Culture differences

I'm not saying what is right and what's wrong but I'm just wondeing how keeping snakes is so different in different countries. For example, in USA, it's almost a crime to house more than one snake together. But for example here in Finland it's often even a self-evidence that housing snakes together is ok as long as they are same-sized and same species. Well, of course it depends on the species (maybe not e.g kingsnakes) but with the most common snakes like corn snakes, bp's, it's ok.

Yes I know, people keep talking about this single famous picture, but what about the many of the pictures I've seen like this one?

Yes, so there's also an other example. I've realized that many people, well let's say again, in USA, are feeding live rodents? Here in Finland it's like a very big no-no and is allowed only when the snake is starving but not eating pre-killed and going to die. (It's by the way illegal, too), so we're mostly serving frozen (well melted, duh ;)) rodents.

And oh yeah, the third one! It's also funny how most of you and people all over abroad are housing snakes in small ugly plastic boxes piled one on the other, you can't even see through them! :D Here it's pretty rare and personally I wouldn't house my snakes in them (expect temporarily) because I like to watch them living in big, nice looking enviroments. :)

Cheers,

Anthon

Here in the US, we have central heating and air, which along with the diversity of climates, can make it harder to maintain humidity for ball pythons.
And as long as the snake is not stressed due to too large of a space or lack of hides, and other factors, we should not anthropromorphize our snakes by thinking they will be happier in a tank vs a tub. They really don't care, they don't have the mental capability to care.
And some tubs can be fairly see through.
As this 72qt tub is being used by my large female:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/DSCF0753.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/DSCF0752.jpg
I will be moving her to a 40 gallon tank but she is quite content in her tub.
In Finland the number of people who breed their snakes may be smaller too. And if you went to a larger breeder I am sure you would see them using a rack system as well.
Keeping pet snakes, if you only have a few in tubs... is a little odd. But some do it for the economical reason of using heat tape instead of UTH's, one thermostat, and the overal health of their pets.
Just a thought

It's not about what's pretty for the keeper, but what provides the best security for the animal. If I want to see my ball pythons, I take them out of their tubs and interact with them. When I don't, I put them back in their tubs, which provide security and low stress levels.

They're eating every week (no fasts), growing and breeding - all signs of pretty darn happy ball pythons. :gj:

Well a rack system makes it a lot easier to keep many snakes in a small area and easy to clean manner. It's really very efficient while admittedly not aesthetically pleasing. It is certainly possible to house snakes together but would be more trouble to separate them to feed them and as many have pointed out if one of them gets sick they all may. If you see problematic feces which one did it come from? And I feed F/t rats myself because it is less expensive for me and easier to store them as I choose not to breed rodents. I think that countries that forbid live feeding are probably concerned about escaped rodents breeding and becoming a problem, not the feeding of live rodents. There is really no one way of doing things that is right.

Its obvious that there are alot of different ideas on how one should house, and care for their snakes. Most of the time our methods contradict others. In my opinion, I go with the setup and care that my snakes prefer most. When I start out with my first bp, I started with a 30 gallon tank, heat lamp, half log and that ugly green carpeting that I forgot what the name of it was. The day after I got my first snake I became curious about her origins as a bp. SO I went online to do research and found a great deal of things I didnt know. However due to my lack of money at the time I could just go out right then and there to get the proper(I guess you can say US recommended setup) but anyways I quickly found that my snake did like her enclosure very much at all, she shedded in pieces, rarely ate, and always hissed when I went to pick her up. SO I changed my setup to a plastic tub of proper size for a baby bp, UTH with a thermostat, and two hide boxes and all the other "US" requirements. Shortly after I noticed her behavior changed, she became more friendly, she started to eat weekly and consistently, and she started shedding in one piece. 13 snakes later I have came to the conclusion that this setup works for MY snakes, and in which works for me. People can say all they want about how this enclosure is better than the other. Me, I am going to let the snakes decide.

Yep, as I said, I really don't doubt any of your methods :) I was just thinkin. And it's true that here is actually.. well.. just one breeder right now :D

And yes, I keep juvenile snakes in plastic tubs too, they often tend to have stress when living in a big terrarium.

And about that illegaly of live-feeding, it's not because they may escape (here is -25 c in winter, they would die ;)), it's because it's wrong for the rodent.

I can agree with the making it illegal to feed live. At times it can be dangerous even for the snake (risk of injury).

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Originally Posted by Andoneus

And about that illegaly of live-feeding, it's not because they may escape (here is -25 c in winter, they would die ;)), it's because it's wrong for the rodent.

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How is it wrong for the rodent? Isn't that what their function is in nature? To be eaten by a snake?

In nature, the rodent has a chance to escape. In captivity, it's forced to be in a closed box with the snake, having no change to survive. (Expect if the snake is not hungry, but that's not an argument. ;))

Here it is illegal to feed anything alive with spine to a pet. EVEN FISHES ! O_O

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Originally Posted by Andoneus

In nature, the rodent has a chance to escape. In captivity, it's forced to be in closed box with the snake, having no change to survive. (Expect if the snake is not hungry, but that's not an argument. ;))

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I've never really understood the argument of the rodent not having a chance to escape the snake. Does it have a chance of escaping when the rodent breeder gases it? Seems contradictory to me. (Not an attack against you, just thinking out loud.)

So I would then assume it would be illegal in your country for human beings to eat chicken, beef or pork?

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

So I would then assume it would be illegal in your country for human beings to eat chicken, beef or pork?

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Unfortunately it isn't. ;)

But heyy it's a law, I haven't made it.

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

I've never really understood the argument of the rodent not having a chance to escape the snake. Does it have a chance of escaping when the rodent breeder gases it? Seems contradictory to me. (Not an attack against you, just thinking out loud.)

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I think here are also some rules how the rodent should be killed. I don't think it's okay to constrict them to death. :D

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Originally Posted by Andoneus

Unfortunately it isn't. ;)

But heyy it's a law, I haven't made it.

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Kind of figured that. So it's perfectly acceptable to be a meat eater if your meat comes nicely packaged in plastic at the supermarket but it's not okay to be a meat eater if your meat comes packaged in fur with a beating heart?

Sadly these laws continue to reflect the absolute disconnection and disrespect human beings have for the natural process of predator and prey. We've forgotten we are the ultimate predator, so enforce that on the animal kingdom. How sad.

I think every keeper has to make choices for their collection. What I choose to feed and how I choose to feed is a well thought out, well researched decision. I would never want some government official who can't tell a cornsnake from a burmese python making those decisions for me.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

How is it wrong for the rodent? Isn't that what their function is in nature? To be eaten by a snake?

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Sure is.


It really stinks that we have to feed rodents to snakes in the first place. On the other hand, I can say I'm sure happy I don't live in Finland. I hate to even attempt to argue how humane feeding frozen vs. live is. Have you seen how some of our "meat products" are raised? One could argue that those animals very existence is inhumane.

If your a hunter your methods of dispatching prey may be considered extremely cruel by some. Not every shot is a clean kill. Sometimes there are gut shots or you may even blow a limb off.

It sickens me that any government takes it upon themselves to tell you not to feed live for humane reasons. Excuse me for being culturally biased but it sounds like your government is full of morons. Not that ours is much better. Who is to decide when a snake should be fed live? Is it not cruel to the snake to starve them? Is there some agency that spends your tax dollars regulating pointless legislation like this. With all the problems our world faces it amazes me that people feel the need to spend any thought on rediculous laws such as these.

Live for life

David

i think that just because it seems ok and everyone is housing multiple, similar sized snakes in a single enclosure doesnt mean that it is right. it means that those keepers either do not know any better or refuse to understand whats best for the animal while thinking only of whats best for themselves.

i dont know how different a ball python's needs become between cultures but i would think that whether the snake is housed in a tub in the U.S or in a tank in Finland, they dont change.

they should change the law to make it legal to feed live and illegal to house multiple snakes in the same enclosure.(except for breeding purposes of course! ;) )

Ok Wow where to begin... Lets see
Keeping the animals in a rack set up is typically for a breeder that has neither the time or money to set up and clean glass tanks for every adult - hatchling animal. Its impractical and not very cost efficient. For a keeper with only a few animals tanks are a great way to enjoy them and properly house them.

As for feeding live many laws when it comes to pets and the pet trade are "Feeling" base i.e "I feel so bad for the rat it really doesn't have a chance to escape". Bottom line the rat isn't meant to escape and keep breeding to repopulate the species as they would in the wild. Its whole reason for existing is to provide my snakes with nutation that's why it was brought into this world. Again we come to cost effectiveness if I feed F/T or P/K and the snake doesn't eat then that rat was wasted and has to be thrown out it did not serve its purpose for being bred and raise and put down. In a scene its life was wasted. Now if I feed Live and the snake doesn't eat then the rat goes back in the rack and it lives on till it serves it propose. No wasted money, no wasted life every one is happy.

What happens when you get an animal that will not eat F/T or P/K is it better to have that animal slowly starve itself to death for the sake of our "connection" with furry things. Where then is the balance of who's chance for life was cut short by our decisions.

This so reminds me of a life long debate my parents had. My father was a hunter, and a darned good one. He didn't take his shot unless it was a kill shot and it was extremely rare for that deer to run more than a couple of steps. A fast, very clean and humane ending to his (and my) mind. He never supported shooting for trophies or shooting at something not intended for the table.

My mother would cook that venison beautifully but always refused to eat it, instead choosing to cook herself a porkchop. She "felt bad" for the "poor deer".

His point to her was this....

That deer lived it's life, it bred, it ran around, it ate well. It was dispatched quickly and for a specific reason - to provide food. It wasn't wasted or disrespected. It served it's purpose. That pig her porkchop came from also served it's purpose but it never knew anything but a crowded feed lot, never was allowed to breed, went off to a crowded, stressful killing floor where it likely was driven in with many other pigs waiting for slaughter (granted slaughter houses are run better than in his day). He was always astounded that her pork chop didn't make her "feel bad" for the "poor pig".

Growing up listening to this parental discussion every hunting season formed my view on responsible hunting and on the respect we meat eaters do owe those animals - wild or domesticated - that grace our dinner table. I never knew a time where there was a disconnect from a living creature to the Sunday roast on the table.

Taking that into snakekeeping, the rats I raise are a respected part of things here. They live, for a rat, a darned good existance. They never know hunger or thirst. They live in quite spacious enclosures that are cleaned very regularily. They have other rats to socialize with. Their end comes very quickly from one of the fastest, cleanest killing predators ever seen on this world of ours. Not a bad deal if you're a rat and naturally pretty low on that food chain Mother Nature figured out long ago. :)

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Originally Posted by dacalio

Excuse me for being culturally biased but it sounds like your government is full of morons. Not that ours is much better.

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Keep in mind our government sanctions the death penalty, but then will spend millions debating whether lethal injection is too "stressful" for the condemned killer. We have our own issues.

I respect the posters that feed live, but I didn't get a BP for many years because I was concerned about having to feed live, I would have a big problem with it. I would get far too attached to the mice/rats. It was only after I was convinced that I could successfully feed f/t that I succumbed to the desire to have one.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

How is it wrong for the rodent? Isn't that what their function is in nature? To be eaten by a snake?

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I should have said understand, but that is my fault for overly multi-tasking. I feed both live and f/t but I try my best to euthanize my feeders since it is just more humane, for some I am unable to due to the fact that it has just become too inconvient to thaw all those feeders for all my snakes, especially the larger snakes.

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Originally Posted by Sonya610

I respect the posters that feed live, but I didn't get a BP for many years because I was concerned about having to feed live, I would have a big problem with it. I would get far too attached to the mice/rats. It was only after I was convinced that I could successfully feed f/t that I succumbed to the desire to have one.

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Exactly! This is why people getting snakes need to define their thoughts first, decide what is and isn't acceptable to them BEFORE they get that snake. Good for you!

Now the only issue with that does remain, if you could not have gotten the snake to eat f/t, or didn't buy it already eating f/t - would you have been able to settle yourself to feeding live for the benefit of the snake?

These are part of the questions people should be asking themselves prior to purchasing a snake.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Now the only issue with that does remain, if you could not have gotten the snake to eat f/t, or didn't buy it already eating f/t - would you have been able to settle yourself to feeding live for the benefit of the snake?

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When I bought her they said she had eaten f/t so I felt pretty confident that she would continue. But yeah it was a concern, and I realize if she ever goes on a long fast I may have to try live.

Fortunately she is a good eater, and I just lay the mouse down, no zombie dance or anything so hopefully since that is all she has ever known she will never expect her food to move.

Here is something I wrote up years ago for some friends dealing with potential local regulations on caging. If I update it I'll probably increase the size recommendations now that I have experience with bigger/older ball pythons. I actually found some huge (nearly 2 ft X well over 3 foot) boxes that seem fine for large adult ball pythons. I do have a couple exceptionally large females that I'm considering moving to 4 ft. Neodesha with tree potter hides if I can solve the humidity issue. I’ve kept them in that before and had trouble with sheds. I do think there are some real benefits to sweater box housing, especially in my particular cool and very dry climate.

http://snakemorphs.home.comcast.net/...phs/caging.htm

On the feeding, I just hope it doesn’t get to that point here. While I did feed frozen back when I had corn snakes in my experience feeding any number of ball pythons almost requires live feeding. I’m all for treating feeders humanely but don’t really see how feeding live violates that. I did see a study once that only primates seem to have an extreme fear response to snakes and I must agree that the rats I feed don’t seem to “see it coming” and it’s all over very quickly, at least as quick as the CO2.

But it’s great that we have the world wide herp community to discuss new ideas. Some day I might make a display terrarium (although not likely with my wife’s hatred of all things snake). Maybe with my humidity issues I could turn a glass topped coffee table into a sand boa enclosure. Guests wouldn’t even have to know what lies under the sandscape, lol.

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Originally Posted by Sonya610

Keep in mind our government sanctions the death penalty, but then will spend millions debating whether lethal injection is too "stressful" for the condemned killer. We have our own issues.

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I couldn't agree with you more. There is no shortage of hypocritical ignorant elected officials on this planet. I'm just glad our government has not passed this particular piece of legislation.

When these discussions come up it makes me think about religion. People believe what they believe because their family and society convinced them of it. Most people are sheep. A lot of us hear things over and over again and eventually we believe it. I will probably get a lot of flack for saying this but I really don't care. I was raised in a rural environment and by a family of hunters. My father taught me respect for animals. He also taught me where that delicious homemade chicken soup came from.
Human beings have this complex where we feel it is our responsibility to decide if something is morally correct. Not all cultures have the same set of morals.

The only reason that crazy laws like these are passed is because some special interest group lobbies for it. In the end it is our responsibilty as a community to make sure that we keep our rights.

David

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Exactly! This is why people getting snakes need to define their thoughts first, decide what is and isn't acceptable to them BEFORE they get that snake. Good for you!

Now the only issue with that does remain, if you could not have gotten the snake to eat f/t, or didn't buy it already eating f/t - would you have been able to settle yourself to feeding live for the benefit of the snake?

These are part of the questions people should be asking themselves prior to purchasing a snake.

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Excellent post!

A seller can tell you that your prospective purchase is eating frozen thawed. This may or may not be true. Also, a snake may decide it no longer wants to eat dead. Stranger things have happened. If your not willing to feed live maybe you shouldn't own a snake.

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Originally Posted by dacalio

Human beings have this complex where we feel it is our responsibility to decide if something is morally correct. Not all cultures have the same set of morals.

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Totally off-topic, and I'm sure it was just a mistype, but I found the idea that not all cultures are human beings amusing. ;)

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

But it’s great that we have the world wide herp community to discuss new ideas.

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Amen to that, Randy. That´s the spirit, instead of starting to argue which are the better laws or confuse the best with the most practical way of doing the same thing: keeping healthy snakes.

I could give you the Southern Europe view (since you already have the Northern one).

Live feeding vs F/T or pre-killed: in some areas it´s illegal (also happens in the UK); in others it´s not and depends on the owner. People tend to avoid and justify the option with the safety of the snake (usually confusing "live feeding" with "unassisted live feeding"...);


Racks vs display terrariums: It has mostly to do with practical issues. If you have a "collection" it´s not practical to keep it in display terrariums (although some people do); if you only have a few snakes (say, up to 10) it´s easier to opt for display terrariums. I would say that in the US private keepers tend to have collections (huge market; huge offer; lots of snakes), where in Europe we usually have a few pet snakes.

The argument that the snakes are happier or better acommodated in one or the other is always reversible. If you compare a bad display with a good rack or a good display with a bad rack... the result is the same: the good wins. So you have to compare comparable situations.
Of course, having a good display terrarium is much more expensive and requires much more work than having a good rack system and so, we´re back to the number of snakes.

I feed f/t and am more of a display guy. And I do my best to balance the looks of the terrarium with the needs of the particular snake (that comes first). If you can achieve that, the snake is kept in a good condition (with the extra of having room for exercise) and the result is pleasant for your eyes.

In the end, it´s a matter of option, as long as you don´t put your personal taste/needs before the needs of the snakes.

(btw, this is my living-room display terrarium of my JCP; I´m working on the BP´s terrariums and will show them off later :D)
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7619/img2049lc1.jpg

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

Totally off-topic, and I'm sure it was just a mistype, but I found the idea that not all cultures are human beings amusing. ;)

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Lets not go there lol.

You guys are right I should just ignore threads like these and focus on the more helpful threads. With all the recent legislation it's a little scary to think what the government will (not may) try to regulate next.

David

my question is doesnt this finnish government have anything else better to do that worry about the feeding of captive pets?

diease?:colbert:
famine?:colbert:
war?:colbert:
poverty?:colbert:
britney spears? :rofl:


just a question.

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Originally Posted by crystal

my question is doesnt this finnish government have anything else better to do that worry about the feeding of captive pets?

diease?:colbert:
famine?:colbert:
war?:colbert:
poverty?:colbert:
britney spears? :rofl:


just a question.

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I don't see Britney Spears moving to Finland anytime soon, so they should be ok on that front. ;)

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

I don't see Britney Spears moving to Finland anytime soon, so they should be ok on that front. ;)

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its just everytime she does something here it makes front page news. maybe finland should worry about her more than poor hungry snakes.:snake:

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Originally Posted by crystal

my question is doesnt this finnish government have anything else better to do that worry about the feeding of captive pets?

diease?:colbert:
famine?:colbert:
war?:colbert:
poverty?:colbert:
britney spears? :rofl:


just a question.

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That was deep.

I´m not Finn, but since Finland is one of the strongest economies in the world, I believe they´ve got all that covered (except probably war - not in their habits -and, of course, Britney Spears).

@ the original poster:
These "Cultural differences" threads get complicated. Maybe it´s better to invest in the "Which snake should I get next ?" type of thread.