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Frozen/Thawed vs live feeder rodents

My aunt and uncle's 17 year old corn has been bitten recently by several prey items. He's been a great part of their household for SEVENTEEN YEARS and it maddens me that this is being allowed to happen to him. I've had the conversation several times with them. I think one of these days I'll just show upwith a frozen mouse and show them how easy it is. I'm 100% sure he'll have no problem taking it. He deserves better, especially in his golden years, than being bitten by his food.
 
I am an animal lover. I love ALL animals.
Live feeding is one thing, and I hate it. But at least for the prey it is over fairly quickly. But the prolonged cruelty illustrated in this thread, honestly, there are no words I can use that would not get me in huge trouble with the mods here.

Suffice it to say that I empathize with any animal that is in fear and in pain. As far as how I feel about any human capable of causing such horror, I can hope that Karma rewards them in their future for the suffering they have caused.

edit, why the heck do I always think of Maude saying "God will get you for that, Walter"....I never even watched that show!!
 
starsevol said:
I am an animal lover. I love ALL animals.
Live feeding is one thing, and I hate it. But at least for the prey it is over fairly quickly. But the prolonged cruelty illustrated in this thread, honestly, there are no words I can use that would not get me in huge trouble with the mods here.

Suffice it to say that I empathize with any animal that is in fear and in pain. As far as how I feel about any human capable of causing such horror, I can hope that Karma rewards them in their future for the suffering they have caused.
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Look, I stumbled into it, I was only trying to save my snake from being bitten.
You are making me feel so guilty. So you think I, a person who loves his snake to death and finds live feeding to be more interesting and less sterilized (although I pledge to stick with pk from now on), should be trapped in a 4-walled jungle with an anaconda and a giant hand of God preventing me from escaping? Will that make you feel like justice has been done.
What I personally like about animals is that they are free of morality. I work with dogs 24/7 and the canine mind free of human sentimentality is quite a relief.
 
Do you make those dogs hunt rabbits and deer? After all, that would be more interesting and less sterilised. Or how about throwing live zebra to the lions in the zoos?
 
Shiari said:
Do you make those dogs hunt rabbits and deer? After all, that would be more interesting and less sterilised. Or how about throwing live zebra to the lions in the zoos?
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That's an inaccurate analogy.
Dogs need leadership and rules, they've evolved towards a mutually beneficial relationship with humans.
Snakes couldn't care less. Which actually brings to light that there's probably no difference between live and dead for them, which is why I've ultimately decided to go with P/K, especially after that recent incident when I was too lazy/reluctant to instakill that rat myself.
But besides that, it seems like people here are on a crusade to discourage live feeding. I've always been in favor of intellectual analysis over peer pressure'd morality.
 
The intellectual part has been discussed to death. The result is that the benefits of F/T vastly outweigh any possible benefit of live. And the only 'benefit' of live appears to be only for the owner, not the snake.

Most parasites don't survive freezing.
Always have the right size of prey on hand.
No chance for the mouse to bite or potentially kill the snake.
Faster, gentler death for the mouse.
Less expensive.
Easier disposal if the snake refuses to eat.

So there you go. You didn't say anything about beneficial relationships before. You said that feeding live is more interesting and less sterilised. Thus: Why do you not have the dogs hunt deer for their food? That has nothing to do with leadership and rules. We're talking about filling a stomach.
 
Kathy and Bill Love describe it perfectly. They say that feeding live is fine, and has the advantage of exercise & nutrition, but you have to accept that there's the slightest risk to your pet. THAT is a rational way to describe it, instead of pulling out the :madeuce: and berating us for feeding live.


Shiari said:
Thus: Why do you not have the dogs hunt deer for their food? That has nothing to do with leadership and rules. We're talking about filling a stomach.
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Because I would not allow my dog to run after rabbits. Again, horrible analogy. You can't compare reptiles to canines.
Whether a dog hunts for food or eats kibble is a non-issue. Dogs DO need rules regarding eating especially! A dog who feels insecure and lacks a regular feeding schedule might refuse a meal, not because his stomach is empty, but because he doesn't trust his owner as the leader of the pack to decide when he eats. He is more confused about his pack status, than whether he is hungry or not.
Please,
 
There's no evidence of any significant nutritional difference between live and f/t. And my snakes all coil their food like crazy, and so get the same amount of exercise as a corn fed live. With no risk to the snake.

If you don't allow your dog to run after and eat a rabbit, which is less sterile and more interesting, then why do you allow your corn to go after a live mouse?
 
Shiari said:
There's no evidence of any significant nutritional difference between live and f/t. And my snakes all coil their food like crazy, and so get the same amount of exercise as a corn fed live. With no risk to the snake.

If you don't allow your dog to run after and eat a rabbit, which is less sterile and more interesting, then why do you allow your corn to go after a live mouse?
Click to expand...

Why are you repeating yourself? I told that showing a dog that you're in control, i.e. not letting them chase after animals, is good for the dog's mental stability.
Snakes don't care what you allow and don't allow. Snakes don't need you to show them confident leadership, or otherwise, this just doesn't apply. Please listen and stop making this faulty analogy.
Bottom line is, snakes are predators, their prey will suffer. Such is the order of nature. As pet owners feeding our snakes, the more humane of us will ensure the mouse suffers a painless death. But if a snake owner chooses to feed live, it is his business and I'm tired of this propaganda against live feeding.
 
My last dog would have been more stable, mentally, if I *had* let him chase down animals. One of the things his breed was bred for was extermination of vermin around farms. He was super frustrated and unruly when I did *not* allow him the chase because I was denying him what humans had told his ancestors to do for hundreds of years.

As a vet tech, an owner who chooses to feed live for any reason other than the snake refuses to take F/T or P/K is equivalent in my mind to a person who tries to stick their cat on a vegetarian diet; what the *human* wants is more important than what is good for the animal.

And in this case it's both animals. My house is not 'nature'. My snakes are predators, but so are my dogs and cats. I don't feed live to any creature in my house. My snakes are willing to eat F/T, and so that's what they get. Because it is best for my snake, and best for the mouse.
 
Shiari said:
My last dog would have been more stable, mentally, if I *had* let him chase down animals. One of the things his breed was bred for was extermination of vermin around farms. He was super frustrated and unruly when I did *not* allow him the chase because I was denying him what humans had told his ancestors to do for hundreds of years.
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I would argue that you did not display proper leadership. The breed is always a factor, but 90 percent of a dogs' behavior has to do with upbringing. Was your dog by chance a Border Collie?
I'd imagine your last dog was not getting enough exercise and confident direction. And honestly, this is hard. It is difficult to read a dog and train him, since each individual dog is so unique, regardless of breed. But to blame it on the breed is petty. The hardest part of it, honestly, is that dogs can easily read your mind and tell how mentally stable you are. If you are stable, they will respond submissively but if there's a crack in your confidence, they will always sense it and that's why dog trainers have so much trouble. The dog trainer has to be a stable human on his own, before he can confer such stability and alpha-role leadership to his dog.
I would like to say dogs are tractable enough to eat food without killing to eat it. And so are corn snakes... which shows that there IS a similarity!

I only fed live to my snake, because 1. I wanted the snake to have the natural experience of "hunting" and 2. I admit I wanted to watch "nature in action" which could be attributed to *gasp* latent sadism.
I admire your ways of respecting both snake and mouse, and finding the most decent way for both to carry on. I just have difficulty respecting both predator and prey, seeing as one is surviving, and the other is a hapless victim. How can you respect both at the same time?
Giving the mouse a "humane" death is sterilized cruelty, or "humane euthanisation" in your terms.

The organization I work for is strictly against dog euthanisation, and I understand why. Killing is killing, no matter how you slice it.
 
As a dog owner for... My whole life, and being forced to watch every dog care program out there i'm going to disagree with the above post.

If a dog has been bred to hunt, no matter the degree of leadership you display instinct will overrule in the end. A hunting dog is bred to hunt, it is the sole purpose of the breed, if they hear a loud bang, whether it be a gun or a firework they will go into hunt mode, and if you stop them they don't get frustrated so much as confused. Their brain is saying one thing and you are saying another. Although leadership means they'll listen to you over the hunting instinct inside their minds it will still be a conflict of interests.

And can you drop it by now? It's gotten to a stage of

P/K / F/T is better for X & Y reasons

I know but I still found live interesting

How would you feel if it were a puppy, being fed to a large snake

I would feel, but I don't care about rats

Others do have some empathy for them.

Arguing despite there is no point to it

Start loop from the top.

And honestly its just getting old, accept the fact that people find live feeds horrid, honestly it's your snake you can do what you want, if you want to ignore the advice of others and forgo the well being of your snake then go for it we can't stop you and obviously despite logic and reason we can't change your mind.

At the very least maybe this forum should take up the old army rule "Don't ask, don't tell" just in regards to live feeds. Because honestly I've been on this forum for what a week? And i'm already sick of seeing F/T vs Live threads

I do think some people here need to get thicker skin though. I've owned rats, cats, dogs, rabbits, mice, hamsters, birds. But I don't cry about it when I read about one getting killed, I know some people are emotional about that kind of thing, and I am a heartless git, but its what happens. Even if you don't read about it it's happening every day, it's happening somewhere right now as you read this post and there's nothing you can do about it so you can either let it interfere with your life or accept the fact and move on.

And the problem is 90% of these people won't listen until the worst happens, I mean even looking at the posts in this thread about going from live to F/T it looks like the majority only went over because their snake got injured. I can almost bet that before that happened a lot of them were in a similar mindset of "I want to watch it hunt" and you wouldn't have been able to convince them either.

It's a fact of llfe.

Also I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, i'm just bored of the arguement already. Also sorry it turned slightly rantish I haven't had breakfast yet.
 
wowfood said:
As a dog owner for... My whole life, and being forced to watch every dog care program out there i'm going to disagree with the above post.

If a dog has been bred to hunt, no matter the degree of leadership you display instinct will overrule in the end. A hunting dog is bred to hunt, it is the sole purpose of the breed, if they hear a loud bang, whether it be a gun or a firework they will go into hunt mode, and if you stop them they don't get frustrated so much as confused. Their brain is saying one thing and you are saying another. Although leadership means they'll listen to you over the hunting instinct inside their minds it will still be a conflict of interests.
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Ah, you do make a good point. There is a rift between humans and dogs, that can be difficult to understand.
Speaking purely through experience of working with a huge variety of dogs, I am still convinced that the pack mentality overrides everything. I've seen dachshunds who bite, squirm and are completely intolerant of everything you want them to do. And I've seen dachshunds who are extremely submissive and hold perfectly still while I am grooming them, brushing, grinding their nails, etc.
Likewise, I've dealt with American Bulldogs or Pitbulls who may be extremely resistant and challenging, displaying what I interpret as manipulative fear to get their way, while others are completely calm and don't react to what you want to do with them, and it all seems to be based on ownership and upbringing.
If leadership wasn't so important to canines, I don't think they would have become so obedient to humans as they have become. We wouldn't have had such chemistry and reciprocal evolution if it wasn't for our SHARED interests rather than CONFLICT of interests.
Wait, this is a corn snake forum, not a dog forum. I've have far more experience with dogs than I've had with reptiles, so bear with me.
 
He was an English Shepherd with no desire to please, as the breed is prone to throwing one of these every now and then.

The breed was designed to pretty much take care of the farm without need for direct supervision of a human. They are flock guardians, drivers, and hunters. They will collect stock without command and will herd everything from chickens to cattle. They will bring vermin in each night (I found a photo once of an ES that had collected some 10+ rats in just a couple hours!). They go after raccoon and fox. They will corner intruders and guard them, but not bite unless provoked. They are by design highly independent. Kumo just took it to a slightly higher level. Even as a 2 month old puppy, people weren't terribly interesting to him aside from things to sniff. He didn't behave like a 'typical' puppy. All his siblings wanted attention, Kumo just wanted to run around. For the most part, as an adult, he was obedient but always testing, seeing what he could get away with even though I never let him get away with it. However, if there was a rodent his brain had room for only one thought: HUNT.

There's a reason people are told to not let the sight hounds off leash; no matter how spot-on the recall seems, if their hunting instinct gets triggered they are gone.

As a vet tech, I have seen many dogs that are simply born 'broken' in some fashion. Some are simply stupid (like my hydrocephalic foster puppy), some are simply born nasty or have rage seizures, and some are just complete nervous wrecks even as bitty pups.
 
As a vet tech, I have seen many dogs that are simply born 'broken' in some fashion. Some are simply stupid (like my hydrocephalic foster puppy), some are simply born nasty or have rage seizures, and some are just complete nervous wrecks even as bitty pups.
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Absolutely! It is so sad. It's funny that you mention English Shepherds, because I've been dealing with one all week, named MacGyver. This is a dog who will intrude upon every situation, and refuses to learn obedience no matter how many tricks I've tried. But I don't think they're *born* this way.
Its just that so many dog owners are clueless/ignorant of how to train their dogs during that crucial growth period, or they don't care, and dogs develop behavioral issues that are nearly irreversible. Much like humans.
 
English shepherds will test and test and test, and if they decide they know better than one human... then they know better than ALL humans. Like I said, they were bred to be independent and work without human supervision, and rely on themselves. The bond with people is not as strong. They do tend to emotionally bond strongly to *one* person, but even that bond won't necessarily result in the dog listening.

Plus, they are not naturally submissive dogs. They are Betas, one and all. Kumo would chastise the cats for me if I said their names in an angry tone by herding them into corners.
 
Because honestly I've been on this forum for what a week? And i'm already sick of seeing F/T vs Live threads
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I think there's only this one "live" at the moment! ;) Certainly if you go searching for them, there are a LOT of historical ones.

Also I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, i'm just bored of the arguement already
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The best way to deal with that, is just not to read the threads. Honestly, if you stick around, live feeding is a topic that's raised from scratch once or twice a year - sometimes more. And yes, the same discussion ensues each time.

Wait until you see the recurring discussions about keeping more than one Corn per tank!

I've been a member here for years and I've learned to exercise my self-editing powers. If you feel as strongly as you seem to, that's the only way you'll stay sane! You'll certainly get no joy from expecting other folks to stop creating new threads about topics which bore you, or telling them not to contribute when these threads are started.
 
7legion77 said:
Look, I stumbled into it, I was only trying to save my snake from being bitten.
You are making me feel so guilty. So you think I, a person who loves his snake to death and finds live feeding to be more interesting and less sterilized (although I pledge to stick with pk from now on), should be trapped in a 4-walled jungle with an anaconda and a giant hand of God preventing me from escaping? Will that make you feel like justice has been done.
What I personally like about animals is that they are free of morality. I work with dogs 24/7 and the canine mind free of human sentimentality is quite a relief.
Click to expand...

I don't think it will be an anaconda that will get you and your loved ones in the end. And it may take years, I am sure it will. But in the end all I can hope for is that you are rewarded with the kind of suffering you have meted out.

What you did did not need to happen....
 
Okay, I was again trying not to get in on this one, but since legion is not feeding his snake live anymore, why are we continuing to harass him? I know it was not pleasant for the rat in it's last moments, but it's not like he goes around and does this every time feeding comes along. He stated that he usually feeds prekilled and will from now on because of this incident.
 
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