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laws etc????

P

PeterD

New member
Hey live in the UK!

Me mum and nan keep on about animal cruelty and you cant feed them live bait cause its cruel.... is this a law in england but not in america?

i just think live foods more normal... got a bearded dragon and would not dream of feeding him dead insects from a can!

Any info would be good :D

thanks in advance!
 
I think I remember hearing that i was an actual law that you can't feed live food, but I may be wrong. Even if it isn't illegal, feeding live food to a snake is dangerous to the snake. The mouse or rat can fight back pretty effectively. You wouldn't feed your beardie dead crickets because crickets can't really gouge out it's eye with their claws like a mouse can.
 
Feeding live in the UK is heavily frowned upon, but is not quite illegal yet, if you can prove that it is the only way to keep your snake alive. For example, if the snake continually refuses to eat dead prey to the point where the snake will die if it is not offered live.

It's my understanding that the proof you need, is to get a vet to state that the snake in question would die if not given live food.

Please don't get into a fight with the animal welfare authorities over here, as it is, they are trying to get the keeping of exotic pets banned, don't give them amunition to help make that a reality.

Feeding defrosted frozen, is safer, cheaper and more convenient anyway! :)
 
Although snakes fed live prey COULD have better muscle tone than snakes eating f/t (if they receive no other exercise), it would be very easy to mimic the "live action", and initiate constriction in most corns - if you don't have too many snakes. Just make sure the mouse is warmer than room temp, and use forceps or tongs to play "cat and mouse". Once you learn the best technique for eliciting the constriction response in your snake, your pet will have no idea that the prey is not alive.

As stated, it is safer, cheaper, and if you don't raise live mice, more convenient, to feed f/t. That said, I DO feed live occasionally without problem - so far. But there is always that very small chance of injury, and they must be supervised (checked on) frequently to make sure the mouse is not chewing on the snake. With only one snake, the advantages of f/t would seem to outweigh live.
 
queztacoatl said:
I think I remember hearing that i was an actual law that you can't feed live food, but I may be wrong. Even if it isn't illegal, feeding live food to a snake is dangerous to the snake. The mouse or rat can fight back pretty effectively. You wouldn't feed your beardie dead crickets because crickets can't really gouge out it's eye with their claws like a mouse can.
Click to expand...

They can and have been known to chew out lizards eyes though. Some people don't take it seriously but don't leave large numbers of crickets in your lizards cage if its no hungry and isn't eating them. They could kill the lizard!
 
I had a lizard who was killed by crickets once, when I was young and inexperienced. It was awful. :( I'm much more careful now when feeding crickets.
 
Thanks for all the replys!
This wasn't a i'm having a moan or going to it was more a i'm curious!

Yeah my lizard always seems to have one circket in his viv at night and i can never get it out!

much prefer locusts but the shop nearest me don't supply the lil b*****Ds
 
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