View Full Version : Ethics in snakekeeping
crono_vivi
11-29-04, 10:33 PM
Hi, I'm considering getting my first snake. But I just keep questioning the ethics behind keeping them; feeding them the rats/bunnies/mice/etc. I really want to get one, because I love holding them at work(I work at a Pet store), but I just wonder if it's really right to feed perfectly healthy animals to another, or to freeze perfectly healthy animals, etc. What are your viewpoints? I really would like to put this to rest, because it keeps bugging me. Please dont' regard this as an attack on snake keepers, just a question.
Slannesh
11-29-04, 10:39 PM
Sort of an odd question to ask on a site dedicated to people who keep herps as pets isn't it?
To me it's not really an ethical choice at all. Snakes require that sort of prey to be healthy. I keep a snake so i'm obligated to provide it with the best possible care I can aren't I?
I really don't see any difference between feeding snakes mice/rats/whatever and feeding insectivorious lizards crickets/mealworms/silkworms.
If you really can't get past feeding one animal to another then you probably shouldn't keep omnivorous or carnivorous pets at all. Dogs, cats most herps... they all eat other living things (though some are more processed than others)
Are you vegan? If not, then don't let it bother you. Steak and ribs were animals once too.
If you are vegan, then you will just have to live with the fact that some animals eat other animals.
Let us not even start with non-sentient animals eating sentient animals. Nature has no ethics and created the animals to fit their niches.
Manitoban Herps
11-29-04, 10:42 PM
Well in thw wild snakes usally eat healthy food, and if all of the mice/rat breeders only freeze the sick ones to be aten our snakes would most likley will die. If we are going to keep snakes as pet we have to be willing to sacrifice other animals lives.
I can't think of any other reason why mice are put on this earth other then being food for predators.....
nat_the_brat
11-29-04, 10:49 PM
I believe there are ethics in regard to keeping animal prey.. however my personal ethics revolve around the quality of life of the prey and not wether or not it is right to feed the prey. The cycle of life and so forth. As for the quality of life, I believe any animal in the care of a person should have adaquate food/ water / healthy environment regardless of wether they are pet or prey.
Well my only answer is there really is no other choice. In the wild or captivity snakes must feed on other animals to live.
Dogs and cats feed on parts of other animals in their dog and cat food. So I don't see much of a differance.
Marisa
I think cruelty and quality of life are bigger issues than life or death, but that's just me... rodents put down with carbon dioxide just fall asleep and then pass away.... it's been proven in scientific studies that none of the chemical indicators of stress are present in their brain when they die.
The meat we eat everyday on the other hand is much less humanely slaughtered.
BoidKeeper
11-30-04, 05:09 AM
but I just wonder if it's really right to feed perfectly healthy animals to another, or to freeze perfectly healthy animals, etc.
It's called the food chain.
Should we produce dog food for our dogs? For that matter what gives us humans the right to keep pets period?
Cheers,
Trevor
spidergecko
11-30-04, 07:54 AM
The real issue is not whether you should feed animals to others but whether it is right to produce animals that will require you to feed other animals to it. That would mean unless you kept WC animals, it could be "wrong" to feed perfectly healthy animals to them.
If cats and dogs didn't eat the by-products of our own meat industry, this issue would involve them as well. "Should we breed cats and dogs knowing we would need to kill livestock for them?" If we killed livestock strictly to make pet food, this would involve many other environmental issues as well: land/water use, etc. So, being a vegan or not makes no real difference. The ethical "dilema" is still legitimate even for a meat eater.
Originally posted by Slannesh
Sort of an odd question to ask on a site dedicated to people who keep herps as pets isn't it?
The question should never be "odd". It shouldn't matter who this board represents. Questioning the morality of the things we do every day should be a part of our being. After a while people tend to forget these things as they become automatic. Sometimes it's good to take a long hard look at our lifestyles.
I have no ethical problem with feeding a perfectly healthy animal to another animal. I feel sorry for the little buggers, but that's the choice I have to make to keep snakes, and I make it because I love our legless friends.
I do have an ethical problem with freezing a perfectly healthy animal. The animal should be humanely killed before being frozen. The animal should be raised in humane conditions and well cared for prior to that.
The choice is really yours. Are you okay with being responsible for the deaths of rodents to feed your snake? All the opinions in the world wont rationalize it if it offends your code of values.
Roy
There is absolutely nothing unethical about feeding other animals to eachother. It is how mother nature intended things to work, as Trevor said, it is the food chain. It would be unethical to treat it any other way, and in fact, be quite arrogant and disrespectful towards mother nature. Nat_the_brat hit it right on the nose, the ethics should not lie in whether or not it is right to feed animals to other animals, but in how those animals are treated. Feeders should never be forgotten as living creatures, and be treated with respect until their humane demise.
Originally posted by spidergecko
If cats and dogs didn't eat the by-products of our own meat industry, this issue would involve them as well. "Should we breed cats and dogs knowing we would need to kill livestock for them?" If we killed livestock strictly to make pet food, this would involve many other environmental issues as well: land/water use, etc. So, being a vegan or not makes no real difference. The ethical "dilema" is still legitimate even for a meat eater.
Neither my cat nor my dogs eat ANY animal by-products, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My pets are only fed human grade foods. They shouldn't be fed inferior grade products IMHO.
It is 100% impossible to have life without taking life. This is the food chain, the way the world harmonizes and functions. Even people that only manage to live off organic veggies interfere with the world around them... the land that the food is grown on takes from the world and its creatures, the water that they use takes from the world, the home they live in.. yadda yadda yadda. I honestly cannot understand why people wish to kick mother nature in the face in such a way, believing that they are better and know better than nature's own design.
I'm going to have to argue with you Linds. If you consider humans to be outside of nature, I dont think you could argue that nature intended for rodents to be bred by the thousands, euthanized, and frozen to feed snakes living in boxes by the thousands.
Yes, stuff eating other stuff is nature's way, but in nature, every creature has a shot. Predators and prey live in symbiosis. The fittest survive, and the rest get eaten or die. Populations balance their numbers as appropriate to their environment, food avialbility, predator populations etc. If it's disrespectful and a kick int he face to mother nature to be interfering, then we shouldn't even be collecting snakes, and we certainly shouldn't be breeding them. Mother nature's way is natural selection. Ours is to breed things that might make cool babies. There's nothing natural about it.
Now you COULD argue that since man is an animal, man's actions and influences are natural as well. Of course if you buy that, all bets are off, and it's impossible to behave unethically because even atomic bombs are simply nature's way. That's arguing philosophy and/or religion though, and quite frankly, I expect way too much of humans to buy into that line of reasoning.
Roy
M_surinamensis
11-30-04, 02:47 PM
Yeesh.
Ethics are by nature subjective, individual actions are either ethically right or ethically wrong but the determination needs to be made by the individual. Which is why there's a fairly clear deviation of opinion here (and of course having my own opinion about it, some of these responses come off like they were written by granola eating whackjobs who look at nature as something mystical rather than something scientific).
To the original poster... If YOU feel uncomfortable with feeding rodents (or fish or worms or crickets or lizards or frogs or other snakes) to a snake, then just don't keep them. Asking what other people think or feel about it might give you a little insight but they really can't make the choice for you and you're not going to get a unanimous consensus on this issue.
spidergecko
11-30-04, 03:24 PM
Originally posted by M_surinamensis
some of these responses come off like they were written by granola eating whackjobs who look at nature as something mystical rather than something scientific).
I didn't know it was wrong to look at nature as spirtual and mystical. How truly sad.
Feeder were raised to be feed, nature is not an issue here as we are talking about captive bred animals.
Nature weeds out the sick and the least healthy, and in captivity we try to produce the most healthiest feeder possibble.
Now for the comment of snake constriction being a suffering and painful way to die, I for one would much rather die from constriction then most of the other ways animals kill their prey. I have actually read somewhere that snake constriction is the most humane way to die in the animal kingdom and after thinking about it i would have to agree.
Roy,
That wasn't at all what I was speaking of in my post. To put it short and sweet... nature made it so animals live off other animals. If someone wanted to argue that it wasn't right to raise animals to feed to other animals, then they have no right keeping so much as a fruit fly captive. Obviously, I'm so far removed from that PETA way of thinking, and really when you think about it, many captive animals, both intended as pets, 'breeder commodity', and feeders, often live a far better 'quality' if you want to call it. They don't have anyone painlessly euthanizing sick or prey animals, fixing injuries, making the conditions ideal 24/7, providing them consistent access to food and water, etc.
I never said it was a kick to nature's face to interfere, I was saying that we cannot be here without interfering, and ignoring that fact or thinking we can exist without interfering, is pretty ridiculous. Life feeds off other life, regardless of environment. Additionally, I wasn't speaking of survival of the fittest, as we have no doubt taken that away, and mostly put that on to anything we keep captive. Jus tsimply stating nature made it so life feeds of life. It wouldn't be a matter of whether or not it would be ethical to feed these animals, it would be whether or not it was ethical to keep them period. You can't skip past the intial matter of keeping them captive and go straight to arguing about feeding :flick:
crono_vivi,
Well those are my thoughts on the situations. You might've guessed I have no problems with keeping animals captive or feeding them :flick: I have a large collection of reptiles and raise my own feeders for them. I raise my feeders to ensure quality and save money, but I also love rats as well and keep three as pets. I'm confident all my animals, whether reptilian, amphibian, or mammalian - feeders or pets, are living their lives in the highest quality I can offer them :)
crono_vivi
11-30-04, 05:53 PM
Thanks for the input everyone. I'm thinking about getting one, a Cali King.
BTW, I am NOT a vegatarian. In fact, I can't stand them, lol.
spidergecko
11-30-04, 06:28 PM
Originally posted by crono_vivi
BTW, I am NOT a vegatarian. In fact, I can't stand them, lol.
I hope you never have to change your diet for health reasons. You may end up hating yourself. :rolleyes:
EDIT: Deleted my post as it was disrespectful to crono and his viewpoints.
crono_vivi
11-30-04, 09:49 PM
"I suppose you disagree with gay marraiges and every other culture besides your own. what was the point of stating that fact to put others down? "
I do disagree with gay marriages, I'm catholic.
And why would I not like other cultures??
It's not an ethical situation to me, it's a biological one. Snakes are carnivorous so until there is an alternative, cute food it has too be. I mean dog and cats have been domesticated for thousands upon thousands of years so we have had the time to come up with alternatives to red meat because don't forget they are both also carniverous.
Originally posted by D J N
Snakes are carnivorous so until there is an alternative, cute food it has too be. I mean dog and cats have been domesticated for thousands upon thousands of years so we have had the time to come up with alternatives to red meat because don't forget they are both also carniverous.
Animals that are fed those so-called 'alternatives' end up suffering from variety of problems down the road. While the levels are adequate, the formulation isn't even close, and as such, the animals eventually experience problems such as cancer, growths, allergies, organ dysfunction, shortened lifespan, digestive problems, vision problems, etc. I mean, people have even tried making snake sausages out of the very food snakes eat anyways, and it has been highly unsuccessful. We need to stick to the food they have evolved to eat, instead of trying to change things up to suit a lesser purpose IMHO :)
Originally posted by Nicky
I suppose you disagree with gay marraiges and every other culture besides your own.
Originally posted by crono_vivi
I do disagree with gay marriages, I'm catholic.
This conversation has to end here. Please be respectful of others and refrain from political/religious discussion (refer to the posting rules for more info).
Double J
11-30-04, 10:29 PM
I can't believe this has gone on this long. Please mods, lock up this thread. Too many toes have been stepped on already, and the thread has gotten way of topic. I am sure we have number of homosexual and/or vegetarian members who may think twice about posting here again amongst this childishness.
HeatherRose
11-30-04, 11:03 PM
I think this thread has been a great thread for discussion and learning purposes. There's been no flaming nor has anything gotten out of control, so so far it will remain open. The above people can have their opinions, as there's nothing wrong with having an opinion whether it be 'right or wrong' according to the rest of us. However as Linds said that is where that particular discussion will end as it isn't in accordance with the discussion rules and will start arguments.
ok sorry didn't mean to start anything up,Crono I ment to say lifestyles not cultures sorry. I respect your viewpoint but I don't think adding in "in fact I can't stand them" was nessacary.I didn't mean to jump down your throat but hasn't been the best week... as for the original discussion I agree that it is natures way, this has been a great thread so far.
I guess ya missed my point about the snake sausages Linds lol I was saying that unlike cats and dogs who have been domesticated for centuries we have not yet come up with a suitable alternative to feeidng mice and so on.
crono_vivi
12-02-04, 03:47 PM
It's okay Nicky, I respect your opinion as well. I just didn't want people think I'm racist or anything, you know how touchy that subject is.
Back on topic; I see your point, it is nature's way, and I never thought about how Cats are the same way, except they kill their prey more brutally! Thanks for input you guys, this was just what I needed.
Originally posted by D J N
I guess ya missed my point about the snake sausages Linds lol I was saying that unlike cats and dogs who have been domesticated for centuries we have not yet come up with a suitable alternative to feeidng mice and so on.
I was just saying that the vast majority of those 'alternatives' for cats and dogs, aren't really that suitable either ;)
Originally posted by crono_vivi
I see your point, it is nature's way, and I never thought about how Cats are the same way, except they kill their prey more brutally!
Hahaha you can say that... and the smaller, more domesticated cats have a tendancy to play with it for a while first.. er torture :p
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