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

[TheKingInYellow]

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...

That may have been the way it was some time ago, but vegan eating is pretty easy these days.

I can walk into a local organic/hippy foods store and walk out with a five course meal that I just have to toss in the oven for 15 minutes.

[TooManyToys]

If pigs could fly, would you keep them in bird cages? This thread is ridiculous.

[Bruce Whitehead]

KIY... I know, I was just being silly.

I find the vegan option for snake threads to be silly in the extreme. For no other reason than they are always popping up and they stem more on a social conscious level than a practical one.

Snakes eat rats, but we can eat vegan if we so choose.

I find the whole conceptualization to be cyclical and not terribly productive.

I am not a person who has any issues with veganism, etc. I was vegetarian for 8 years, and full on vegan for 3 of those.

Bruce

[boachick]

even if they could put all the vitamins and proteins and such into a vegan snake sausage type thingy, where would they get all those proteins and such? would they have to extract them from animals (im assuming they wouldnt) or would they somehow make them in some lab or something? if so, those methods just seem so fake to me, its just not natural, IMO snakes just naturally see rats and stuff as food, they are made to eat whole prey items, im sure they get everything they need that way and are able to live long healthy lives in captivity with a caring keeper.... JMHO

[Slim]

DSCLAIMER: I agree this thread is a little silly, and at the risk of hijacking it further, maybe the Mods should move it to Off Topic or split it. Having said that, I just couldn't let this go,

as ethical vegetarian I'd even prefer it

Ethical as opposed to what? If being vegetarian is ethical, it begs the question, what is unethical?

[RichardA]

There is a very successful HOT keeper that feeds all his snakes a custom mix of goodies via a special caulking type gun. All are healthy, all have good weight.

Heck there is even snake sausages.......little freeze dried things. LOL

Now....I am not saying this has anything to do with vegan anything....just pointing out that rats in the natural wrapper is not the only way to go.


And no, my snakes eat rodents or fish depending on species.........no vegans or anything else, rodents are high enough.....rofl

[TheKingInYellow]

Ethical as opposed to what? If being vegetarian is ethical, it begs the question, what is unethical?

Don't read too much into that word. Basically, there are different kinds of vegetarians: those that can't eat meat due to food allergies/incompatibilities, those that don't like the taste, and those that choose not to eat meat due to their own choice. An 'ethical' vegetarian chooses not to eat meat for no other reason than their own conscience, morals and ethics.

[Slim]

Got ya'. I guess I choose to eat meat because it taste pretty darn good.

Had a vegetarian on my team in Afghanistan last year...turns out, they actually make vegetarian MRE's.

[TheKingInYellow]

I've actually heard that they tasted better than the regular MREs as well, but I can't say I've ever had them.

[FlowRock]

Even IF, I would not use a vegan diet on whatever carnivore pet. The reason for this is, except from the fact that I think its is sick to even think about doing something like this, that i have a naturally grown, unprocessed and healthy product available (mouse or rat) and the alternative would be a highly processed piece of crap from the labs of the nutrional scientists (modern Frankensteins).
I have been vegetarian for around 8 years, but i always avoided all this "fake meat" and I would not want my snakes to eat that stuff.