Quote Originally Posted by Deborah View Post
Don't you think that keeping those animals CAPTIVE is for your own convenience too or it is for the snake's convenience?

I will stand by what I said each owner should feed what works and what is convenient for them without being judged by either side.
I am not oposed to keeping animals in captivity... Some people find it ethically wrong, and I can understand where they are coming from. But personally I believe that on the hobbyist level, and not scientific research, if you can do like I said above... "First and foremost we should put all "keeper convenience" aside here and aim at creating a stable, healthy environment for the snake, where they can live and practice natural behaviors as if they were on their own in the wild". If you can strive for this, then it is obvious that you have the best interest of the animal in mind. I believe we are already taking enough from the animal by keeping them captive, we need to focus on not taking too much from them; a line needs to be drawn. To me, conditioning a born predator to eat frozen food is past that line. Again, I believe the goal of this hobby should not be to cram as many snakes into your place as you could possibly fit, condition them to eat in a way that is convenient for you, then crossing and inbreeding until we get a morph that looks appealing to us. I am not opposed to morph breeding, but I think the hobby focuses to much on it... oh well... that is the nature of the market... But we need to remember what herping is all about...To provide an environment where the animal can live it's life and behave in the way nature intended them to, for us to observe and learn from.

We cannot decide how or what our animals think about what we feed them, but if my snakes all "hunt" their FT rat on tongs, strike, constrict and kill the already dead animal just like they would have in the wild, then how are we stripping them of the stimulation and behaviors when they react the same as if they were in the wild or killing a live rat?

I understand your point... And I won't spend forever going on about the nutritional value that is lacking in frozen that is there in live, like the oxygenation level in the blood, brain juices and marrow. Our frozen food has preservatives in place to make sure to keep all the good stuff in there during the frozen period, FT rats have nothing.

I do know that a lot of snakes will happily pounce FT food, I will not argue that...But I do I have a personal experience that applies here.
I worked with a Boa a couple years back that was brought to a shop I know, as the owner could no longer care for it. This Boa had been fed on FT it's whole life (around 4 years is what I was told.) So when I started working with the snake I continued with what it had been raised on, but after the 3rd feeding, and I was yet to see a strike or constriction, I started to realize that this snake had lost touch with it's strike and contrict instinct. We normally think of instincts as behaviors that are embeded that can't be broken, but given an environment where killing it's prey wasn't necesarry for years, it lost touch with this behavior. Offered a live moving rat, the snake coiled into the corner in fear. I know this is not the case all the time, and may be a very isolated instance caused by the husbandry issues said snake had been exposed to. I worked with the snake for 2 months before finding him a great home, but over 8 feedings I never once saw a stike or constriction from this 6 foot snake. Not saying that all snakes will behave this way, but definately worth thinking about.