Quote Originally Posted by Homegrownscales View Post
Something that I would like to pint out though is, whether people get a kick out of their ball hunting and eating or not is actually irrelevant. If you feed live the same thing is going to happen. So what if you watch and like it. The animal will be dispatched in the same method.
Are you saying intent means nothing? No way, it means a hell of a lot. It is the crossing line between what is abject animal cruelty and what isn't.

If someone had the intention feeding live purely on the basis that they get their jollies out of it, then they should not be doing it. In fact... they should not even be owning pets if they enjoy causing and watching other animals suffer. Whether the same thing happens to the mouse or not isn't really the issue, it's if the person has malicious intent. And you're saying that doesn't matter because the mouse dies anyway??

Weather you agree or not is unimportant. But try not to group folks with being lazy or sadistic
Sorry, but if people like to watch other animals in pain then they're being sadistic. I can't really explain this any more easier.

You can give your ball pythons parasites from ft. I don't know if you know that. It does happen. Just as injury and deaths happen from ft as well. Too hot, or too cold and your ball goes into shock and could die. Accidentally cooking or bad rodents etc and your ball could die.
I'd like to know what kind of parasite can survive the freezing process. The latter can easily be controlled - can you say the same for a live, unpredictable animal?

Just because you feed live because its more convenient, or you like to watch your snake eat, doesn't make it worse or cruel to the rats or anything like that.
Of course it makes it worse.

If you're killing them for pleasure, that indicates a malicious mindset. Wanting to cause pain to another animal and getting pleasure from it is far worse than not getting pleasure from it and being indifferent.

Many of those situations like the picture you captioned Gavin, is from days or weeks of a rodent being left in a closed off area with the snake no food no water.
I'd recommend taking a look at the forum thread I linked. Those instances were not "days or weeks"... a mouse has sharp enough teeth to take out an eye. In an instant. It has happened before. Just because it never happened with you doesn't mean it never will, and doesn't mean it is not an unnecessary risk.

Every technique has its own procedure. You follow that and you'll really Hve no issues. You don't and either way can kill your snake.
You can tell that to the people who had to pay expensive vet bills because a rat or mouse struck and took out an eye, or left a deep wound that would become infected.

And this is exactly why I don't buy any of these "convenience issues". Doing it for entertainment is flat out disgusting and should not be encouraged. If your snake is perfectly capable of taking f/t, then there's really no justification to feed it live unless you think a minute convenience outweighs the danger to the snake (and the suffering of the prey animal).