Constricting Dead Prey

Thanks for all of your opinions and I will take them all into consideration also sorry about the outburst, but I think we should just end this.

Hartsock-

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with your facts. Just the manner in which it was stated. It is important to remember that this is a forum where everyone has the opportunity to express their opinions. While not everyone will agree on the "best" way to feed a snake, we should all have respect.

666killademon was out of line, IMO, when he started calling people "soft" for not wanting to watch their snake kill live prey. I don't understand the need to resort to infantile name-calling. But the bottom line is...snake owners should not fool themselves into thinking that there is a moral difference between feeding f/t and live as regards the mouse. There isn't. The mouse is killed, either way, and unless you perform the killing yourself, you cannot be guaranteed of a more humane death. Feeding store bought frozen mice does not place someone on a higher moral platitude than someone who chooses to feed live. Nor does breeding and euthanizing your own mice for food. It is a fact that all snakes are carnivores and to keep them requires a person to cause weekly death to another creature...one way or the other.

So I disagree with all the "moral high-browing" that goes on in these sorts of discussions. The manner in which a mouse is fed to a snake is secondary to the safety of the snake. Live feedings can be done in a safe manner. Period. You don't have to like it or agree with a person's reasonings for wanting to do it, but it can be done in just as safe a manner as f/t feeding. These are the facts that should be debated, IMO...not the personal beliefs behind the choices.

Don't get me wrong...I also don't agree with 666killademon's manner of stating his reasoning. I don't think that is necessary, just as I don't think the moral high-browing is necessary. But 2 wrongs don't make a right...

Very eloquently stated Tyflier. I agree 100% with everything you stated.

Originally Posted by hartsock

Okay, look I wasn't trying to be harsh, much of what I said was to be taken as tongue in cheek as applying a little humor to what really is a serous topic. I apologize if I offended anyone...

Yes, your post was humorous, and tongue in cheek, but there was also an element of belittlement. I should know it when I see it-- you'll find that much of my posting history is filled with posts of similar "tone". I never threatened to ban you, and I'm not even telling you to cut it out. I'm just asking you to think about the content of your posts, and if you find that that you could be read as "talking down" to someone, you may want to re-evaluate your words. I'm not always good at it either, but I'm trying. That's all I ask from you.

HOWEVER, what we are really talking about is putting your pet in danger so you can get a thrill and plain and simple I don't see why you should take that risk. You admit you get a thrill out of seeing it kill and I will admit that does give anyone who loves snakes a rush. To see the power, the speed, the efficency that your pet who you can hold in your hand turn into this predator who stalks is really awesome, but where is the responsibilty on the owners part? Someone answer this? I know they eat live prey in the wild, but in the wild you aren't enclosed in glass, a snake that is being fed mainly thawed suddenly having a live mouse/rat introduced every now and then is what I would call confusion and irresponsible on the owners part.

*mod hat off* There are many reasons that I use f/t, but the danger posed to corns by live mice (rats are a different story) isn't one of them. I've fed thousands of live mice to corns in the old days, before you could order f/t over the internet, when EVERYBODY fed live, and I never had a single situation where a mouse even broke the skin of a snake. I do not consider supervised feeding of live mice to corns to be irresponsible. I also don't think that someone's a monster for wanting to see prey subdued. It's a bore to me, but I can't expect everyone to feel that way.

I get a thrill/high out of watching someone climb the side of a mountian without safety gear, does that mean that as a father I am going to send my kid up the side of the cliff?

This is not a very good analogy unless your kid's an expert, instinctual climber, and climbing (with or without safety gear) is essential to his survival.

What I said about the hot snakes, I feel to be very true. If someone really wants a rush out of feeding their snakes, they should hand feed a hot one. why not put yourself in the same danger that you are putting your snake?

You may feel this to be true, but that doesn't make it true. This is another bad analogy. The danger is not the same. A corn snake is equipped by natural selection to be an expert, instinctual predator of rodents. A human is not equipped by natural selection to withstand bites from highly venomous snakes.

All you need to do is look at the post above my first one on here, or do a search on this forum or many others to see the damage that will be caused by feeding live. It is one thing when that is all a snake will eat, it is totally another thing when it is done just for the owner to get off on it! As far as monitoring live prey in with a snake, tell me how are you going to intervene when a snake is constricting it's prey(the whole reason why this started) and it still bites the snake while being held?

I haven't seen too many horrific photos of damage caused by feeding live MICE. Again, rats are a different story. There are many aspects of snake-keeping that pose risks to the snake. A fall to the floor while handling could be fatal. If I was going to be a crusader for snake safety, live-mouse-feeding would be way down the list of things I'd be concerned about. Too bad there aren't photos of the dessicated corpses of the thousands and thousands of snakes that are allowed to escape due to poor enclosure security. If you could see these photos, maybe you'd argue that snake shouldn't be kept in captivity period.

IMO, that is a risk that a responsible snake owner should not take. If that offends anyone, sorry, but again, that is my opinon and many others. And as far as being soft, if it means I care about my snakes, then you can call me any name you want, because frankly, I really don't care.

Well, I have to agree that putting the snake's safety first doesn't make you "soft". I don't really like the way that word is tossed around, especially by internet tough guys. What kind of "hard" people do these guys look up to? Jeffrey Dahmer? Idi Amin? I'd like to see where these guys draw the line between "hard" and "soft".

Let me first start off by offering a sincere apology to 666killademon and the rest of you for any tone that has come through in my post and I am not saying these things out of fear of being banned for days, but that I do realize that I probably was "talking down" a bit on a subject that hits a nerve with me. I normally do try to watch what I am posting just for the fact that I know there are different ways to approach keeping snakes and I don't think my way is the only way.

But the bottom line is...snake owners should not fool themselves into thinking that there is a moral difference between feeding f/t and live as regards the mouse. There isn't. The mouse is killed, either way, and unless you perform the killing yourself, you cannot be guaranteed of a more humane death.

To this I wasn't taking a moral ground on how the mouse was killed. Personally, it doesn't matter to me if it is being eaten live or co2 or whapped (is that a word?) on the head to stun it or kill it first. The morality of death to the prey wasn't anything I was disputing, it was the possible harm to the snake. To me that is what is important and if you have an alternative to putting your snake in any danger, then IMO, you should take it.

Roy, I appreciate your responses. Where I was coming from with the bites was that danger to the snake and I in no way dispute you or others on here that have had much more experience with corns than me, but I have personally seen mouse bites on young Boas that look as bad as any rat bite I have seen pictures of. Maybe there is a difference in the scales or because it is still a young snake verses Corns who are usually older and maybe have developed stronger scales. I don't know. But I know that any bite runs the risk of becoming infected and can cause trama with the snake.

I am not arguing my position here just trying to explain where I am coming from. I peronsally just bought a Saharan Sand Boa with a nasty bite on it's side that came from a mouse. Now again, I suspect that the mouse was just put in the cage with this guy and left go. Saharan are very docile creatures and this one I suspect was wild caught (due to reasons to long to explain here), with the all change, and stress and the fact that she was gravid, she wasn't going to eat, but the mouse took a nice bite to her. Again, the problem I would have is taking even the slightest risk to your snake so that you could get the thrill out of it. I should not have called 666killademon irresponsible though, that wasn't fair on my part. I am sure he cares about his snakes and that uncalled of. So, 666killademon I do apologize for that.

Roy, as far as my analogies, I knew the one with the kid was really reaching to begin with, but after all the typing I didn't want to turn around and delete it. I still like the other one though.

Anyway, I am sorry for any attitude I portrayed through my posts. Even with the last one I could see that attitude sticking through the apology and knew that I needed to give a true one. As far as what I have said above, it isn't to continue a disagreement, but to try to explain my position without the demeaning.

I guess that makes me "soft." Just kidding, I agree with the statements of resorting to the name calling (although, I indirectly called him irresponsible -- or sort of directly, I guess); but really, I didn't see the whole soft thing as a big deal like many of you.

To wrap up, 666killademon, I apologize for being rude and demeaning and if I offended you, I am sorry. To Roy and the rest, thank you for your input.

--- Scott

I am not trying to keep this thread going and this will be my last post unless someone says something that they want me to respond too, but I guess I stirred this up publically so if I am going to say anything else I should do it on the thread and not in a PM, 666killademon deserves that respect.

666killademon, this is not meant in any way to demean you and I sincerely mean what I am going to say as a way of understanding and not as an insult. I read back over some of the other posts to see how we got this the point we did and I noticed your age. Again, this isn't a put down with the age thing.

You know at 17, if I had a snake, watching it live would have been the coolest thing in the world. Heck, even now I will admit that seeing a snake stalk and take down prey is awesome. And it is something that I would get enjoyment from seeing. But as you get older, I'm 36, you start to realize that some of those things you think will never happen, do happen sometimes. I can remember hearing about terrible things happening and not paying much attention because I had that youthful attitude that "it would never happen to me." I have seen pets injured and suffer, I have had things happen to me in my life that I would never have expected to happen to me. They were things that always happened to others, but not me. I guess what I am trying to say is that over time I have learned that I am not invincible and I don't take as many risks as I did at one time. With my snakes, I don't like to take any risks at all and I probably can be overprotective of them. So the intention of what I was saying to you came from the side of caution that can come with age and experience in the realities of life. Again, I am not saying that because of your age you don't know anything, that is not the case, I am sure you are more than capable of caring for your snake and I give you respect for doing so. I just can see how there can be a difference opinion in this matter and didn't want to just end the thread and say that is it, but wanted to extend the hand of friendship and know that if our posts cross paths again, we can respect one another for our opinions.

Bah, you're all soft! Not only do my corns all eat live jumbo rats, but I do as well. That's how it is growing up on the mean streets of Indiana.

Hartsock-

it takes a lot of guts to make such a sincere apology publicly like that, and I both applaude you and thank you for it. Well done.

The only problem I had with your post was when you said there was no reason to feed live because it is dangerous. Feeding live is a viable option, and one which may be easier and less time consuming for someone with only 1 or 2 snakes. And when you consider that you can feed fresh killed or stunned mice, it eliminates the danger to the sanke...so it is just as safe as f/t. It is this point that I wanted to try and make, as a lot of proponents of feeding strictly f/t mice fail to mention it. I feed primarily f/t, but this is purely out of convenience, not risk-control. I feed my MBK live, because that is her preferance. When the mice get large enough to be possibly threatening, she will recieve stunned mice, which will eliminate the risk of retaliatory attack...HEAVILY stunned (probably actually fresh kill, but not purposefully).

The only reason I feed primarily f/t is because I can euthanize an entire clutch of fuzzies at a time, freeze them, and feed them as necessary. I would rather have 20 frozen fuzzies in the freezer than constantly have mice reaching adulthood in an effort to always have a supply of live in the right sizes...

Originally Posted by Flagg

Bah, you're all soft! Not only do my corns all eat live jumbo rats, but I do as well. That's how it is growing up on the mean streets of Indiana.

Now that is funny!

Originally Posted by Flagg

Bah, you're all soft! Not only do my corns all eat live jumbo rats, but I do as well. That's how it is growing up on the mean streets of Indiana.

Probably going to be my favorite post for quite some time!