Quote Originally Posted by MarkS View Post
You feed your snake what it's willing to eat, but you will still never convince some people about the necessity of feeding live.... And by the way, feeding live because it's 'natural' is NOT a good enough reason. BUT... why on earth do people feel the need to film it and put it on YouTube? I think a lot of the reason some people do that is for the shock value anyway, so the comments they are getting is just what they're looking for. Do people film their dogs eating a can of alpo and put THAT on YouTube?? NO..... So why snakes? It's NOT necessary and it's NOT needed to film this. If you want to impress somebody, film your boa taking a dump and put THAT on YouTube.

Thanks for all the responses!!! I wanted to respond to yours Mark... I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by saying that feeding live is becasue it's natural is NOT a good enough reason. I by no means am attacking your oppinion ...My personal feeling is that just because a snake will eat dead does not mean that is what is best for the snake... Often times in that situation F/T is all they are offered until they cave in to eating it, probably because they are starving. There are pro's and con's to both ways of feeding. There are nutritional benifits to feeding live vs F/T. But when feeding live there is always a small risk of your snake become harmed from defensive prey. My opinion is that considering the pro's and cons of both feeding methods... The fact is that it is part of their natural behavior to hunt and kill live prey... That Is the deciding factor for me in how I choose to feed.

As far as posting video's of this on youtube... I can see how some people could want to see this out of some sick pleasure. But speaking for myself as the owner of a constantly growing Large RTB that will probably have to gradute to eating larger prey items in the near future, I was excited to learn that I could find videos that allowed me to observe this. I had never had the opportunity to watch the feeding of a 12 foot albino burm... It was very facinating.

Frankly, I stated to them that if they could not resist clicking on links that offend them... Then they should really stop playing on the internet. I had a hard time seeing a pig get slaughtered for food... But fact is that this is what is necessary to eat, So while the image was incredibaly disturbing... I also found it educational. Over the last hundered years our society has learned to shelter us from most of the ugly details, where before if you couldn't handle killing an animal for food... you would most likely starve to death. I find nothing wrong with posting snake feeding videos on the internet... Especially with all the material on the web that is actually intended for sick demented pleasures of messed up people. Fact is you could probably post a video of any random thing at all... and there will always be someone who is offeneded. These people are just showing off there snakes... I don't mind seeing the snake being handled, or just sitting in its enclosure... But honestly, I would rather see it in action... doing what it does best. Sorry for the long winded reponse ... I type quick