What is your opinion on live feeding?

Question

Mine, personally, is that it's unnecessary and in many cases dangerous. For instance, feeding snakes live rats and mice.

It's inhumane to the rodent, and dangerous to the snake. Far too easy for a mouse or rat to bite back. Even if it's supervised, it takes seconds for a rat or mouse to take out an eye.

I hate the argument that it's "natural". What's natural about a snake in an enclosure with a rat/mouse? There's nothing natural about any of it.

I think some people just get a kick out of it. Which is pretty sick in my opinion. I guess it makes some people feel tough or something.

My favorite sites:

http://www.anapsid.org/prekill.html

http://albinoburmese.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=b811adf54d69357ca48736949566a683&topic=67.0

Answer 1

Exactly the same feelings as you, theres absolutely no pro points to feeding live in my opinion.

1 ) Its dangerous to the snake, rodents have teeth and know how to use them - I have seen and heard of what can happen, its not pretty. To those that say its only when you leave the rodents in for long periods that harm can be done, wrong, most often its when the snake is actually constricting. If the snake is holding the rodent, where do think its most likely to bite? Of course, the head and neck area which wont end well.

2 ) Its very inhumane for the rodent itself, it has no chance of escape like it would in the wild

3 ) Live rodents can possibly carry parasites that could transfered to the snake

4 ) NOT natural, the snake is in a captive enviroment, not in the wild, therefore it should not be eating live foods either.

Of course if you buy frozen they have to be killed in the first place, but this is done with CO2 in a way that animal societies and laboratories deem humane. A small dose is given to esentially put the animal to sleep, then a higher dosage is given to kill.

The snake does not gain 'pleasure' from hunting, and will be not 'upset' if given frozen thawed food. They still have to hunt anyway as you are moving the food around with tweezers.

If the frozen rodents are kept properly, there is absolutely no nutritional difference to a live mouse and smell exactly the same, the snake would not know the difference.

Im very against it and get quite upset when I see people feeding live, theres just no need for it. If their excuse is that their snake doesn't eat frozen, its often not hard to convert, they are just to lazy to do so, and as you said, I think some get a kick out of seeing the rodents die.

Answer 2

i hate it i can barlly feed my corn snake dead ones i mean they look so cuite there tiny wittle babys beign killed? i had 2 pet rats but had to give them so mspca becouse my friendd gave them to me be 4 she moved like the day be 4 she moved and my grnadmother  was like oooooo noooooooo i was like but look at there wittle faces they were so kool they r still ate the shelter but i mite be able to adopt them becouse my dad just got bak to work couse he was liad off becouse of the weather and stuff and since there dong rate jobs that means a lot of $$ < ca ching lol and he said he should have a down payment for a house in 2 months :p  im also getting .... 1 kitten i have a cat about 8 years old she had a sister cat and a sister dog but they both passed due to tumors :(  ok im getting 1 kitten 1 puppy 1 crested gecko 1 ferret and mabey a turtle    i already have 1 cat 1 baby corn snake and 1 fishy    gettin a kik out of feeding live animals to another one is sick i mean thatz not natural if it was in the wild its still sad but no one is litterly placig the poor animals together right??? but sometimes they get away

Answer 3

ok look there is no "humane" way to kill a mouse it's going to die get over it secondly the only reason it is ever dangerous for a snake to eat live is if the owner is irresponsible n leaves the snake n mouse or whatever the situation unattended n honestly it is just as dangerous to feed pre killed because the food has been known to scratch the insides causeing infections so you are taking your chances either way now really it is a "natural instinct" for snakes to hunt n kill there prey n taking that away is more inhumane the killing a mouse yourself humanely let say taking a away a humans natural instinct to eat meat oh wait most of you woman are vegins oh well this is a loss arguement

Answer 4

it is natural in the wild for a snake to hunt but not in captivity, in the wild the rodent has a chance to get away, in a tank it is just waiting to die and must get really stressed, i think it is unnecessary to do that when captive snakes will eat humanly killed rodents, if i had a snake i would not feed live food