Is it ok if my bp eats a live mouse, live?

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In my opinion, if you are responsible for the ending of a life, you should not flinch from looking the creature in the eye and doing it yourself.

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So I'm wondering how you reconcile this when you buy your meat at the grocery store?

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Most of the reasoning I've seen behind its being considered inhumane has to do with people screwing it up, and not with its ability to painlessly kill the animal.

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I think that is exactly the point. Since you can't 100% guarantee that every "whack" won't be an instant kill (either by you or by people attempting to emulate you) the damage (or potential damage) done to an animal that is "whacked" incorrectly is what I think is considered inhumane.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

I guarantee live-feeding of rodents to snakes will become illegal

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I don't think that anyone can "guarantee" that?

Good subject and great discussion everyone!! :sweeet:

-adam

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Originally Posted by rabernet

So I'm wondering how you reconcile this when you buy your meat at the grocery store?

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LMAO! ... I do love a good steak! Goin to fire up the grill I think! Thanks for the great idea Robin!! :love:

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

LMAO! ... I do love a good steak! Goin to fire up the grill I think! Thanks for the great idea Robin!! :love:

-adam

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I hope you plan on looking that steak in the eye before you kill it!

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Originally Posted by AzureN1ght

I hope you plan on looking that steak in the eye before you kill it!

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You know, even though I spent six years on active duty in the USMC, these days I'm a changed man ... I'm a lover, no longer a killer Kim! :love: ;) :hump:

-adam

Look if you're going to keep snakes, you're going to have to deal with these issues and we've dealt with this ohhhhh...just a time or two here at BPNet.

Smacking a rodent on the head with a book or other similar methods is not humane, nor is it considered such by top labratories, by rodent feeder suppliers who make their living dealing with rodents nor by any reputable snake keeper I know or have spoken with. It is simply an inhumane short cut some take for reasons I've never fully understood.

I am not overstating my position when I say that I believe in respecting the prey that is the single most important item that keeps my snake alive. I can provide the most perfect housing, with the most perfect temps, clean their tubs every other minute, but without the rodents I raise to feed them.....I have 21 dead snakes.

Part of my respect for that prey animal is that I took the time - hours of searching for and reading labratory protocols, research by Brad Moon and others on the true mechanics of constriction, my own close observation of our three species of snakes we have here to understand the similarities and differences in their hunt styles along with reading and talking with others far more experienced than I who feed literally hundreds of snakes each week. When my husband and I made the decisions to breed rats, to create that living food for our snakes to feed live from, I made a conscious decision to do so with as much solid research as I could find. None of that research supports any concept of smacking rodents to death through means that leave far too much room for human error nor does it show that live feeding is in any way cruel or inhumane to the rodent, nor particularily unsafe for the snake.

My thoughts remain as they've always been - if you show little respect or understanding for the rodent that sustains your snake's life - you in turn disrespect and misunderstand your snake and their predator/prey dynamic. A dynamic that's been going on far, far longer than our intrusion into it.

I work for a vet, and I asked her about this today. (She loves small mammals by the way) Her thoughts on this is that if done correctly it is really no more cruel then feeding mice to snakes live.

"Stunning" is part of the process when some livestock is turned into meat for human consumption. It may be "inhumane" but the USDA considers it an acceptable way to treat livestock that is intended to be food. If that is not what a feeder mouse is then....I don't know what else to call it.

Note that the above argument applies to stunning done in the correct manner, not beating a mouse with a book or a shoe or a stick or putting it a bag and swinging it into a wall ect....

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Originally Posted by ArcticBlue

I work for a vet, and I asked her about this today. (She loves small mammals by the way) Her thoughts on this is that if done correctly it is really no more cruel then feeding mice to snakes live.

"Stunning" is part of the process when some livestock is turned into meat for human consumption. It may be "inhumane" but the USDA considers it an acceptable way to treat livestock that is intended to be food. If that is not what a feeder mouse is then....I don't know what else to call it.

Note that the above argument applies to stunning done in the correct manner, not beating a mouse with a book or a shoe or a stick or putting it a bag and swinging it into a wall ect....

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Ok, then how should you stunn a mouse? I was never really told how to btw.
But a quick hit and the mouse is gone..
Now, I feel like I said it wrong (hitting a mouse WITH a book) I hit the mouse ON my book.. ( Math book from school :D )

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Originally Posted by ArcticBlue

Note that the above argument applies to stunning done in the correct manner, not beating a mouse with a book or a shoe or a stick or putting it a bag and swinging it into a wall ect....

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Exactly! :clap:

-adam

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Here's another link that Joanna shared with me about constriction now being believed to stop the heart rather than suffocating the prey:


http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/channel/blog/2006/01/explorer_supersnake.html

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I haven't finished reading through, but the cardiac arrest theory seems to be widely accepted in the scientific community. I read about it in the "Encyclopedia of Snakes."