Live Feeding Morally Wrong???

With beardies,gecko`s etc... feeding dead crickets/canned crickets is considered a bad thing to a lot of keepers,they say you should only feed live as it replicates their natural behaviour............

So why is it the other way round with snakes?

Feeding defrost rodents is easier in some ways, especially if your squeemish, A lot of people say that rodents will hurt your snake, and yes this happens sometimes, with my snakes if i fed 100 live i doubt 1 of them would get bit by the rodent, snakes are meant to feed live so they are experts in feeding, they have done it for thousands of years.
Also you get better feeders with live feeding.

As from the on snake keepers point of view, i can see why they may find it cruel, but they need to realise that its natural and theres thousands of snakes in the word at any one time doing exactly the same thing in the wild.

I once got a message on myspace... It said how cruel i was and that she keeps cats and dogs which are all vegetarians lol... sorry, but thats cruel!

she then went on to tell me that any animal in the world can become a vegetarian and that theres no reason why snakes cant become vege`s!!
Well i told her exactly where to go after trying to educate her and she wouldnt listen, she was a complete extremist!

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Originally Posted by elusivereptiles

I personally don't think it's morally wrong to feed a ball python "live" prey. It's called "nature" in my opinion. It is a natural instinct for them to feed on live prey. Regardless of whether or not they are captive they still have the drive to feed on live prey.

As goes for feeding in the tank or out. I feed outside of the tank. All of my snakes are used to it, and it doesn't seem to bother them. I usually wait to remove them from the feeding container until they move around quite a bit after swallowing. But the BIGGEST reason I feed outside of their tank is because if you continue to feed in the tank they will associate food with thier home. I would rather not try to pick one of my snakes up and them mistake me for food.

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I can see the reasoning here but with frequent handling (so putting your hands in the enclosure for reasons other than feeding), feeding inside an enclosure should not turn your snake into a hand hungry monster. But this is not the topic here and I am not trying to debate;) just pointing out the other side of the story.

When I told my boyfriends mom what I feed my bp she freaked out, but she was still interested. After several talks with her about WHY I HAVE TO feed my bp mice/rats, she understands that the snake and his set up cost alot of money and to decide at this point that "oh that pooor little mouse, I think I'll let my bp starve and save that poor little $2 mouse" would be throwing away a lot of money (she didn't care much for the "but I love him so much feeding him a mouse makes me happy because I know he's healthy" explanation) She is also terrified of snakes but slowly coming around.

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Originally Posted by reptilicious

With beardies,gecko`s etc... feeding dead crickets/canned crickets is considered a bad thing to a lot of keepers,they say you should only feed live as it replicates their natural behaviour............

So why is it the other way round with snakes?

Feeding defrost rodents is easier in some ways, especially if your squeemish, A lot of people say that rodents will hurt your snake, and yes this happens sometimes, with my snakes if i fed 100 live i doubt 1 of them would get bit by the rodent, snakes are meant to feed live so they are experts in feeding, they have done it for thousands of years.
Also you get better feeders with live feeding.

As from the on snake keepers point of view, i can see why they may find it cruel, but they need to realise that its natural and theres thousands of snakes in the word at any one time doing exactly the same thing in the wild.

I once got a message on myspace... It said how cruel i was and that she keeps cats and dogs which are all vegetarians lol... sorry, but thats cruel!

she then went on to tell me that any animal in the world can become a vegetarian and that theres no reason why snakes cant become vege`s!!
Well i told her exactly where to go after trying to educate her and she wouldnt listen, she was a complete extremist!

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O how dare you feed "live" crickets :O.They make nice music and stuff in the summer :(.Of course i am just joking here folks :P.

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Originally Posted by joepythons

O how dare you feed "live" crickets :O.They make nice music and stuff in the summer :(.Of course i am just joking here folks :P.

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:rofl: lol!

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Originally Posted by reptilicious

:rofl: lol!

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Why thank you :gj:

The funny thing is that those people who complain about the ”cute ” little mouse being fed to “a mean” snake don’t complain much about the steak they have in their plate!

Of course when you get your T-Bone from the grocery store there is no cute factor, but are those people living on another planet? Don’t they know where the package meat originally comes from?

And I wonder if those people could not find their meat at the grocery store, would they

A# Learn to hunt
B# Become vegetarian

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Originally Posted by MarkS

You feed your snake what it's willing to eat, but you will still never convince some people about the necessity of feeding live.... And by the way, feeding live because it's 'natural' is NOT a good enough reason. BUT... why on earth do people feel the need to film it and put it on YouTube? I think a lot of the reason some people do that is for the shock value anyway, so the comments they are getting is just what they're looking for. Do people film their dogs eating a can of alpo and put THAT on YouTube?? NO..... So why snakes? It's NOT necessary and it's NOT needed to film this. If you want to impress somebody, film your boa taking a dump and put THAT on YouTube.

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Well, how exciting is it when your dog is eating a can of Alpo? If my dog caught a bird and starting eating it, you're damn right i'd film it and put it on youtube.

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Originally Posted by Bait4Snake

I then kept going: "Ever heard of the Black Plague? Those poor defenseless disease carrying disgusting rodents and their fleas killed off a quarter of your ancestors in Europe about 500 years ago... It's pay back time!"

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Hahahaha! I'm going to use this! Everytime I feed now, i'm going to say something to the rat along the lines of "This is for uncle Tony!"

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Originally Posted by _Venom_

I post videos on youtube so I can download them back if I ever want them one day.
My computer constantly breaks down and my data is deleted.

And yes, people are odd.
My aunt left my house because I had my BP out.

Even my aprents where stunned, they thought she was kidding around.

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I put up a video of my snake eating that I edited, and I'm removing my other two feeding videos. I mainly put them on there for my friends to check out, but now I just don't really care. I think we film them eating because them just slithering around isn't really that interesting.

ive got some vids of my albino burm feeding, no silly comments as yet, but i expect to get some lol
http://www.youtube.com/user/reptilicious

i have my comments so i have to approve them first

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I once got a message on myspace... It said how cruel i was and that she keeps cats and dogs which are all vegetarians lol... Sorry, but thats cruel!

she then went on to tell me that any animal in the world can become a vegetarian and that theres no reason why snakes cant become vege`s!!

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Actually, a dog CAN survive on an all vegetarian diet, but it has to have all the right stuff for complete nutrition, however a cat on an all vegetarian diet will eventually go blind. There is a certain amino acid for a cats eye health that is only found in animal products. I don't remember what it is though.