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

[CoolioTiffany]

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.

[alittleFREE]

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.

[maverickgtr]

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.

[izoid]

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!

[piranhaking]

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.

[Oxylepy]

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.

[PghBall]

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.

[tiny_tiger60978]

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)

[AkHerps]

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

[tsdsbd]

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