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Can snakes be fed a vegan diet?
- Thread starter [starla]
- Start date
Emily1188
Smells Like a Rat
No, the wild mice have to go anyway -- with or without snakes being present.
Oooo, you're tough. I like you!
I think you've got a pretty good handle on the conflict. I would also add the ethical value of the snakes' lives apart from my personal enjoyment of them, as an added weight to the "pro" side -- but I think you've got the general idea.
For about 20 years I came down on the "con" side. This winter I fell back onto the "pro" side. I don't know which side I'll end up on in the long run.....but, since I have already purchased enough frozen rodents to last several months, I have already committed my "sins" for the near future and have some time to figure it out.
Thanks for the discussion. It helps to bounce these ideas off folks with other perspectives!
I've enjoyed having a level-headed discussion with you as well.
Lucille
New member
You sound like someone from Louisiana, their perspective and nutrition is...eclectic, sometimes
Teddy Roosevelt
i loev cronsankes
I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian on and off. I go on it because I get sick of the taste and texture of meat, or to get a better diet (since I am prone to bursts of teenage junk food binges) and then once I'm satisfied that I'm healthy again and crave the taste of meat, I gradually introduce meat back into my diet. I have never and likely will never have any ethical concerns about the animals dying for me to eat, and assume that they're put down quickly and quietly. It simply wouldn't make sense from a business perspective for them not to be. You have to pay the slaughtering employee more money for fewer cows/chickens/pigs whatever to be ready for packaging per hour. It would cost more to slowly and inhumanely kill animals than it would to simply stick a bolt through their head so fast they don't even know it happened, a bolt that can be sterilized and reused for the cost-conscious.
amazondoc
cracked egghead
This is not always the case....but that's a whole other verrrrrrry long and acrimonious discussion for another time!
Amazondoc, to reply to your post a couple pages back -- My grandma keeps chickens and a few other types of birds on her proptery along with cows (that she breeds to have butchered). She also has several cats that go out and roam the property and pretty much ellimnate the mouse population. I've never heard her complain of having mice, but as I said, she does have a number of cats that go outside everyday to hunt.
Something else to consider, mice aren't going to stop dying to feed snakes just because you quit owning them. But it seems to me you don't care about the mice as a whole, you only care about the ones that go to your snakes alone. Which seems very narrow-minded and a little selfish in my opinion. If you're against one mouse dying you should be against them all dying.
Something else to consider, mice aren't going to stop dying to feed snakes just because you quit owning them. But it seems to me you don't care about the mice as a whole, you only care about the ones that go to your snakes alone. Which seems very narrow-minded and a little selfish in my opinion. If you're against one mouse dying you should be against them all dying.
amazondoc
cracked egghead
Having a large cat population does help. Unfortunately, I have a pack of dogs who would be happy to eliminate cats, but are not all that good with mice. Also, I would bet that your grandma doesn't have as many chickens as I do.
There are different levels of concern. My first concern is the number of deaths that I am personally responsible for.
vetusvates
Gamaliel's Principle
Ahem...I caught that..........LOL.........You sound like someone from Louisiana, their perspective and nutrition is...eclectic, sometimes
Make one joke about eating roadkill and I've doomed us all.
I'm not sure how many she has anymore. She used to have a good 15-20 and like 5 guinea hens. I thinks he sold the guinea hens though as they were keeping her up at night. My Dad lives on the property too to help her out with this stuff, though for her age my grandma is still incredibly healthy.
And yeah, not being able to have cats is probably a large part of your problem. Dogs suck at hunting mice. Ours would probably bark and run away.
And yeah, not being able to have cats is probably a large part of your problem. Dogs suck at hunting mice. Ours would probably bark and run away.
Shiari
Blutterer
If you want a dog that will be good with your chickens AND take care of your rodent problem with glee and abandon... look into getting an English Shepherd or Farm Collie. I have an ES mix and I know that if I had a backyard, I'd be facing piles of squirrels and rats every day.
Outcast
ATPSS
You sound like someone from Louisiana, their perspective and nutrition is...eclectic, sometimes
hey, I am originally from Louisiana... leave us alone...lol
@ Amazondoc, I read that you don't eat anything warm blooded... How do you feel about eating snakes? I know from experience that rattlesnake tastes very good.. Or are fish the only non-warmblooded creatures you would think to eat?
Personally I love the taste of a good steak and baby back ribs. I would classify myself as an 80% meat, 20% veggie meal type person... but I am working on getting more vegetable into my meals...
As long as you don't try converting me over to the diet you are on. I wont try converting you... That's how i work.
amazondoc
cracked egghead
amazondoc
cracked egghead
Good thought, but I've got more dogs than I need already. I do doberman rescue, so there is a constant pack of the pointy-nosed critters running around.
amazondoc
cracked egghead
I am ambivalent about eating herps. I can't really decide how much concern to give to their level of sentience. I have eaten froglegs, once, and also alligator, once. I felt guilty about both. I would certainly eat a snake if I was lost and hungry out in the wilderness, but otherwise I don't see any pressing need to do so. (Incidentally -- I didn't particularly care for the froglegs, but the alligator was quite good.)
Nanci
Alien Lover
I, for ethical reasons, do not eat reptiles or pigeons or veal or foie gras. There are other animals I wouldn't eat, but more from the gross-out factor (dogs, cats, insects) or because I don't like the taste (bear, raccoon). (Maybe I don't like to eat carnivores!) I'm more concerned about fish and seafood, take shrimp for instance, because of conservation issues, especially the damage fishing for them does to other animals, than I am about animals bred for food. I _wish_ I didn't like tasty animals, for health reasons (and I feel guilty, eating chickens, because I have had many bird and chicken friends) but it hasn't caused me to quit.
If I had to survive in the wild, I'd be fishing and setting snares for rabbits. Plus hunting whatever fruits and veggies and eggs I could find! I'm sure I'd be fine.
If I had to survive in the wild, I'd be fishing and setting snares for rabbits. Plus hunting whatever fruits and veggies and eggs I could find! I'm sure I'd be fine.
Yeah, the number of feed labels I've had to look through to find the right mixes for my rats - pig pellets it's pretty easy to get without added medications. Dog food and rodent food, same again. But I like giving females with young a bowl of layer's mash on occasion, and that tends to be where one finds all the "wonderful" drugs.
I don't think there's been enough time or inclination to show how an exclusive (carnivore OR herbivore) diet affects an omnivore throughout its whole life. Vegetarian diets for dogs haven't been around long enough to establish whether a vegetarian dog lives as long as a raw-fed dog lives as long as a kibble-fed dog, for example. And I'm pretty sure the western concept of vegetarianism/veganism hasn't been studied enough to establish whether vegetarians routinely outlive and are more healthy in middle to old age than omnivorous or carnivorous humans.
Must admit that the vegans/vegetarians I've known have generally been either healthy but ALL OVER health conscious (i.e. they may have been healthy because they were very careful to make sure they got the right balances in their diet, did a lot of exercise, and so on) OR they were less actively conscious of their health, and were less overall healthy (more colds, worse skin, etc) than an omnivorous person with the same sort of activity/exercise levels.
I think, if you're designed to eat both types of food, there are probably things in that food that you need. Of course, the real funny is trying to get an Atkins/Paleo person and a vegetarian/vegan to see eye to eye on something...
But there it is
Nah, born in Albuquerque, New MexicoYou sound like someone from Louisiana, their perspective and nutrition is...eclectic, sometimes
Darn it, since moving to the UK my regionality is everywhere! Hear me and people say Canada (even people FROM Canada!!!) and now I eat like someone from Lake Charles*...I've toyed with the idea of trying one of my homebred rats (it'd certainly solve the problem of "this male has gotten too big for anything I own" if *I* was eating them) but I can't quite get past the "Here he is, he's alive, now he's dead but he's still got his jacket on and LOOKS alive even if he isn't..."
* Only place in Louisiana we stopped, I have a good friend there. I don't remember him being particularly pragmatic about his diet!