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does anyone feel weird about feeding f/t ?

C

christent

New member
Hey forum,

Hi, im really new! I was wondering if anyone felt weird about the whole frozen mice feeding practice. I was telling some non-herp owning friends about how I feed my corn snake, and I was basically told that how I was feeding the snake was weird (putting the snake into a container, thawing a frozen mouse in a cup, putting the mouse into the container with tongs and finally closing the lid on the container to so the snake wont escape). Reading that, it does kind've seem like a lot of weird stuff to do to for a snake, does anyone feel like doing this is stigmatizing in a way? Im kinda ashamed to say I warm-up dead mice and hand feed it to a snake in a small container, no matter how much I love the snake....so basically, does anyone else feel this way? :shrugs:
 
Nope, not at all.

People who don't keep reptiles usually find just keeping a snake weird, so it only stands to reason everything associated with it will be considered weird. But I'm cool with that. ;)
 
People who think that it's weird, just don't know anything about feeding snakes. If they insist on feeding live, it's due to some kind of machoism most of the time. F/T is the safest way to feed, and as responsible reptile owners, it's our jobs to keep our animals healthy and safe.
 
What's the difference, really, between feeding FT mice to a snake and taking a steak out of the freezer and grilling it? (Except I'd take the steak over the mouse any day!)

These days, plenty of people are feeding raw diets to their dogs/cats/ferrets too. In many cases that involves whole animals such as chicken, mice, etc. And there are plenty of birds of prey kept by falconers or in zoos that eat FT prey.
 
BUT...when I'm in the kitchen with a big bowl of mice in hot water, I _do_ feel a litte weird...Definitely not stigmatized, though. I get asked at work how I feed the snakes ALL the time. People are amazed that you can buy frozen rodents. I'm sure they all imagined that you had to breed or buy live!
 
Do I feel weird about it? Not at all. I know I'm doing the responsible thing and taking the best care of my animals that I can. Do other people think it's weird? Some do. But as Sweetseraph said, some people think keeping snakes at all is weird. I'm (among other things) a high school teacher. Any given day is filled with weirdness that far outstrips mice in a cup! :rofl:
 
People think I'm kinda weird for feeding my dogs raw, too, now that you mention it.

But as for the mice, I never really thought about it. That's just how I was introduced to feeding snakes, so I never gave it a second thought.

At my house, it's normal to have to dig past the snake and dog food to find the people food in the freezer! LOL
 
Sure it's strange, when compared to pouring out a can of dog food, but I enjoy it. Mostly because my partner A. described thawing the pinkies in water as making "mice tea." The name stuck, and I smile every time I do it now. Follow that up with the "zombie mouse dance" and how can you not smile. :)

Sure, most people think owning a snake is weird, that touching anything dead is gross, etc. But, you already own a snake. Maybe you are a little weird. But weird isn't bad, so don't let them get to you. You can always turn the tables on them and gush excitedly about how your snake started eating two pinkies per meal, and describe the whole process with enthusiasm. :D

So in short, be yourself. Besides, how can anyone prove you're weird when we don't have a solid definition of normal yet? I wouldn't judge if you quality checked your pinkies by having one yourself before feeding your snake. I probably wouldn't kiss you right after, but I wouldn't judge you.

Also, don't let me near the forums before I've had my coffee. This is what happens. :crazy02:
 
When we got our snake in the back of my mind I was a touch worried about telling my mother in law how we feed it. It turns out that having pre killed frozen mice actually helped her feel much more comfortable with the whole snake idea. She was such a good sport never complained or said anything negative, was perfectly happy to hold the snake and now enjoys holding her, everything was fine between the snake and my kids grandma and I was like cool I was worried for no reason. Then it happened she asked me "How do you feed her?" I was sure she would be uncomfortable, but we had really stressed to my daughter the importance of standing up for what is best for your pet so I proceeded to tell my mother in law how I use an old spice jar with hot water to thaw the mouse in, being a glutton for punishment I spared no detail I even showed her step by step (even the back slitting) And then when I finished I braced for what I knew was going to be an uncomfortable discussion, but instead it turns out the feeding f/t helped to put her at ease. Apparently she had seen a video on youtube involving a live chick and she had been really worried that every 5 days we were subjecting our kids to gory end of life screams from our feeder animals. SO in my case the f/t method had been a relief to her. I do try to be reasonable and keep my mice in the back section of the freezer not only is it colder there but having to reach around 50 frozen pinkies on in the front of your freezer just to get a bit of ice cream can be a little unappetizing to the unsuspecting.

The reality is that this is a healthy, safe, easy, and cost effective method of feeding our animals. Yes admittedly it is a touch stranger than scooping a cup or dog food. But on the other hand who is to say what is the crazier pet to care for? I do have to trim the hair around my dogs bottom and well if that isn't crazy and gross then what is.

I wouldn't let people make you feel self conscious about how you care for your snake. There are very good reasons for doing it that way you are doing it, and ultimately taking good care of your pet is what is most important anyways. Even if the feeding process is non conventional snakes are still easier to care for than a lot of other types of pets (in terms of daily labor involved).
 
I call my snakes "All American TV dinner eaters" when I explain it. They are native to the USA & eat frozen dinners that have been warmed up for them! Most people laugh at this & it breaks the ice.
 
GothPixel said:
Sure it's strange, when compared to pouring out a can of dog food, but I enjoy it. Mostly because my partner A. described thawing the pinkies in water as making "mice tea." The name stuck, and I smile every time I do it now. Follow that up with the "zombie mouse dance" and how can you not smile. :)

Sure, most people think owning a snake is weird, that touching anything dead is gross, etc. But, you already own a snake. Maybe you are a little weird. But weird isn't bad, so don't let them get to you. You can always turn the tables on them and gush excitedly about how your snake started eating two pinkies per meal, and describe the whole process with enthusiasm. :D

So in short, be yourself. Besides, how can anyone prove you're weird when we don't have a solid definition of normal yet? I wouldn't judge if you quality checked your pinkies by having one yourself before feeding your snake. I probably wouldn't kiss you right after, but I wouldn't judge you.

Also, don't let me near the forums before I've had my coffee. This is what happens. :crazy02:
Click to expand...

OMG, that is hilarious----thanks, I needed the laugh!
 
Nope, not weird in the slightest! I feel weirder about my husband's insistence that at some point we feed Whisper a live mouse, actually. And it's not because I object terribly to feeding live if it has to be done-- I had a pac-man frog years ago who went on a year-and-a-half-long hunger strike (that eventually killed him), and on those few occasions when I could stuff something down his gullet, it had to be live. But if I'm going to keep a snake in a little glass box, why would it seem strange to feed it frozen mice? It's not "natural" to dump a mouse into the cage with them every week anyway. So what's weird about keeping it as safe for the snake, and as painless for the mice, as possible, in that context?

I like to fuss over my snakes, and since they're snakes, there aren't too many ways I can do that. So I actually enjoy making sure the mouse is warm enough, slitting it so it's nice and digestible and delicious-smelling, and dancing it for them until they strike. And I have to admit, I do not feel weird in the slightest about being able to have a sufficient supply of food on hand all the time. Pet stores sometimes don't have the right size feeder mouse. Sometimes your car breaks down. Sometimes you have to work late for a week. And it's really really nice to be able to feed your snake, no matter what inconvenient nonsense happens in the rest of life.

Myself, I'm amused by having sandwich baggies of dead mice in the freezer. My husband and I joke about it. "Hmmmm, maybe we could have hoppers for dinner tonight? Naaaah, I think I'll go with the steak." And I prefer feeling like a caring and responsible pet owner to avoiding some kind of nebulous weirdness that might come with thawing a pinky in a cup. But it might just be that I don't fundamentally find that weird at all. F/T is a big relief to me. It's still feeding them mice, after all. So it seems a lot less strange to me than giving them hides made out of paper towel tubes and a plastic vine to climb on.

It may be unfair of me, but I tend to equate people who MUST FEED LIVE with people who refuse to get their dogs and cats spayed and neutered because of some misplaced identification with the animal. Dogs and cats are not like us-- they don't have sex as a bonding experience, or as an enjoyable thing. It's a biological drive for them, and it seems from the yowls of cats in heat like it's actually pretty uncomfortable. Your cat will not feel less manly without sexual conquests. But if you neuter him, he will live longer, be better-tempered and healthier, and not spray all over the house. And you'll be a responsible owner, and not be contributing to an overpopulation problem that ends in thousands of homeless animals euthanized every year. (And yes, exceptions made for people who decide to breed for a reason, whatever that reason is, so long as they're responsible and make sure that the resulting pups or kittens have homes.)

Much the same with snakes. If they WILL eat f/t, then I don't think they're actually missing out on the thrill of murder. They're not that self-reflective. Whisper will crush the hell out of a dead and slit hopper, and seems to enjoy it quite a lot. And at no risk to him, with no pain for the mouse. I agree with the comment above about these things being a weird machismo thing-- obviously allowing for the fact that it's not just a boy thing. I know girls who haven't wanted to spay or neuter because they feel that the pet's life will not be complete unless it has baaaaabies, and that's even MORE creepy to me.

Wow-- tl;dr. Can you tell I put a lot of thought into deciding what constitutes proper care for my pets?
 
I am RELIEVED & grateful that I have the option of feeding f/t to my snakes. I wouldn't have bought a snake to start with if I HAD to feed live. As for feeding in a separate container, it makes sense, because it's a safer way to feed so that the animal doesn't ingest something it shouldn't.

I don't care if people think it's weird. In my mind, it's no more weird than sitting down to a dining room table (as opposed to the dirty floor) and eating your f/t and cooked chicken, beef or fish for dinner :).

I'm already stigmatized for having 10 dogs and 12 large parrots. Who cares if people look at me askance because I keep snakes and feed them f/t in a box? LOL!
 
Growing up I had all sorts of rodents (hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, etc) as pets but didn't think twice about feeding a mouse to my snake when I got my first one as it's part of their natural diet. Personally I would never own anything that ate crickets or worms, I am much more content having dead feeders in home as opposed to live. I don't think people that do are weird, they just have different tolerances than I do.

We picked up a bunch of frozen mice at the last show as our snake family is getting large enough that picking up at a local pet store isn't economical and my landlord was fine with us storing them in their deep freeze. Rather than dump them in unlabeled I grabbed a box from the raw food we get for our dogs and crossed the word dog out on the label and changed it to snake so it reads: Premium Raw Snake Food. And, since I usually dethaw the mice in a bowl my bf calls it mouse soup :D
 
We call the bag of frozen mice meece's pieces (rhymes with Reese's Pieces). But the name bothers me a bit because the mice are whole and not in pieces, but when I mentioned that my sister told me I was over thinking the issue.
 
I find it much weirder that my two cats, who in nature would hunt and kill live prey, eat kibble in a bowl. Kibble is bizarre to me. It bears no resemblance to actual carnivore food. I have to decipher the ingredients and nutrition information on the back of the bag to understand it. I don't have to look up the ingredients in my snake's food. I know exactly what it is, and I can touch, smell and see it before I give it to my pet.

I think it is a by-product of our food culture that feeding whole animals to our pets seems weird. Although we do see dead fish and parts of dead animals in grocery stores, for the most part we are sheltered from the whole process of raising, killing, preparing and packaging the dead animals that we eat.
 
WEIRD! NO!!!! What is weird about eating. I am sure if we could have fresh beef of what not that was never froze we would, but that is not always a option. We also look at safety in our food so why not in our pets.

If you are afraid of somebody thinking you are weird, you have something to learn, ALL HUMANS ARE WEIRD IN THERE OWN WAY, so don't sweat it.

Happy Feedings
 
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