This makes me...angry

[Minkness]

http://www.yousignanimals.org/Idiot-man-feeds-kittens-to-hungry-snake-tells-everyone-on-Facebook-t-4573

People like this is what makes so many others hate us and our reptiles! Grrrr.....

Even if someone does take free animals for feeders...dont be a @*$! About it!

[Pogie]

The link isn't working.

[AlexCrazy]

Holy Cr###! Ho the hell thinks its okay to feed kittens! Excuse me but.. WTF?! I mean.. In the states is is so easy to get mice... Rabbit's.. What ever too feed your pet snake... But no... He had to go for kitten's! He also ruins are reputation!

[dave himself]

What an idiot :(

[reptiledude987]

link didnt work. from the comments its probably a good thing.

[prairiepanda]

Here's the image, since the link doesn't work:

http://images.craigslist.org/00c0c_gORliTHNYJe_600x450.jpg


Could be a prank...but still, this is really bad for the hobby :(

[FWK]

This picture is all over Facebook right now. It seems the picture originated in Australia, which seems logical as the snake is an Olive Python. The story I've seen most often attached to the picture is that the snake was found in a backyard normally occupied by a Terrier. The dog was nowhere to be found and, obviously, the snake is the prime suspect in its disappearance. Some moron found the picture on the web and shared it with the caption you see above. Instant internet fame.

[Minkness]

Oh jeez.....

[Albert Clark]

Wow, what a clown! All he needs is the lipstick.

[sirtalis]

Well id be fine feeding kittens

[Aaron_S]

This topic can get heated so I am just placing this message here that this thread will be closely monitored.

Everyone has been great thus far so let's keep that up.

[ManSlaughter33]

To be fair, we dont KNOW what the snake ate..
I could change the label to baseballs, or babies, and it would dramatically change the effect from poor snake (baseballs) to omg poor babies that.
Could have had a rabbit for dinner and the guy was "trying" to be funny.
( I don't really find it funny and I have an odd sense of humour)

He could also be sick in the head and this story could be true. There's always more to the story and can't believe everything we read on the internet.

(always watching, Aaron, aaaalways watching...)

[ManSlaughter33]

Also I do agree, it really makes the hobby look worse to the people that do believe everything they read and the ones who are afraid of snakes. sigh

[RAD House]

The biologist side of me sees no difference between feeding a baby kitten or mouse. It may be a good thing just on the basis of cat over population. Honestly if this stops some from breeding there cat because they are afraid of where their animal might end up then I am all for it. To be frank what is worse for the animal a quick death as part of the circle of life or years of abuse and neglect. The pet owner side of me sees how this is a touchy subject. I do not like cats much but I don't know if I could feed a kitten to my snake.

[murrindindi]

Holy Cr###! Ho the hell thinks its okay to feed kittens! Excuse me but.. WTF?! I mean.. In the states is is so easy to get mice... Rabbit's.. What ever too feed your pet snake... But no... He had to go for kitten's! He also ruins are reputation!

Hi, even if it were true, is there a difference in feeding a kitten to a snake than feeding cows, pigs, sheep etc, etc to ourselves (or killing healthy horses to make dog food) if yes, what is the difference???
For you and everyone else, "domestic" (with "caring" owners) cats kill MILLIONS of wild birds every year the world over (not to mention other animals, too)....
If we`re talking feeding a live healthy kitten, then personally I would never do that. ;)

[prairiepanda]

I agree that the idea of using kittens as feeders really isn't any different from feeding rats or bunnies. I would never do it myself, since rats are much cheaper and more readily available and come in more convenient sizes for the snakes I have. I love cats, too. I adore them! I also love (domestic) rats, and bunnies but that doesn't mean they aren't a valid source of nutrition. Likewise, I love chickens but that doesn't mean I won't eat them.

But I still don't like this guy's post, because of the comments it generates. Things like "This is why people should never own snakes or any exotic animal!" or "Kill it with fire" or "What does anybody see in these monsters? All snakes should be banned"; those are the kinds of attitudes that drive the legislations that are always trying to tighten the noose around our hobby. I don't like to see anyone feeding that flame.

[Minkness]

I'm with mesocorny actually. The issue isn't if the snake ate a kitten, it's that people in general see kittens as infallible objects of adorablness and snakes as evil. So in the general public eye...evil just ate a baby...true or not, this is bad for the snake community. =/

[ManSlaughter33]

I get what you all mean now. Yeah personally I think all cats are little evil creatures hidden by fluff !!
But i couldnt feed one to my snakes..

[reptiledude987]

I get what you all mean now. Yeah personally I think all cats are little evil creatures hidden by fluff !!
.


this part I agree 100%

[RAD House]

I think this post is a good opening to the conversations about the effects of all house pets on the environment. Maybe snake owners are more often targeted with regulation because of public perception but the regulation themselves are based off environmental effects. Sometimes they don't hit the mark or people take advantage of it but the Lacy Act is pro animal. Honestly with the decline of song birds I think there definitely needs to be some regulations on house cats. You can not trust people to do the right thing on their own apparently.

[jjhill001]

I love how this is one of the more rational and logically thinking reptile forums. This would have been a 100 page flame war in about 2 days on any other one.

We have to keep in mind that there are people who keep snakes who think that it is morally wrong to feed live rodents, but perfectly fine to feed them frozen thawed.

[Wingbeats]

There was a time when I was helping raise a critically endangered hawk (The Rigway's Hawke) in the Dominican Republic. In the DR, there isn't really places you can buy frozen rats in bulk like in the USA, so we had to get packs of frozen rats imported.

Naturally, importing that stuff was difficult and took forever (and a lot of paperwork) so there were times we faced shortages of rats.

So what did we feed the hawks instead? Well, the DR has a huuuuge feral cat problem. Feral cats single-handedly made ten reptile species and several mammal species go extinct in the wild. You see packs of feral cats everywhere. In the DR they aren't so much pets as an invasive pest species.

So we trapped feral cats, euthanized them, and then fed the cat meat to the baby hawks. Yeah, many people would be angry at me for this, but really....is a cat so different from any other mammal? In many cases, cats are an enormous environmental problem.

I, personally, would not have an issue feeding any humanely euthanized non-endangered mammal or bird to a snake, whether it's a kitten, rabbit, or whatever.

Just some food for thought :)

[Minkness]

Wingbeats....I don't think it's wether or not the guy fed kittens instead of rats. It's the abrasive, meanness of thanking someone for their kittens and posting it all over. DR would be different because of the different views they have, but put ANY animal and their previous owner in that situation. Even rats....Someone has had their pet rats for a year and now circumstances force them to be rehomed. They believe their beloved pets are going to a good home....then it's thrown in theor face their precious babies were dinner....same for snakes....maybe someone has a snake eating snake and they get someones beloved pet snake and then feed it to their own. To me, this is the image that is being put on display. That reptile owners are all a**h***** who can't be trusted.....

Recently I was wanting a pet rat. Someone breeds them locally and they had pretty babies. They were twice as expensive but I wanted one. Contacted the breeder. One of the questions was what other pets do I have....when I mentioned my snakes, ai got totally flamed and told point blank that these baby rats weren't for food.....I honestly wanted a PET......this same person shared a story with me of when she first started out and had sold like 5 babies to one guy. When she found out he had a snake she asked for all 5 back.....(according to her) his only response was "4" before he started ignoring her texts.

This is more of an ethics issue than a what the snake is eating issue in my opinion. Again, wether the guy really did feed kittens to his snake is not as infuriating as the mean way of saying 'thanks' and showing happened to someone's much loved and cared for pet.

Even if it's a prank, which it seems to be, it's still a terrible spotlight for the reptile community in the eyes of the general public.

[jjhill001]

Thats a good point. Its not like the guy that works at the slaughter house brags about killing cow. (Maybe he does, but he's probably not well liked.)

[D Grade]

To be frank what is worse for the animal a quick death as part of the circle of life or years of abuse and neglect.

Not to be rude or over critical of your comment, but death by constriction is not very quick and certainly not painless for whatever animal happens to be the prey. I have seen alot of not so smooth live feeds to constrictors in person that took way too long (sometimes over 5 minutes) and way too many where the prey was swallowed while still alive. Thats one reason I feed my constrictors youthenized instead of live.

A quick death to me is a venomous strike to the head or crucial organ. My C. Molossus is fed live while monitored (for my safety by reducing strike risk) and all but one feed kill took 10-15 seconds. One was instant by a strike to the head.

[jjhill001]

Not to be rude or over critical of your comment, but death by constriction is not very quick and certainly not painless for whatever animal happens to be the prey. I have seen alot of not so smooth live feeds to constrictors in person that took way too long (sometimes over 5 minutes) and way too many where the prey was swallowed while still alive. Thats one reason I feed my constrictors youthenized instead of live.

A quick death to me is a venomous strike to the head or crucial organ. My C. Molossus is fed live while monitored (for my safety by reducing strike risk) and all but one feed kill took 10-15 seconds. One was instant by a strike to the head.

Five minutes is quick and painless compared to a year to a lifetime of abuse and neglect.

[D Grade]

I agree, but I didnt think that was the main focal point of the discussion. Also every second takes forever while you're being killed.

[Mmrseed]

There is actually a huge difference between feeding a snake rabbits and feeding it kittens even if both are cute fuzzy and kept as pets. It's called the psychology of violence and in our society we accept certain levels of violence as ok...hence soldiers and cops can be trained to kill opposing armies and bad guys without being labelled psychopaths. Rabbits are and have been considered a food source for both people and snakes, kittens are not. Therefore seeing an individual who cannot make that distinction is appalling to us just like a soldier who kills civilians as well as enemy combatants. Even if technical cases can be made, there are lines we don't want to cross

[RAD House]

Five minutes is quick and painless compared to a year to a lifetime of abuse and neglect.

I agree, but I didnt think that was the main focal point of the discussion. Also every second takes forever while you're being killed.

No that was exactly the point that I was trying to make. Most recent research suggest that constriction is more suffocation than the bone crushing we often associate with it. As for venom being more humane you have obviously not read any human accounts of the effects of venom and the pain that it causes them. Either way in my opinion they are still better than a life of torture at the hands of a cruel owner. Just to be clear I also feed pre-killed and would never suggest someone do otherwise.

There is actually a huge difference between feeding a snake rabbits and feeding it kittens even if both are cute fuzzy and kept as pets. It's called the psychology of violence and in our society we accept certain levels of violence as ok...hence soldiers and cops can be trained to kill opposing armies and bad guys without being labelled psychopaths. Rabbits are and have been considered a food source for both people and snakes, kittens are not. Therefore seeing an individual who cannot make that distinction is appalling to us just like a soldier who kills civilians as well as enemy combatants. Even if technical cases can be made, there are lines we don't want to cross

Cats are and have been considered a food source by many societies. I am assuming you are not labeling these societies as entirely made up of psychopaths. Comparing feeding a kitten to a snake and killing another human being is a stretch by any psychological standard.

[Mmrseed]

No...societies that have traditionally eaten cats (or even dogs) are not psychopaths for doing so because that is normal for them and conditioned to think so. I may think it odd or am even repulsed by it given my cultural values but I don't think less of an entire culture. But this seems more of a deviation from a norm. Looked at clinically, there is no doubt that what happened to the cow before it became my western bacon cheeseburger was more violent than what may have happened to those kittens but that was necessary because there isn't anything else out there that tastes as good with bar-b-que sauce.....that's not true about kittens

[RAD House]

You've not eaten a kitten so can you say that kittens are not delicious? I know that python disagrees. There is no reason to put the importance of one creature over another based on personal feelings. At the end of the day a creature must eat to survive and I don't have as a big of a problem as some of it being a domesticated animal that wreaks havoc on wild species.

[Minkness]

This is more about the unabashed emotional cruelty of one person (supposedly from our hobby) towards another. Not that it was a certain type of animal.

As I mentioned before...feed what you like but don't be a **** about it.

[D Grade]

No that was exactly the point that I was trying to make. Most recent research suggest that constriction is more suffocation than the bone crushing we often associate with it. As for venom being more humane you have obviously not read any human accounts of the effects of venom and the pain that it causes them. Either way in my opinion they are still better than a life of torture at the hands of a cruel owner. Just to be clear I also feed pre-killed and would never suggest someone do otherwise.



Cats are and have been considered a food source by many societies. I am assuming you are not labeling these societies as entirely made up of psychopaths. Comparing feeding a kitten to a snake and killing another human being is a stretch by any psychological standard.

I figured that wasn't the point you were trying to make, but it's worth mentioning that constriction isnt a swift death. And venom has different effects depending on what it's injected into. As mentioned my C. Molossus kills in 10-20 seconds, a human will cerainy not die from the same bite in equal time. We're talking the difference of injecting xxx mls of venom into someone who weighs 200lbs vs a mouse that weighs well under a pound.