IF there was a vegan diet option for BPs...

[Aaron Ward]

beacause they can be finiky on rodents anyway that would just lower survival rate

[mainbutter]

Seeing as I don't eat vegan myself.. well there's no question.

Unless it was 100% proved over 10 generations of snakes that the new diet was obviously better for the snakes and made them live longer, healthier lives... no way.

[simplechamp]

I feed my BP bean sprouts and tofu

[Darkice]

I can see it now. "Honey? Can you go to wallmart and pick up a couple Rat shaped Spam loaves?"

[Slim]

Yeah....my snakes are on a STRICT vegan diet.....I only feed them vegans!

[boachick]

nope.....snakes are not, and never will be, vegans, how the heck do these people say the nutrition would be the same? there is no way to replicate real rat meat or real rat organs

[wilomn]

nope.....snakes are not, and never will be, vegans, how the heck do these people say the nutrition would be the same? there is no way to replicate real rat meat or real rat organs

Actually, if you break it down to the most basic components, the names of which I don't even know, but on a chemical level, I'm sure you could make a perfectly healthy slurry of stuff that had no animal protein in it at all.

Infuse rat shaped tofu and abracadabra, you have a healthy vegan food for your snake.

Getting them to eat it is another matter entirely though here as well I have no doubt many would accept the ratfu in lieu of ratpoo.

[Slim]

Actually, if you break it down to the most basic components, the names of which I don't even know, but on a chemical level, I'm sure you could make a perfectly healthy slurry

Actually, the Vegan types have been arguing this point on forums all over the internet since Al Gore invented the thing.

The best explanation I've seen was from a PhD in molecular chemistry from the University of Florida. She said that even if you take the same numbers of proteins, lipids, and glucose (carbs, both simple and complex) that you still couldn't replicate one diet or another because of the way the components act on each other at the molecular level. Bottom line is that meat proteins act like meat proteins, and plant proteins act like plant proteins, even if they are both made up of amino acids, and never the twain shall meet. Made since to me when I read it.

[Bruce Whitehead]

I would buy it if it was cheaper... but it is vegan so it would be ten times the price, I would probably have to sprout the darn thing at home, add the rat scent, soak it for 9 days, add a bacterial agent, bury it under a tree for a week, and by then the snakes will have just gone out and found their own food...

[TheKingInYellow]

I'm wondering how many people here are really speaking from any actual experience with a vegan/vegetarian diet? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say not that many. I've been vegetarian for 8 years and mostly-vegan (living with a vegan wife) for 3 years of that time.

It's not the diet for everyone admittedly, but we did fine on it. We switched back to eating dairy and eggs when my wife became pregnant, and we decided that it was far, far easier to ensure a completely rounded diet for my daughter if we included these products. The combination of fat and protein in these products are hard to match with vegan foods that kids will actually eat!

The point is that we, and all the vegetarian friends we have, accept the fact that although these diets are healthy for adult humans, they may not be healthy for children or animals. Both my snakes eat F/T rodents and I never second guess it, that is what they need to survive, and it's my job as a responsible pet owner to ensure that they are healthy. In the same way, my fish get foods that contain fish meal and or shrimp meal since they contain vital nutrients that they need to be healthy.

So, to answer to original question, would I consider it? Sure, and as ethical vegetarian I'd even prefer it, but only if there was absolutely NO question that it was every bit as healthy for my snakes. Period.

p.s. I promise that I am not a 'preachy' vegetarian. I hate those people. I eat what I want to eat, and you eat what you want to eat. Fine by me.