Who hates PETA?

[Raptor]

Lol. CO2 takes the longest in my experience. Putting ten mice in the freezer turns into a several hour ordeal. I have yet to get cervical dislocation to work. Generally just results in the mouse sq

 

[Raptor]

..Blasted laptop. Anyways. Just results in the mouse squirming around and trying to bite the ruler.

 

[starsevol]

..Blasted laptop. Anyways. Just results in the mouse squirming around and trying to bite the ruler.

Sounds to me like you are doing it wrong. And freezing an animal alive is...just horrible...and really inhumane.

 

[Raptor]

...You clearly misunderstood me. Putting mice in the freezer means killing them and putting them in the freezer. a.k.a CO2ing them (something that'd take 5 or more minutes per mouse), weighing them, marking the zip lock baggy and then putting them in the freezer..

 

[WingedSweetheart]

Dumb question but what is CO2ing?

 

[Raptor]

Using CO2 (dry ice or CO2 cartridges) to basically suffocate the mice. It's supposed to be done slowly to first make the animal unconscious. Once they're unconscious you bump up the amount of CO2 to suffocate them.

 

[starsevol]

...You clearly misunderstood me. Putting mice in the freezer means killing them and putting them in the freezer. a.k.a CO2ing them (something that'd take 5 or more minutes per mouse), weighing them, marking the zip lock baggy and then putting them in the freezer..

Whew! Thank you for that!

Sometimes doing what is right, is not about doing what is the most conveinient....does that make sense?

 

[Daenerys]

I think I will just stick to buying mine from the store...

 

[Raptor]

Whew! Thank you for that!

Sometimes doing what is right, is not about doing what is the most conveinient....does that make sense?

S'why I preferred feeding live (only reason I don't is that the mice kept getting too large). Killing them any other way is either too inefficient, or it takes too long. Usually both.

 

[starsevol]

I think I will just stick to buying mine from the store...

I have a guy in town. I call him and put my order in, and he delivers it to my workplace. No fuss, no muss, and no killing for me!!

 

[Raptor]

There's only one seriously local place that sells frozen mice (all the others are 45 minutes to an hour away). $1.50 per mouse isn't appealing. I also refuse to shop at the place due to the poor care they give their reptiles (empty water bowls, stuck sheds, etc).

 

[Daenerys]

I have a guy in town. I call him and put my order in, and he delivers it to my workplace. No fuss, no muss, and no killing for me!!

Exactly, I like receiving mine pre-dead. First time I saw one fed live I nearly cried. I've been desensitized now, though I'd prefer not to feed any of my snakes live...mine and most of Brandon's eat frozen....sometimes his wont eat frozen though.

 

[mjdglobal]

I absolutely hate P.E.T.A. I own pets, eat meat, wear shoes and clothing made of leather, and I am a hunter. If you disagree with hunting, that's fine, I'm used to it. However, I can guarantee you I have WAY more respect for the animals I hunt than any P.E.T.A. nutjob. I can also promise you I've spent more money on habitat and scientifically sound conservation than any of them either. The thing that disgusts me most about this group is how they portray themselves. A lot of uninformed people honestly believe this group is just fighting against animal cruelty. They are liars in my eyes, the way they paint themselves. They are actually a very dangerous group who in my opinion are borderline terrorists. It is no secret that many of their members are in fact also members of the Animal Liberation Front, a group recognized by our government as being terrorists. It's sad to me how people are suckered into joining this group and giving them money. Hollywood celebrities are constantly doing ads for this group (save the cute little kitties). Pamela Anderson, guess what? You own dogs, and the people you do these posters for actually are against pet ownership. See what I mean about the lies?

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

S'why I preferred feeding live (only reason I don't is that the mice kept getting too large). Killing them any other way is either too inefficient, or it takes too long. Usually both.

I think she meant that doing something "inefficient" trumps doing something wrong, every time. While you're welcome to have your opinion, I think you'll find it to be largely opposed here.

 

[Raptor]

I think she meant that doing something "inefficient" trumps doing something wrong, every time. While you're welcome to have your opinion, I think you'll find it to be largely opposed here.

I consider inefficient as something that doesn't kill the prey item quickly. Having an opposed opinion doesn't bother me as long as I'm not attacked for it.

 

[MysticExotics]

I would only feed live to snakes if that were the *only* way they would eat.
Once I start my colony again, after I can buy my own house again, I will be letting my ferrets dispatch the mice. They quick & efficient. Way more so than snakes constricting.
In the meantime, I order from RodentPro.

*Most of my ferrets are private bred, & are raised to recognize raw & whole prey as food.

 

[Teddy Roosevelt]

I consider inefficient as something that doesn't kill the prey item quickly. Having an opposed opinion doesn't bother me as long as I'm not attacked for it.

You bring up an interesting point and one I don't think I've heard in many "Live v. Frozen/Prekilled" arguments and that is the speed at which the prey item dies. Theoretically, the fastest way to dispatch should be blunt trauma to the head or cervical dislocation, but that's only if you do it swiftly and properly. Maybe constricting in 30 seconds is faster, but shouldn't we also consider the most painless and stressful for the prey item? After all, it's giving up it's life for your snake, it deserves respect. If we consider the most painless and calm for the mouse, the CO2 seems to be the best option.

 

[Raptor]

You bring up an interesting point and one I don't think I've heard in many "Live v. Frozen/Prekilled" arguments and that is the speed at which the prey item dies. Theoretically, the fastest way to dispatch should be blunt trauma to the head or cervical dislocation, but that's only if you do it swiftly and properly. Maybe constricting in 30 seconds is faster, but shouldn't we also consider the most painless and stressful for the prey item? After all, it's giving up it's life for your snake, it deserves respect. If we consider the most painless and calm for the mouse, the CO2 seems to be the best option.

I've been in a few debates. Most of the arguments center around damage to the snake. While yes, it is a concern, one does need to remember that snakes are designed to be as efficient as possible when it comes to killing. Blunt trauma can be messy (I've had mice bleed from the nose/ears because of it) and both can cause a huge amount of suffering if done improperly. To be honest, CO2 isn't all that painless and calm from what I've seen (one method I've seen is put the dry ice in a critter keeper, put it into an ice chest, add mice/rats, close the lid, and come back in five minutes). I've used vinegar and baking soda for CO2 since I can't find dry ice. Pretty much, the mice scramble around before going wobbly. They fall over, go bug eyed, and breath very labored until they die. This can take upwards of 5 minutes.

My snake on the other hand, would strike hard enough to cause the mouse's nose to bleed. She would constrict and the mouse would be dead in about 30 seconds. No matter how you look at it, the mouse is going to suffer. With larger prey items like adult rats, I'm sure you could put a CO2 powered BB gun to its head and pull the trigger (they have a decent amount of force behind them so theoretically, the BB should go straight through the head). This isn't an option for smaller prey.

It's something that requires a lot of thought, and in my opinion, something that boils down to preference. I know of people who have thousands of live feedings under their belt with many, many snakes and have had a small handful of instances. Others refuse to even own a snake that requires live.

Like I said though, I'm not going to condone anyone for how they choose to feed their animal (it is, after all, their animal). I can simply hope that they will do the same to me.

 

[WingedSweetheart]

I know this is a PETA thread and now we are talking about live vs dead. I would just like to add that even though it might be rare for the snake to get injured I would rather not take any chance. My boyfriend works with a guy who owns pythons and he used to only feed live because he thought that was all his snakes would eat. But one day while feeding one snake the rat fought back a lot and ripped the sides of the snakes mouth. The snake let go and the rat continued to bite and claw the snake until the guy could get the rat out. He had a hefty vet bill for it and after that he was worried because he tried feeding live again next feeding and his snake wouldn't touch it. Like it was afraid of the rat! So he killed the rat and then the snake ate after a while. Now he only feeds already dead animals to his snakes. He had no problem getting his snakes to switch to dead after eating live for many years. I know this doesn't apply to every snake but I thought it was a good example to at least try and not just assume that if your snake was eating live that it wouldn't eat dead prey.

 

[Raptor]

It almost sounds like the rat was hungry or was too big of an item for the snake (most of the risk of live feeding comes from feeding too large of prey).