Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[jakeus]

[Herpquest]

Snowy, you missed my point entirely. What I was trying to say was, If you feed live, and some people do, DON'T state the fact for all to see!!
What happens behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors.
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[Herpquest]

[mike h]

We do need to be carefull in what we do aswell as what we say.
Every pro royal keeper NERD to mention just one, who has written about keeping royals explains why feeding live is wrong. AND potentially dangerous to the snakes. 99.9% of the time feeding live is not needed so why do it.
Beware Of Live Rodents
I highly recommend that you feed your rodent-eating snakes frozen/thawed food animals. If you must feed your snake live food animals, don't leave a rodent running around in the snake's cage unattended, especially if the snake isn't showing interest in eating. Rodents quickly realize when a snake isn't in a feeding mood or condition (like if a snake is sick, too cold, stressed, shedding), and they will take advantage of that. Very serious damage, even death of the snake, can result because debilitated snakes often aren't able to adequately defend themselves against a hungry rodent. At the very least, you should put some rodent chow into the snake cage for the rodent to eat if you are planning to leave a rodent and a snake together unattended.

Even though you may be right there watching the feeding process, it only takes a fraction of a second for a rodent to inflict a painful bite or scratch on your snake, and that can cause serious problems. Most pet snakes take to eating frozen/thawed rodents easily, but it's well worth the effort to get even stubborn snakes started on eating dead food.

There are other reasons to use frozen/thawed rodents for snake food instead of feeding pet snakes live animals. For one, frozen/thawed food is much less likely to transmit parasites to your pet snake.

The above if you search the internet and read books etc is repeated over and over. Also the poor rat mouse will also experience some terror, even if only briefly.

mike
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[mike h]

FROM VPI royal python care sheet


Feeding requirements: Ball pythons eat mice all their life. One appropriately-sized mouse per week is an adequate feeding schedule. Older and larger snakes may eat two or three mice, or one small rat a week. Hatchlings seem to prefer live small mice (just weaned, 4-6 weeks old) for their first meals. Most juvenile, subadult and adult ball pythons readily accept dead food, either thawed or fresh-killed.

Adult ball pythons may not eat during the winter months. This is normal. Typically they will start feeding in late winter or early spring..

REMEMBER! A hungry live mouse may attack and damage or even kill a ball python if left unsupervised. Always place food for a rodent in the snake cage, if feeding live prey.
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[mike h]

I think any mention of feeding live other than in the context of Its the reptile or the mouse should be edited by admin and certain parts removed.
If this is being read by e.g. RSPCA and other groups problems could arise.

We need to show a united front in caring for our animals including feeder animals and most of us would only use live when essential or to get hatchlings started.
Only my thoughts but who knows I may be right for once.

mike
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[mike h]

GENERAL CONCERNS REGARDING THE RSPCA'S AWB INPUT

We accept and applaud the concept of the AWB as an attempt to improve overall animal welfare provided that it does not become a vehicle for extremist animal rights activists. We have a number of serious concerns regarding the AWB which are greatly magnified by two statements in the 2003 RSPCA Policy Document and again the presence of extremist animal rights individuals on the RSPCA Ruling Council. The first statement is that "animals that are kept in cages (or presumably any container), do not generally make suitable companion animals) pets) which means that virtually only cats and dogs are suitable as pets. The second statement categorically states that reptiles do not make suitable pets. Furthermore, the RSPCA has circulated a letter to every local council, asking them not to issue pet shop licenses to any retailer who intends to sell exotics. REPTA cannot see any way of interpreting the two statements and the circularized letter as anything other than a wish to destroy the exotic animal trade which would include fish, birds, mammals and reptiles which together comprise a billion pound industry that has many thousands of employees. We believe that animal rights extremists in the RSPCA Ruling council may use parts of the AWB to try and destroy the trade.


SPECIFIC CONCERNS REGARDING THE CONTENT OF THE AWB SUBMITTED BY REPTILE AND EXOTIC PET TRADE ASSOCIATION

Page 11: Fighting etc


1. A person commits an offence if he arranges an animal fight

Feeding a live rodent to save a snakes life is currently legal although the RSPCA already say they will prosecute anyone doing so on the grounds of "causing unnecessary suffering" to the rodent. An expert witness, who has years of experience, has stated that feeding a live rodent to an animal would be considered as "arranging a fight" and that would render this practice an offence under the AWB. There should be a clause in the AWB to make it legal, if all other methods have failed, to permit the feeding of live rodents, under specific conditions, in order to save an animal's life. The rodents that are bred for the reptile trade have no inbuilt fear of snakes and a snake will virtually instantly kill and swallow a rodent or ignore it, in which case the rodent just happily wanders around the snake's enclosure. The whole process must be supervised throughout and the rodent removed after five minutes. If this process is not clearly legalized, then hundreds of captive bred snakes, many of them rare and Cites listed will suffer and die. This could lead to a substantial reduction in captive breeding and, as a consequence, lead to an increase in the number of wild caught imports to fill the vacuum created. REPTA believes this would be a retrograde step for reptile welfare.

this is from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmenvfru/52/52we43.htm

A lot of reptile keepers are doing there best to avoid the above happening
Notice::::There should be a clause in the AWB to make it legal, if all other methods have failed, to permit the feeding of live rodents, under specific conditions, in order to save an animal's life.

Your wrong and all the people who feed live unnecessarily are wrong.
Why do people feed live?(other than to save an animals life or to get an hatchling started) What are the positive benifits of feeding live?
Is it because it saves time? Do the royals snakes grow quicker? Breeders then breed snakes faster and make money faster?
Is it a pleasure thing? You can get your kicks on youtube if thats your thing!!
Sorry to be harsh Its nothing personal and I will if needed feed my royals which have just started pipping (if the right word) live to get them going.

mike
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[garysumpter]

Lets tame this down a little shall we.

Eggman I dont have any person gripes with you so lets not get into a bitchfight, however there are most definitely two sides to the story here.

As reptile keepers we obviously have a love for animals. Yes this is mainly reptiles but we must share an obvious respect for all animals.

When it comes to feeding, there are two options, dead or alive.

Dead - Humane for the rodents, less chance of parasites, no chance of the rodent harming the snake

Alive - Unnecessary suffering for the rodent, parasites can be easily transmitted and the rodents can do nasty damage to the snake.

NOW.

I personally do not see any reason TO feed live apart from laziness, however there are several reasons NOT to.

I fully understand that sometimes it IS necessary (i.e a non feeding royal that wont accept anything else). However to offer live to all your snakes just because you can screams irresponsibility, which is something the hobby really doesnt need.

If any of you want to feed live rodents to your snakes as a matter of course then that is obviously your choice, your responsibility and you take what comes with it. However in the interests of the hobby, this information should not be made public.

As previously mentioned, anyone could be reading these boards, at any level. This time next week there could be articles surfacing about the horrendous way rodents are treated for sick minded snake keepers (you know how they are!!)

I strongly disagree with live feeding, period.

If you don't, fine, just keep it to yourself.

I respectfully back away from the arguement.

Gary
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[SteveL]

I agree with the above comments

we all eat chicken (not veggies) there not kept as humanely as my rats are

if i have to get snakes eating on live then thats what will happen here
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[garysumpter]