Well, there are many, many children's books in which mice and rats are the heroes, such as Stuart Little, Inkheart, Redwall, The Rescuers etc. Students come up through their childhoods reading about and falling in love with little mice with big personalities. My middle school students were a little unhappy when they learned and witnessed the classroom snake eating mice. To lighten things up, we give his meals names, like, Mouse on Rye Toast, Mouse Fricasse, Mouse Over Easy, and Mouse Casserole.

Its a trade off with kids. They tolerated meals better with f/t mice than if I fed him live, and they learn important lessons in husbandry and responsibility but just wait until a mouse gets into their house and chews up the wires in their Xbox. When that happens, they're all about wanting to feed that big bad mouse to a snake. (I dont let them. Only captive-bred food.)

This might help explain a child's perspective. I have no explanation for adults....


Quote Originally Posted by Willowy View Post
Some people don't think. I mean, it's mostly farm people here. Not a lot of people who are against eating meat. One young farm girl told me that it's cruel to feed them rodents, even those that were gassed first. I said "so it would be better if they ate chicken from the store?" and she said yes . I asked her what the difference was. Asked if maybe the gassed rodents even had a better death than the chickens who are stunned with electricity and then have their necks cut (which she didn't have a problem with). She couldn't come up with a reason, but still felt that store meat would be preferable. Ok, that's just one ditzy 12-year-old. But it doesn't seem to be an uncommon belief. Idk people, try to explain your beliefs to yourself before you share them, see if they make any sense .

I don't like it when people feed their cats or dogs vegetarian/vegan kibble. But at the same time, most cheap kibbles have almost no meat in them anyway. And the most popular dog food in the US is Ol' Roy. So I don't feel like those that do it for their beliefs are any worse than those that do it for financial reasons.