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Can snakes be fed a vegan diet?

danielle said:
I am lost...you guarentee death to the wild mice because they eat your chickens food. You don't currently feed them off just kill them because their a pain(which I have no problem with btw). However, you have an ethical problem with killing domestic mice raised to be food? Domestic mice are raised and created and then killed for a reason, and your wild mice are killed for being obnoxious and wasted. Do you see my point here? It doesn't matter except at least domestic mice are fed specifically to be nutritious food for our herps and carry no disease which is healthier and safer for your snake. These wild mice just get the axe:)
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I'm trying to minimize the number of deaths I'm responsible for. It is more efficient, in terms of deaths caused, if I feed the snakes with the wild mice. But there is definitely the question of disease transmission, which is why I am NOT feeding the wild mice right now.

I don't know what you mean by "feed them off".
 
I'm hijacking this thread to ask Amazondoc a question. You joined this forum in '04 and you have 21 posts. Where the heck have you been??
 
amazondoc said:
They naturally multiply because of the chicken feed, and if you let them continue to reproduce then you end up feeding mice instead of chickens! So the deaths of these wild mice are guaranteed. And, if you want to add in another consideration, I fed the darned things so they owe me! ;)
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If you're vegan, what do you have the chickens for?? Pets? Do you care if the chickens eat insects?
 
I don't have a problem with people being vegans... my Mom went through a phase where we didn't eat animal products for a few months, but it didn't last long. To be honest I think a lot of the foods vegans eat taste awful, with the exception of a few alternatives we picked up that are pretty good (tofu nummy). I don't look down on people who don't eat meat or other animal products, that is their choice and as long as they don't expect me to live like them, then more power to them.

As for animals, omnivorous or carnivorous, the idea is retarded for all the reasons that everyone has already stated.

Do I feel bad for the mice that die to feed my snakes? Not really. But then again when I get my mice they are dead and frozen just like the beef I buy in the store. Mice, like cows, exist for other creatures to feed upon them. It's the way the natural world works and is something we cannot change unless we kill off every carnivorous or omninvorous creature that exists and that to me completely defeats the purpose.

Amazondoc if you have problems with mice getting into your chicken feed perhaps you need to find a better way to store it. If you have that many mice running around on your property then it would be more prudent (in my opinion, key phrase here) that you find the source and ellimnate it, rather than just killing off all the mice that keep spawning. Or find another way to remove them... feeding them to your snakes is too risky in my opinion.
 
amazondoc said:
I'm trying to minimize the number of deaths I'm responsible for. It is more efficient, in terms of deaths caused, if I feed the snakes with the wild mice. But there is definitely the question of disease transmission, which is why I am NOT feeding the wild mice right now.

I don't know what you mean by "feed them off".
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Feed off meaning feed the wild mice to the snakes. My point is its silly to take issue with domestic mice dying to feed your snakes when you kill wild mice for eating your chickens food and feed these wild mice to no one. I wouldn't personally feed the wild mice either so I'm with you there- its just your reasoning that is confusing to me. Its mean to feed snakes domestic mice, but okay to axe wild mice when they eat food unintended for them?
 
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Nanci said:
"all animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others. "
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This is a bit off topic as far as mice, but I thought of it after reading the above 'more equal' comment.
There are people who feed large rats to boas and the like, and I feel like that is a generally accepted practice.
But there is a lot more comment when a snake owner feeds, let's say, a kitten, even though the overpopulation of cats leads to the euthanization of a huge number of them in shelters.
I myself would not feed out a kitten, even so. Some animals ARE more equal than others.
 
I view it as a matter of relativism... Do I think my dog is more valuable than a chicken intended for consumption? Yes, of course I do. Is my dog's life intrinsically more valuable than a chicken's life? No, but she's my dog, and therefor valuable to me.

I wouldn't feed a dog or cat to a snake, but I certainly respect that others can do so. Same goes for eating dogs and cats. Like any animal that is eaten, they deserve proper welfare (which unfortunately, is not granted to most of our food animals currently).
 
Emily1188 said:
I view it as a matter of relativism... Do I think my dog is more valuable than a chicken intended for consumption? Yes, of course I do. Is my dog's life intrinsically more valuable than a chicken's life? No, but she's my dog, and therefor valuable to me.

I wouldn't feed a dog or cat to a snake, but I certainly respect that others can do so. Same goes for eating dogs and cats. Like any animal that is eaten, they deserve proper welfare (which unfortunately, is not granted to most of our food animals currently).
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So, let's take this conversation down another path, do you have any feelings about consuming people? If not, do you respect that others do so?
 
LBoz said:
I'm hijacking this thread to ask Amazondoc a question. You joined this forum in '04 and you have 21 posts. Where the heck have you been??
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LOL.

I actually didn't even remember that I had joined. I tried to join last week, and found out that I was already a member. ;) I think I probably joined back then when I was having a discussion about snakes with somebody, and I was looking around for more info.

I had snakes years ago, and I worked around snakes for years before I had my own, but I haven't had any for years until this winter. So here I am again. :)
 
Nanci said:
If you're vegan, what do you have the chickens for?? Pets? Do you care if the chickens eat insects?
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I'm not a vegan, and I never have been a vegan. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was ovo-lacto vegetarian for more than 20 years. For about the last 5 years or so I have also eaten seafood, but I still won't eat anything warm blooded.

I raise chickens for eggs and for breeding. I also have quail, various pet birds, and so on.

And the insects are on their own. ;)
 
Lucille said:
So, let's take this conversation down another path, do you have any feelings about consuming people? If not, do you respect that others do so?
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Not interested, sorry. Already been there, done that before at great length. For me, it is enough that people are my own species. A dog is not human.
 
Em Wright said:
Amazondoc if you have problems with mice getting into your chicken feed perhaps you need to find a better way to store it.
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My feed storage is fine, thanks. But if you lived around chickens you would know that they don't eat neatly. You can't feed a chicken without feeding a mouse. There is nothing a chicken can reach that a mouse can't also reach, and if a chicken can reach it, it WILL be spread around.
 
danielle said:
I wouldn't personally feed the wild mice either so I'm with you there- its just your reasoning that is confusing to me. Its mean to feed snakes domestic mice, but okay to axe wild mice when they eat food unintended for them?
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"Mean" is not the word I would use, and neither is "okay".

I am essentially Utilitarian in my ethical outlook. That means that I seek the greatest possible happiness/wellbeing for the greatest number of creatures that are capable of perceiving such things. So, I would like to minimize the pain/death I am personally responsible for.

Mice on a farm are destructive pests. Not only do they eat large quantities of feed, they also chew everything in sight -- and out of sight. They also leave dropping everywhere, and so on. I would rather avoid having mice in the first place....but, given that avoiding mice is impossible in this situation, mice must therefore be removed. And since mice must be removed anyway, it would be good to not waste their lives. It seems wasteful to be responsible for two mouse deaths (one wild mouse plus one domestic mouse) when only one death is really necessary.

Sigh. I don't know that there is a good answer. I might end up cooking the darned mice and feeding them to the chickens.....if that idea were just a bit less disgusting....
 
amazondoc said:
I'll argue with you on the omnivorous ones. "Omnivorous" animals, by nature, can live on any of a wide variety of foods. Just because an animal *can* eat meat doesn't mean it has to.....
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Sure we can, but we're not really designed to. There are biological reasons for organisms to be omnivorous. Go with it!

amazondoc said:
For about the last 5 years or so I have also eaten seafood, but I still won't eat anything warm blooded.
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My one ex had a sister who was vegetarian but still ate seafood. I agree with him... of all the things to choose to eat. Crabs and lobsters are boiled alive. Fish are suffocated to death after being dragged around in nets. What a way to go!

If you're trying to minimize cruelty... isn't it better to be the cow that takes a bullet between the eyes (or a stun gun to the brain) and is down before they know what hits them?
 
Hypancistrus said:
Sure we can, but we're not really designed to. There are biological reasons for organisms to be omnivorous. Go with it!
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There's also biological reasons for adultery -- yet we frown upon it in civilized societies. Biology does not always have much to do with ethics.

My one ex had a sister who was vegetarian but still ate seafood. I agree with him... of all the things to choose to eat. Crabs and lobsters are boiled alive. Fish are suffocated to death after being dragged around in nets. What a way to go!
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I agree with you that eating seafood is not an ethically ideal situation. I never claimed that it was.

If you're trying to minimize cruelty... isn't it better to be the cow that takes a bullet between the eyes (or a stun gun to the brain) and is down before they know what hits them?
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If you're trying to minimize cruelty, it is better to not eat either one. But if you want to argue the relative merits of killing the cow vs. killing the fish, then it is relevant that the fish has a much smaller and less developed brain than the cow.
 
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