I don't really think it's all the shocking. Most of us here do love and respect our snakes, but everything needs to eat. Those f/t rats you are feeding to your snakes had to die to become f/t food. There are plenty of members here who love rats and still feed live to their snakes. It's great that yours will take f/t, but not all will. I have two that will not take f/t no matter how hard I try so I feed them live. I don't think that's cruel at all, to me it's much better than watching my pet slowly starve to death, which would be cruel.