Can snakes be fed a vegan diet?

Starla, if you're seriously a vegan AND you want to own carnivores, then the answer I can see for you is to raise your own food for your dog & your snake. That way you can be sure they were ethically raised & cared for & did not suffer. For a snake, this is pretty easy. Mice are easy to care for, breed well in captivity, and you can be sure that they have a good quality of life. At feeding time, you can break their necks or use CO2 to kill them. There is an explanation of the latter method somewhere here on this site, use the search function & "euthanasia".

Originally Posted by Lennycorn

Sorry but this just dosen't work for me.

"""""My dog eats a raw meat diet from roadkill and hunting."""""
OK

"""""If my pets must be eat I aim to get it from a good source""""

I'm guess you think a road kill is a good source then.

Dave, I take umbrage at your being so objectionable to roadkill as a food source. Brutus helps me find it. I collect it at low traffic times of the day (or night), and I store it properly refrigerated until I prepare it for either of us with great care.

Originally Posted by vetusvates

Dave, I take umbrage at your being so objectionable to roadkill as a food source. Brutus helps me find it. I collect it at low traffic times of the day (or night), and I store it properly refrigerated until I prepare it for either of us with great care.

LMAO..... opossum and buzzard ... Southern food at its finest

Actually, I know people who own top notch dogs (protection work and search and rescue) who feed roadkill, danielle. But by roadkill, I mean they pick up whole deer carcasses in winter, when they stay frozen, and then deep freeze them to kill any parasites - not scraping raccoons up off the highway.

Originally Posted by Buzzard

LMAO..... opossum and buzzard ... Southern food at its finest

Hey! You left out raccoons and squirrels. We have fine dining down here in the south ya know.

Originally Posted by bekers71

Hey! You left out raccoons and squirrels. We have fine dining down here in the south ya know.

Don't forget that Yankee Stew.

Oh wait, that's hitch hikers and democrats, isn't it?

Originally Posted by wilomn

My first thought was, sure, feeding vegans to snakes is perfectly fine.

Then I realized that most vegans are simply too large to be eaten by most snakes.

Do you have any idea how painful it is to snort ginger ale out of your nose?? LMAO!

Seriously though, I don't think Starla is a troll. I think she just got stuck on this train of thought and wanted to see what others thought of it. Obviously it's not a good idea, and maybe a hamster or other seed eating creature might be more to your liking, Starla. I have a friend who adores snakes but cannot fathom the idea of feeding it, so he doesn't have them. There's nothing wrong with admitting you chose the wrong pet for your lifestyle, but you should seriously consider rehoming the animal to someone who can care for it properly. Killing the snake to benefit the mice he might have eaten is pretty extreme, don't you think?

Dogs are not obligate carnivores. It is possible for them to survive and maybe even do well on a vegetarian diet. Cats, as Shiari mentioned, ARE obligate carnivores and will DIE without meat in their diet. So I call bull on you knowing healthy vegan cats. Either that or the cats are doing a LOT of hunting in their off time.

Do the snake a favor and give it to someone who cares about it.

Chocolate mice...... As long as it's vegan chocolate.....
Unless you have a big snake....
I don't think they do chocolate rats......

They do however make chocolate bunnies, and they come in different sizes to match the size of your snake!

Originally Posted by [starla]

I do know of cats raised vegan that are perfectly healthy.

Kitty will be finding her own meals that supply the needed vitamins in this case... bet the houses of those folks don't have a mouse problem.

Originally Posted by [starla]

I just wonder what kind of life the frozen mice have had before being purchased.

About the same as any other livestock raised for food - and it depends on who's doing the raising. I raise rats, and I am comfortable with how they are treated, how they live, what they eat, and how they die.

My snake was adopted from a previous owner. I wonder if for the greater good it would be more humane to painlessly kill my snake

Aside from the fact that you won't be able to painlessly kill your snake yourself.... do you think the SNAKE will think it's more humane? Was it fair to "adopt" the snake if you're not comfortable with what it eats? If you aren't, surely it makes more sense to avoid having ANY blood on your hands and adopt that snake out to someone else instead.

Veganism doesn't mean animals don't die in order for you to eat, anyway - how many rodent and bird nests are destroyed when they clear-cut and plough a field, or when they harvest the food? In that respect, at least the rodents your snake eats will not be wasted deaths.