feeling guilty about feeding

launimals · 11-12-17, 10:06 PM

Hey, Im planning on getting either a kenyan sand boa or a hognose soon, this will be my first snake and Ive done research plenty of research for months and I believe that I am extremely qualified to own one, I'd be the perfect owner if it werent for the fact that I feel bad about feeding. Don't get me wrong, I know that these snakes require rats and mice etc as part of their diet and I biologically cant, and wont change that, but having owned a hamster I feel like I'd probably cry every time I'd feed. Does anyone have tips or tricks to get over this? I want a snake and I dont want to be sensitive towards feeding

another question which Ive debated with a friend, is that they say feeding a few pinkies is equivalent to feeding a mice, which in my opinion isnt true but ive never owned a snake so I can't be completely sure.

Thanks!!!

**Minkness** · 11-13-17, 10:05 AM

You should always feed the appropriate sized meal for the animal. Pinkies lack some nutrition as they have no actual food in their stomachs, no fur, and their bones haven't hardened yet.

As for gett ing over feeding, you should feed frozen thawed anyway. Just do it, cry if you have to, because after the first few times it won't feel so bad.

samiam1796 · 11-14-17, 12:30 AM

I am a fairly new owner of a baby kenyan sand boa, and I completely understand what you mean about feeding. I also love all animals and have owned rodents in the past. It seems like a hard thing to think about, however once you own the snake, the thought of giving a mouse for food becomes much easier because all you can see is a hungry little animal who I am sure you want to keep happy. Once they are your pet and you form a bond with them, you will do what it takes to keep them healthy and happy. I can say that from experience because I swore I would never feed a live mouse, however when my baby KSB was refusing to eat, I had to resort in feeding him live pinkies. I wasn't thrilled, however it got him to eat which made me happy in the end. The best piece of advice I have is to try and get it to feed in it's enclosure or a separate container (whichever you prefer) and just leave it in there with the feeder and walk away, that way you do not have to participate. HOWEVER, you should be prepared that if that does not work, you may have to participate and do the zombie dance with the feeder.

Best of luck!

dannybgoode · 11-14-17, 12:58 AM

Serious question - do you eat meat? If you do do you think about the cute little animal now sat on your plate?

If you just view it as food then try and view the rodent in the same manner - it's just food.

Detach yourself from what it was to what it is.

Cricket1234 · 11-14-17, 05:31 PM

You could always get a a snake that eats bugs or fish or toads....etc. Some are hard to get and care for.

launimals · 11-17-17, 12:13 PM

Thanks everyone! Live feeding is definitely my last resort and the hardest thing to do, but I guess anything other than that I should just view it just like a piece of meat that I eat daily! Can't wait to get my little noodle

launimals · 11-17-17, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samiam1796

I am a fairly new owner of a baby kenyan sand boa, and I completely understand what you mean about feeding. I also love all animals and have owned rodents in the past. It seems like a hard thing to think about, however once you own the snake, the thought of giving a mouse for food becomes much easier because all you can see is a hungry little animal who I am sure you want to keep happy. Once they are your pet and you form a bond with them, you will do what it takes to keep them healthy and happy. I can say that from experience because I swore I would never feed a live mouse, however when my baby KSB was refusing to eat, I had to resort in feeding him live pinkies. I wasn't thrilled, however it got him to eat which made me happy in the end. The best piece of advice I have is to try and get it to feed in it's enclosure or a separate container (whichever you prefer) and just leave it in there with the feeder and walk away, that way you do not have to participate. HOWEVER, you should be prepared that if that does not work, you may have to participate and do the zombie dance with the feeder.

Best of luck!

Any tips on the care from a personal standpoint?
thanks!

DJC Reptiles · 11-17-17, 12:54 PM

Honestly, feeding was hard for me starting off as well, it is a shame because I actually like mice and rats. I look on it from the point of, if you buy them humainly killed with carbon dioxide it helps to know they never expierenced any pain. Make sure you buy frozen thawed, that helps starting out as well. At this point, even though I still like mice and rats my love for snakes has suppressed that, and you will eventually get past it. I look forward to feeding my snakes, it is one of the main reason, if not the main reason why people keep snakes. Point is, if the mice or rats never feel pain, it would be okay with me. This is the best advice I can give starting out. But for me, my love for snakes would put me to start feeding live to some of my more picky animals. But most snakes, especially common ones like Kenyan sand boas will regularly and happily feed from frozen thawed mice in captivity, just make sure to dry them off to avoid substrate from entering the snake. (This usually doesn't matter if your animal is healthy).

Hope this helps,
-DJC Reptiles

pet_snake_78 · 11-18-17, 09:12 PM

Everything that lives does so at the demise of something else -- simple fact of life. Even if you do not eat meat, you run over animals driving. Even if you do not drive, animals are plowed over, poisoned, trapped, and their habitat destroyed forever reducing the carrying capacity for certain species to provide you vegetables and grains. Every snake that lives does so by consuming prey items. The prey items in captivity would never even have had 1 second of life if people didn't keep snakes and birds of prey to give someone a reason to breed them.

SerpentineDream · 11-19-17, 04:47 AM

I'm one of those that keeps pet rats AND snakes that eat rats. I never feed live rats--just can't do it--and don't breed them for the same reason. I feed frozen / thawed rodents from Big Cheese Rodent Factory. Once I got over the "OMG those poor little critters!" reaction upon first seeing ratscicles and mousescicles and started regarding them as pet food it was easier. I love my pet rats and see them totally differently than I view the frozen ones in the package that are food items. I have to or I couldn't feed my snakes.

I used to feel just as bad for the mice until I tried breeding them just because we HAD to save money somewhere. They weren't like our clean, smart, friendly rats at all. They were little savages. They bit, they pooped in their food, one female bit the testicles off a male, they reeked and were none too bright. But when my husband came home from a job and started choking from an allergic reaction I had to kill the entire breeding colony. I didn't think I cared but I still cried. Not sorry to be back to buying F/T, though the sticker shock is still a factor. Oddly enough DH isn't allergic to our rats.

Anyway, it does get easier with time and desensitization.

akane · 11-23-17, 09:40 PM

Mice are the worst for allergies. I get an asthma attack just breathing too close to the box when I open it for a live feeder. Luckily I very rarely need a live mouse. I ended up setting off my allergies so bad with an attempt to breed mice that eventually I got rid of everything but the chinchillas. The south american rodents aren't as bad and the chinchillas don't use bedding like the guinea pigs. I still didn't get full relief from my bronchitis until I stripped the rooms of guinea pig bedding dust. I've raised cat and dog food as rabbits, guinea pigs, quail, chickens, gerbils, hamsters, and then added rats and attempted to add mice to that for the snakes so not really an issue for me. It was hard to snip the head off the first quail. I had to cover it in a paper towel and just smash it down in the sink. I stood there for awhile before I could look. That was 100s of quail and rabbits ago. I feel nervous about a new method to put them down or a new species but as soon as I know they will die immediately without any real risk of failure I don't have a problem with it. Many things already die to make commercial dog food, cat food, many other things I have to buy, and any meat a human eats. I know how mine lived and I know the last moments when they died with never a question of how humane it was. It's just normal now. With some recovery and the rooms stripped of irritants I might try ASF because their urine production and bedding needs are more like gerbils so they set off allergies less than rats or mice. I just had to wear a dust mask cleaning the gerbil cages out. They can colony breed and with larger litters than gerbils though. I just couldn't produce enough gerbils consistently.

pet_snake_78 · 11-24-17, 03:21 PM

Ya having to kill a food animal is really tough. Honestly feeding live rodents was pretty easy for me but when I had to do the first prekilled rodents, ugggggg it was pretty awful feeling. I still wouldn't like doing it but I feel as long as you do your research and following humane protocol, then no harm in it although I still prefer it when snakes will take take the darn f/t food.

Magdalen · 11-24-17, 04:47 PM

I found I do better with frozen. It's already dead (tho some times cute) so I don't feel as bad. It's not much different from me eating meat. My KSB started off on live and I felt bad when the mouse would squeak out in pain, they were pinkies but they still do it. I know it makes no sense to feel bad, other than I am an animal lover. He eats frozen now so I'm happy and he's happy

Shauna0522 · 11-24-17, 06:23 PM

I too love all animals and that is one of the reasons I will only feed Frozen thawed mice/rats because if I had to hear them cry I would be crying to. It still makes me sad to feed the mice to my baby girl because alive or not they are still cute but it is getting easier the more I do it. Although I would never be able to think of it as a steak on my plate because my steak can't look at me while I eat it. Lol I can't eat anything that can look at me.

😂

regi375 · 11-26-17, 01:55 AM

The good news is that either one you go with will be on mice it's entire life. I've had hamsters/rodents in the past (currently own 3 rats), and I haven't had an issue with feeding frozen/thawed at all. I just view it as food.

For a change of pace though, I'd like to share my personal experiences with you. I currently own both western hosnoses and a Kenyan sand boa. They both are fairly different behavior wise.
With my Kenyan Sand Boa, it looks like I just own a tank full of sand most of the time. While both species like to hide and burrow, I see my western hognoses more often than I do my sand boa. They're both not really display species though. I've had some feeding issues with both of them at the start. I have to put my sand boa in a small container with a pinky for him to eat. I tried this method with my hognoses, and it only worked for one of them. I find it best to just leave the pinky in their hide for a day, as I haven't come back to discover an uneaten one yet. My sand boa is a lot more relaxed with handling. He'll just cruise around trying to find a spot to hide or burrow into. My hognoses are a different story. They'll hiss, puff out, and strike out with their snoots. It took me a while to get over their defensive behavior and stop flinching every time they struck out. Biting, however, is not part of their defensive behavior. I haven't been bitten by either of the ones I own. They have, with time, calmed down a bit as well. Either one is a great choice, and I wish you good luck with whichever one you pick.