Live feeding for entertainment

[Glasgow Corns]

First off let me get one thing straight, this isnt about live feeding it is about the publishing / broadcasting of live feeding via video websites.

We have in the UK some grey areas when it comes to live feeding our reps mice rats etc infact some people get more worked up about that than murder.

We have also had recently a video where an unsuitable prey item was fed to a burmese python.

People feed their animals live food, it is part and parcel for reptile keeping, but when its published / broadcast it just gives more people the ammunition to have a pop at the reptile community in general, we all get tarred with the same brush.

Personally i would like to see all live feeding videos stopped purely to save face of the larger majority of responsible reptile keepers. Its not liable to ever happen but folks need to see that we are not all evil Hannibal Lecter types.

Shall finish by saying I am not against live feeding, it is something I have done for the snakes benefit. I just wouldnt broadcast it.

[infernalis]

Excellent post, and eloquently stated.

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/general-discussion/89342-please-do-not-post-animal-cruelty-videos.html

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[jaleely]

Honestly asking...how is it to the snake's benifit? Do you mean when they won't eat f/t, just to get them to eat?

[infernalis]

Ok hun, I purchased a baby black racer a couple years ago, It refused EVERYTHING I offered it, except live Anole lizards, The black Racer's natural first meal in the southern USA.

It ate seven before I could get it to eat mouse pinks.

Baby garter snakes will almost always DEMAND a live guppy or two before it can be trained to take dead fish.

Many times a BP hatchling will demand a live mouse or starve itself to death.

My new baby Natrix will only take a living fish.

[Glasgow Corns]

Honestly asking...how is it to the snake's benifit? Do you mean when they won't eat f/t, just to get them to eat?

yes some of our babies refused f/t and fresh killed for about 3 months so offered them live, was either that or let them die, after a few feeds we offered fresh killed now they taking f/t happily.

[KORBIN5895]

I would like to mention that Shaun post a link to the news paper article mentioned by the op. The Scottish equivalent to our spca said that the issue wasn't the type of prey but that it was live.

[ZARADOZIA]

First off let me get one thing straight, this isnt about live feeding it is about the publishing / broadcasting of live feeding via video websites.

We have in the UK some grey areas when it comes to live feeding our reps mice rats etc infact some people get more worked up about that than murder.

We have also had recently a video where an unsuitable prey item was fed to a burmese python.

People feed their animals live food, it is part and parcel for reptile keeping, but when its published / broadcast it just gives more people the ammunition to have a pop at the reptile community in general, we all get tarred with the same brush.

Personally i would like to see all live feeding videos stopped purely to save face of the larger majority of responsible reptile keepers. Its not liable to ever happen but folks need to see that we are not all evil Hannibal Lecter types.

Shall finish by saying I am not against live feeding, it is something I have done for the snakes benefit. I just wouldnt broadcast it.

Very well said. Thank you.




Honestly asking...how is it to the snake's benifit? Do you mean when they won't eat f/t, just to get them to eat?

Some times the little brats refuse to eat anything that isn't alive. Especially when the previous owners fed them live only, which makes it extremely hard to switch them to the healthier f/t. I had this same issue with my Sasha because her previous owner fed her "one live white female mouse a month" (or maybe it was every 2 weeks...I can't remember for sure right now) and switching her to f/t was a nightmare.

[CDN_Blood]

Life prey can be a necessary evil under certain circumstances, but if someone considers it 'entertaining' or 'natural', they quite likely have snakes for all the wrong reasons.

There is nothing 'natural' about putting a live animal in an enclosed space with a carnivorous predator where the prey no chance of escape.

For anyone who may consider that 'entertaining', I'd invited them to be put into an area with a large, hungry Komodo Dragon where they become the prey and see if they still think it's 'entertaining'.

I can honestly say I've never taken a single image or frame of footage of any of my reptiles eating in the 24 years that I've been keeping them. Even posts from my favourite people to read will be skipped if I see a feeding image. It's unnecessary, we all know what it's about, we've all seen it countless times, it's not the best feature of any reptile and don't even get me going on the video that started all this - I've got something special in store for the idiot that posted that.

[minibrat]

took us a while to get my little brothers BP to eat anything, live hopper did the trick. after a while we figured she'll eat prekill only when it's really warm

[exwizard]

First off let me get one thing straight, this isnt about live feeding it is about the publishing / broadcasting of live feeding via video websites.

We have in the UK some grey areas when it comes to live feeding our reps mice rats etc infact some people get more worked up about that than murder.

We have also had recently a video where an unsuitable prey item was fed to a burmese python.

People feed their animals live food, it is part and parcel for reptile keeping, but when its published / broadcast it just gives more people the ammunition to have a pop at the reptile community in general, we all get tarred with the same brush.

Personally i would like to see all live feeding videos stopped purely to save face of the larger majority of responsible reptile keepers. Its not liable to ever happen but folks need to see that we are not all evil Hannibal Lecter types.

Shall finish by saying I am not against live feeding, it is something I have done for the snakes benefit. I just wouldnt broadcast it.

I couldn't have said this better myself.

Life prey can be a necessary evil under certain circumstances, but if someone considers it 'entertaining' or 'natural', they quite likely have snakes for all the wrong reasons.

There is nothing 'natural' about putting a live animal in an enclosed space with a carnivorous predator where the prey no chance of escape.


I only feed live but not for the above stated reasons. We raise the rats and mice ourselves and we found it easier and more convenient to feed them live, especially since thats what they're used to eating and its NEVER unsupervised. We have never had an incident and we have hooks to prevent one should we see it starting.
I respect other people's opinions on this but this is what has worked for us.

[jaleely]

ah i figured. little brats. you know i actually hadn't though about fish or lizards when i'm thinking live. I feel a little bad for them, but i'm more happy my critter can eat. I actually do plan to get a garter snake, and i know i might have to deal with the fish thing. I actually feed goldfish to my shovel nosed catfish all the time (he's a big greedy guy, eats ten in a row).
Was just curious. I actually figured that's why i had so much trouble with jasper in the beginning, because he was used to live food.

If i ever have another snake that only wants live food though, i'm going to try my hardest to get'em off it. Jasper has a foot and a half foot scar on his belly from a rabbit kicking him, and numerous scars along his body. Ribs has a scarred and messed up nose, from a rat bite. A few knots of tissue along her body, and when we got her from the pound a freshly torn off bloody scale.
Bitey also has a few knots of scars.

That is actually the only reason i'm kind of against live food...and really? just rodents, for snakes. There's not really a reason for them to possibly get hurt.

If there was a snake that refused all but live though, i'd do my best, but definitely get that little brat over to f/t if i could.

Okay so i didn't read that post about the cat, but i saw an article about a guy who threw a kitten at his python...uhm...********.
THere is a video on youtube of a python eating a rabbit. It's really just so unnecessary. Some sicko who lets the snake strike, then ZOOMS in on the rabbits face as it dies. Really??? I guess he thinks he's cool and has fun or something.

Anyway, actually watching my snakes strike, and eat, i have no problem with. Last night i took a video and some pics of our girl ball, Saphie, eating a rat. She was so worked up she started gnawing on a back leg like a dog, before giving up, then trying to gnaw on the other leg, then finally going towards the head and it was really silly.

[beardeds4life]

I saw a video of a guy feeding a huge pacman frog a leopard gecko. It made me so mad because he sacrificed the life of his gecko just to get more youtube views.

[Strutter769]

Excellent post. Thank you!

[DavethePython]

I guess I am lucky . Both Dave and Tequila will readily take F/T everytime. Tequila is not fussy at all , Dave on the other hand is a little shy at feeding time. And I agree , feeding is the less desirable side of snakes ,it would appear there sometimes is a need for live ffeding and anyone who gets joy or entertainment out of feeding live animals to snakes or other reptiles should not have any animals.

[Shmoges]

There is a local rock radio station here in Colorado Springs that does weekly picks for football games and they use a monitor lizard supplied by ScalesNTails as the decision maker and two rats as the teams. They actually broadcast the screaming and thrashing live on the radio!!

[BarelyBreathing]

There is a local rock radio station here in Colorado Springs that does weekly picks for football games and they use a monitor lizard supplied by ScalesNTails as the decision maker and two rats as the teams. They actually broadcast the screaming and thrashing live on the radio!!

That Scales has gone downhill since Chad left.... It's so sad.

On topic: I feed live sometimes, and sometimes I film it. Sometimes I put it up on youtube, but it is never for the sake of entertainment. There is no volume in my videos, I don't advertise them, and there are no long rants about how cool it is or how tough it makes me or whatever other distasteful statements people make. I posted all of my feeding videos to facebook on requests of people on forums to show how to do something (like tong feed, or feeding in the enclosure vs. feeding in a tub).

[infernalis]

That Scales has gone downhill since Chad left.... It's so sad..

Would that be the Chad I think?? Pro Exotics?

[BarelyBreathing]

No, not Pro Exotics Chad. I'm not going to post his last name on here because I don't feel comfortable without asking permission, but he was the manager of the Colorado Springs Scales N Tails branch. I think he's working in Castle Rock now.

[infernalis]

OK.. No Problem.. I just thought when football got brought up, and the name Chad got dropped, well you can see where that assumption could easily be made.

[BarelyBreathing]

I understand. I know some of the Pro Exotics guys, but haven't met Chad.