When people force their own agendas on animals...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cchardwick

I tried to feed my tarantula a hot dog. He didn't eat it.

---

Reminds me of how many years ago, my local Petco had a bunch of crickets in the ball python cage. I was around 12 years old, and I remember vividly thinking, "I didn't know snakes ate crickets..." And I watched the cage for a long time, waiting for the ball python to eat a cricket. Adults and Petco employees can lack so much common sense sometimes.

(Granted, there are a couple uncommon species that eat crickets... but man)

There are plenty of good moral and ethical reasons why a person might choose not to eat meat, not the least of them being that much of American meat production is an ethical and environmental disaster. Most meat that Americans eat is not by any stretch of the imagination like shooting a wild deer in the woods and feeding your family on it for weeks. (OK, I knowingly behave unethically in this situation, because I know all the reasons why I shouldn't and I eat it anyway because it is delicious)

But humans have adapted to an extremely varied diet. There are indigenous human populations whose diets are almost entirely plant-based, and other populations whose diets are almost entirely meat/fish based, which is pretty amazing when you think about it; and also quite rare for native populations of the same species to have diets that differ from each other so much.

And in developed countries we have access to an unprecedented variety of foods with origins all over the world if we want them. We can cook and otherwise process things that would normally be difficult or impossible to digest. We can separate out specific components of those things, to get things like olive oil or protein powder.

So we have the privilege of making the personal choice to eat meat or not, because we have so many possible ways to get what we need. Lots of humans don't even really have that choice; a person in a poor fishing village in a developing country can't just decide to eat fake'n bacon instead of fish, and a poor farmer in a different developing country can't just decide to eat chicken nuggets instead of rice.

But most animals require much more highly specific diets than we do. Their biology has evolved to eat certain things, and we don't currently have the ability to synthesize all of their requirements from plants only (if we even knew all the things they really need, which we don't).

Trying to feed obligate carnivores a vegan diet is a kind of anthropomorphizing; it assumes that they have the same choices that we do, and they don't.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coluber42

But most animals require much more highly specific diets than we do. Their biology has evolved to eat certain things, and we don't currently have the ability to synthesize all of their requirements from plants only (if we even knew all the things they really need, which we don't).

Trying to feed obligate carnivores a vegan diet is a kind of anthropomorphizing; it assumes that they have the same choices that we do, and they don't.

---

Yep, LOL. Crazy people.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coluber42

Trying to feed obligate carnivores a vegan diet is a kind of anthropomorphizing; it assumes that they have the same choices that we do, and they don't.

---

Hit the nail on the head, I think. So many people ascribe moral or political values to their lifestyle/diet preferences, which is fine, but then for some reason insist on projecting that outward. It's bad enough to do it to other people, but to project that onto animals? A cat or snake can't make a moral or political choice not to eat meat; they're obligate carnivores. Beyond that, they're animals without the advanced cognition necessary to even make a choice like that! Not only is it the worst kind of anthropocentric thinking, it's animal cruelty. Ughhhh it makes me so frustrated.

I work with raptors and have had 'vegan' volunteers be absolutely appalled that I chop up f/t mice for tiny baby hawks. When I ask what they think the birds eat in the wild, they can't come up with a good reason as to why it's cruel for me to butcher frozen/thawed mice but not cruel for a wild hawk to kill and eat a wild mouse.

I usually get some response along the lines that domestic mice/rats are cruelly raised in unnatural cages and suffer the short time they are alive and then murdered by humans for use that nature did not intend and that they have no hope of escaping v.s. in the wild mice have fun fulfilling lives and have a chance to survive to a ripe old age. Now, I've had pet mice that lived to a geriatric age of 2.5 years had arthritis and got cataracts and tumors. I have also been an avid outdoors person all my life and grew up on a farm where wild mice were a regular problem. Not once did I ever see a crotchety tumorous wild mouse skittering along with a mini-walker in the barn. They live fast and die young, that's the way it is.

ALSO, even more than that -

people need to stop trying to make animals be more than animals. They act on instinct and react to stimulus, they don't plot / calculate harm / ponder their existence / or become enlightened and live better lives of their own accord. I annoys me to know end that people will immediately act with deadly force against an animal that attacks a person no matter the circumstances, then turn around and say that they want a wolf / large constrictor / something else impressive for a pet because it's cool. Also, since they will love it, the animal will "love" them and won't hurt them because it's thankful that it is being taken care of.

[end rant]

Well, there are many, many children's books in which mice and rats are the heroes, such as Stuart Little, Inkheart, Redwall, The Rescuers etc. Students come up through their childhoods reading about and falling in love with little mice with big personalities. My middle school students were a little unhappy when they learned and witnessed the classroom snake eating mice. To lighten things up, we give his meals names, like, Mouse on Rye Toast, Mouse Fricasse, Mouse Over Easy, and Mouse Casserole.

Its a trade off with kids. They tolerated meals better with f/t mice than if I fed him live, and they learn important lessons in husbandry and responsibility but just wait until a mouse gets into their house and chews up the wires in their Xbox. When that happens, they're all about wanting to feed that big bad mouse to a snake. (I dont let them. Only captive-bred food.)

This might help explain a child's perspective. I have no explanation for adults....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Willowy

Some people don't think. I mean, it's mostly farm people here. Not a lot of people who are against eating meat. One young farm girl told me that it's cruel to feed them rodents, even those that were gassed first. I said "so it would be better if they ate chicken from the store?" and she said yes :confusd:. I asked her what the difference was. Asked if maybe the gassed rodents even had a better death than the chickens who are stunned with electricity and then have their necks cut (which she didn't have a problem with). She couldn't come up with a reason, but still felt that store meat would be preferable. Ok, that's just one ditzy 12-year-old. But it doesn't seem to be an uncommon belief. Idk people, try to explain your beliefs to yourself before you share them, see if they make any sense :P.

I don't like it when people feed their cats or dogs vegetarian/vegan kibble. But at the same time, most cheap kibbles have almost no meat in them anyway. And the most popular dog food in the US is Ol' Roy. So I don't feel like those that do it for their beliefs are any worse than those that do it for financial reasons.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greensleeves001

Well, there are many, many children's books in which mice and rats are the heroes, such as Stuart Little, Inkheart, Redwall, The Rescuers etc. Students come up through their childhoods reading about and falling in love with little mice with big personalities. My middle school students were a little unhappy when they learned and witnessed the classroom snake eating mice. To lighten things up, we give his meals names, like, Mouse on Rye Toast, Mouse Fricasse, Mouse Over Easy, and Mouse Casserole.

Its a trade off with kids. They tolerated meals better with f/t mice than if I fed him live, and they learn important lessons in husbandry and responsibility but just wait until a mouse gets into their house and chews up the wires in their Xbox. When that happens, they're all about wanting to feed that big bad mouse to a snake. (I dont let them. Only captive-bred food.)

This might help explain a child's perspective. I have no explanation for adults....

---

Could be for some... Or maybe that kids/adults in general feel that anything they themselves don't normally eat, shouldn't get eaten? Eating chicken, beef, pork is something all humans do (not including vegans... you know what I mean) and is ingrained in most of our minds as totally A-OK meat to eat. That could be why adults and anyone subconsciously feels it's 100% okay to eat chicken/beef/pork/store-bought meat, than something odd (and cute) like a mouse, which we normally see alive and we don't eat.

I also grew up reading Redwall! It's still one of my favorite book series! My 3rd grade science teacher had a milk snake who he fed live mice. I was always fascinated with watching the snake eat live, as a kid... Maybe some kids are morbid. :P

I think you can make the argument that it's more ethical to feed a snake f/t than live; the snake doesn't get the experience of killing actual live prey, but considering that a BP that will take a f/t meal will still constrict it for awhile anyway (and I sort of suspect that my old corn snake preferred them that way because they were more cooperative), I would say that the interest of the rodent to not suffer more than necessary outweighs the interest of the snake to enjoy live meals. As a keeper, I do have that choice, and I believe that f/t for any animal that will eat that is the more ethical choice. So in that case I am imposing my ethics (and, let's be honest, my convenience!) on my snake. But I'm not doing so to his nutritional detriment.