prey (they can get a bit too "overzealous" while eating), but now the falcons and snakes are my favorites, and watching them eat is waayy better than watching TV.

The only animals I ever feel any sorrow for are my own, the ones I've bonded with at work, or the ones that die needlessly, like if some poohface ran over a squirrel just to be a poohface. Feeding rats, not so much. :)

Nothing at all.

I feed f/t.. doesn't bother me at all when they're already dead.. now, live on the other hand.. doesn't necessarily "bother" me, but that squeek/squeal they make makes me cringe :/

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Originally Posted by emmet10

I just switched to rats and the rat pups are kinda cute
hoppers not so much

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I just switched to frozen rat pups and realized they are adorable.. lol

the only thing i dont like is to hear them squel since my snake will only eat live med. to large rats and he likes to let them suffer a minute till he finally kills them. but it doesnt matter to me i dont like rats so i can care less about them.

I feed live mice, rats, and ASFs. I may have felt a little sad at first, but after participating in the slaughter of 50+ of them every week for the past 6 months I no longer have the least bit of sympathy for any of them.

I used to be completely indifferent when feeding live but...somehow had an extra one once and started playing with it. That was the end of live feeding for me. I learned the benefits of feeding frozen plus had a few pet rats-they are actually awesome little pets :)

I honestly just think of it as the circle of life. Snakes eat rodents its a fact of life. So when I feed my snake I just look at it as a front row seat to nature.

I dont like the idea of feeding time. I just got my BP and hes on mice, but I know I need to switch him over to rats... Im not looking forward to it at all because until just this past fall, I kept rats fanatically. I have two huge cages (critter nations). At the height of my rat keeping, I had 14 rats. After a few losses in a short time period I got very depressed and was no longer able to care for them. I was so afraid to look in the cages and see I had lost another one. The vets couldnt tell me what they had died of, and they all seemed healthy beforehand. I made pan liners and hammocks out of fabrics, and special ordered top of the line food and in addition gave them a fresh fruits and veggies. Those rats were like my children. They could run free and would come when I called. It was hard to get rid of them, but I was beginning to neglect them and they deserved much better.

So... How do I feel about feeding? Feeding the mice wasnt a big deal, but im honestly terrified of how im going to react when I have to feed a baby rat. I think im going to need to just not even look.

I feel terrible when I feed pinkies or rat pups. I cannot feed live I had to a long time ago and I could not keep the snake after that. i am so glad they take feozen now I would not feed a snake live and notging above a large rat never a guinea pig or god forbid a rabbit or piglet. I had a hairless rat for three years was in the top 2 for my all time favorite pet. Myu 9 year old doxie is named sadie after her.

I dont like rats, but there is a part of me that feels bad; I won't touch them from store to feeder cage! When I was in my teens I had to clean and take care of feeder rats at a store.

I had one look up at me and in his way beg to get him out of there when he was at the end of the tongs :O

I have some mixed feelings, well first of all I raise my own rats, mice and gerbils. The only ones I feel bad for are the rat pups to me they are the cutest, this is where the mixed feelings come from. The rat pups end up being fed live to my normal male because he wont eat any other way. He used to eat fresh killed. I don't know why he won't anymore. My other normal female and pastel female will eat a fresh killed which is allot easier or they will eat a frozen thawed. Either way it's just another mouth to feed that's the way I look at it. I usually have plenty in the freezer so I don't have to feed live, but I do still have to get them in there. Ya feel me? ;)

Hmm rodents well are rodents. Its population control In my eyes. Snakes, birds, lizards etc all have to eat. And guess what a rat/mouse that is hungry feels no qualms about eating anything that is near it even if it's a sibling, snake, carrion, whatever. They are opportunists too. So In general theres a cycle of life. We eat, they eat, everybodies got to eat. I feed live to all my snakes and the little ratties are cute when they are babies, but at the same time, my snakes are a hell of alot cuter.

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Originally Posted by Repsrul

I do not want to say that I hate rates and mice but I dislike them very much. But it does bother me to feed live (to my BPs that will not take F/T) prey to my snakes. I just tell myself it is all part of the cycle. I have been keeping snakes for as long as I can remember and I think it will always bother me.

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When we first started feeding F/T rat I was relieved, because I no longer felt like I was the cause of the rats death, however recently we have a few snakes that don't eat every week and now throwing away a f/t rat because no one would eat it bothers me. :tears: It seems like there was no reason for their death if they don't eat them. At least with live when they don't eat they get to continue to live, until they do.

I started raising my own and I feel as long as I make life good for them while they are alive, and their death serves a purpose it is fine. I guess I have the old native american way of looking at it.