Ball Python Eating Puppies?

[MarkS]

I can't even get my burms to eat rabbits, they simply don't recognize them as food. They've never eaten anything other then frozen rats and I doubt I could even get them to accept another food source.

The idea of snake keepers feeding puppies and kittens is insane. I know a LOT of large snake keepers and it just doesn't happen, I'm sure there are a few idiots out there that will try but they're not the kind of people I'd want to be around whether they keep snakes or not.

Man, is it just me or does it seem that there are a lot of AR people coming out of the woodwork to troll this place?

[AngelOtter]

It's wrong in my eyes because these people are not selling/rehoming these animals as food, I would never go on craigslist get a mouse/rabbit someone was selling as a pet, then feed it to my snake. I had a rabbit as a pet when i was a kid, I know how attached people get to them, same with mice, I have friends who love their pet mice.
These puppies are meant to be pets, not food. Also like other people are saying, I'm not sure puppies are a natural food source, so I'm surprised the python would even eat it.

[treeboa]

There are always "Beware!" warnings on Craigslist about one thing or another. I've always got the feeling PETA was behind them since they think people shouldn't "use" animals for anything including pets. Not just exotics either, cats, dogs, goldfish, all animals. That being said, back in the 90's I know of two guys who worked at a pet store near me that did this. They fed kittens, puppies, birds, unwanted reptiles (to monitors). I never really believed them until after they quit, another employee told me they weren't joking. It made me sick to my stomach. You think a Burm wouldn't do this? Remember a few months ago, the Youtube video from England of a guy feeding a live kitten to his Burm on his bed? I never heard if the authorities ever tracked him down, but they were looking for him.

[snakechow]

the guy with the kitten on the bed is named luca magnotta and he was caught!
but not becasue he was fed the kitten as some aninmal activists wanted for, he has hunted down by the police cause he has killed a friend of him an was sending parts of the killed friend to politicans and other authorities.
he was a very sick guy!
and that was you was saying about your local petstore is an absolute common practice at them to get of pets that stay a while to long in the store.
a petstore is just a business that needs to take care about the running costs so they just compare two things.
get of pets that are to old, some kind of ill and mostly never would be sold and feed some reptiles to save money for feeders for an pet that surely will be sold and bring in some good amount of money.
that is no other than objective and rational thinking.

[treeboa]

Nope these guys were acting on their own. They were "rescueing" people's unwanted pets and using them as feeders. The store did not sell dogs and cats. Don't know where you're from or if you're just a troll, but it's not acceptable in the US. I know most in Germany have your attitude. If you read the old book, Non-Venomous Snakes (can't remember the author's name, I think it's a TFH book) the author is from Germany and he comments on the feeding habits of each species and he mentions that his African Rock Pythons would even eat dogs. But then Germany also looks the other way on smuggling too. They even give out import/export permits for the animals with no questions. That's how we have alot of the captive bred from Europe Australian reptiles.

[snakechow]

may these guys were acting by her own, but i know for sure that the use of own pets as feeders is absolutely an regular thing at petsores.
i saw this by my self more than once!
our local petstore feed the reptiles on saturday close to their closing time, may yours will do this after the doors was locked.
will do you ever known what happens after closing time?
i don't think that these is a question in what country you live and what the laws will say about.
or what do you think were the unsellable pets will go?
also if you want to buy live feeders they took them out of the same display as the ones you want to buy as pet.
the only difference is the price, feeders will be some cheaper than pets.
so if you want a pet and don't need to care about the sex just say you need a feeder and you will get 25% of, and you still can chose wich one you want cause the color prefers of some snakes.
and once again i don't want to troll in any way, i just say my thinking about and that what i know.
if this is trolling then i will be one.
just wondering about the irrational view of most here.
do you really believe that every business around reptiles is that ideal you are saying?
every business has a bad side, no matter animlals involved or not!

[Pythonfriend]

i see two reasons why this is nonsense:

1.: Economically it makes no sense, because dogs and cats eat meat. Also they reproduce very slowly compared to alternatives. Economically rhodents and chicks make sense, because rhodents reproduce very fast and gain weight very fast. And chicks are produced in massive quantities, and then sexed, for females that produce infertile eggs (and later on lower-quality meat) for us to eat and for males that produce meat for us to eat, so with the right connections they can be obtained dirt-cheap because of wrong gender, wrong timing, or wrong quality.

2.: Newborn kittens and puppies have an overall size and skull size that would hardly make a fitting meal for a ball python, in many cases impossible. Many breeds of dogs will have as puppies a skull size IMPOSSIBLE for a ball python to handle.

Thats the reptile side of it.

Now the kitten and puppy side of it. In pedigree breeding for shows, for cats or dogs, the hardcore breeders agree: culling is part of the business. (or, to quote a famous ball python breeder talking on a radio show, in the context of lethal BP morphs, paraphrasing: "So far, this breeding season i have 6 pearls in the freezer.") Maybe thats what this is about. Ridgeless ridgebacks, dog and cat pedigree-breeding creating incest waste.


on the specific case, i think its a crazy person that has some kind of fetish and is looking for cheap barely-alive mammals for whatever, ritualistic cooking & eating or worse. And he puts in ANY snake just to make sure he only gets replies from people that are totally free of any emotional attachment to the animal, and dont care what happens. And because he knows nothing about snakes, he put in ball python instead of burmese python or reticulated python, he doesnt know, just picked something "nasty" that eats stuff, maybe his final choice was between "ball python" and "white crockodyle[sic]".

Also on the specific case, maybe it was a setup by some animal rights group or "journalist" or "documentary filmmaker". Anyway, this specific case just seems too cheesy, too awkward, too unusual. It raises red flags.

My general advice: Stay away from people and/or offers that appear bat:cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r: crazy, or out of touch with reality, or illegal, or somehow perverted. Just ignore those (or, if possible or necessary, maybe even report those).

[snakechow]

sure you are right with ball pythons and in the case that someone ever would have the stupid idea to breed cats and dogs specially for this purpose!
but that was never an intention by me.
may some persons on cl have some other strange interest for doing this but i also think there will be some people that only will need cheap food for her rock or brumese for sure.
and i 'm also think the people that add those warnings on cl never had any contact with those snake owners, cause who the hell would be that stupid to tell them he want their pets as feeders?
they just have read about some internet postings were people claim to do this or something like this.
but be sure there are people out there that have done it, i saw the pics about!

[mechnut450]

I sadly can say my redtail boa tried to kill and eat one of m mother's cats back in the day. but then again she was eating 3 lb rabbits and still acting hungry. but was puppy dog tame to people. I think the main issues was cause the cats would try to use her cages as a large litter box when I had her outside for a stretch and roaming time. ( hard to close a door when you got 9 ft of snake in your arms lol) but I was forced to rehome her between this issue and the fact I could not pick her up well with my knees giving out due to the cerebral pasley. I wish I never got rid of her some days.

[snakechow]

you handle a 9ft snake alone???
that is just stupid!
i don't know that much about such large snakes, but that what i know about is you should never handle such a big one alone.
best, saying by experts for these snakes, is to have at least 1 person for every 4ft lenght by your side for handling to avoid any accident!