Ethics of snake food...

[SoPhilly]

Originally Posted by prairiepanda

I'm aware of such meat rendering plants, but I was under the impression that the slurries and powders resulting from that process went elsewhere. After all, if the meat in pet food came from some horrible almagamation of mystery animals, how could they list the ingredients by weight? Many pet foods now are listed as safe for human consumption, so they must adhere to the same food safety standards as our own food. I'm sure plenty of the poultry, fish, rabbit, etc. in my cat's food comes from sources that treat their animals poorly, but I would not expect any to come from a mystery meat rendering plant. I might have believed that back before pet foods become so strictly regulated, but not now. Pet food manufacturers can't legally list "chicken" as an ingredient when they really mean "powdered deer, cow, skunk, horse, etc." Even "chicken by-product meal" has restrictions on what it can contain, and honestly I wouldn't be disturbed at all to see it as an ingredient in human foods even though it looks nasty when they're making it. It's still edible and nutritious.

Expired grocery store meat? Maybe. But I eat that too because it's mega cheap.

You're half right. If the ingredients list says "chicken-by-product meal", then legally, that has to come from chickens. But you're obviously buying expensive to medium priced dog food if that's the worst you're seeing. LOTS of dog foods still contain "animal-by-product meal", which can be ANYTHING, and is a result of the roadkill/expired supermarket/dead farm animal slurry. Also watch out for "Animal fat", Meat-by-products" and "Meat and bone meal". It's in Purina Puppy Chow, Pedigree, Alpo, Beneful...

Legally, they're not lying to you.

Not saying there arent good dog/cat foods out there, but they're expensive and it's hard to tell.

So yeah, feeding my snakes a whole, intact, somewhat humanely killed single rodent is ethically fantastic to me, by comparison.

[D Grade]

Originally Posted by prairiepanda

I'm aware of such meat rendering plants, but I was under the impression that the slurries and powders resulting from that process went elsewhere. After all, if the meat in pet food came from some horrible almagamation of mystery animals, how could they list the ingredients by weight? Many pet foods now are listed as safe for human consumption, so they must adhere to the same food safety standards as our own food. I'm sure plenty of the poultry, fish, rabbit, etc. in my cat's food comes from sources that treat their animals poorly, but I would not expect any to come from a mystery meat rendering plant. I might have believed that back before pet foods become so strictly regulated, but not now. Pet food manufacturers can't legally list "chicken" as an ingredient when they really mean "powdered deer, cow, skunk, horse, etc." Even "chicken by-product meal" has restrictions on what it can contain, and honestly I wouldn't be disturbed at all to see it as an ingredient in human foods even though it looks nasty when they're making it. It's still edible and nutritious.

Expired grocery store meat? Maybe. But I eat that too because it's mega cheap.

You would be suprised. We live in a world where you cant believe everything you read, see, or hear because thats how sad a large majority of the human race is. If the government is REALLY regulating pet food, then why arent they regulating human food? Why are we still allowed to buy "sugar free" soft drinks and food that are loaded with artificial sweeteners which contain aspartime which is well documented to cause cancer and kidney issues? Because they care about animals more than humans? It wouldnt suprise me but I highly doubt it. If the FDA approves such disease causing chemicals in our food, why on earth are they truly going to care about where pet food is sources from?

[RAD House]

This is getting a little too conspiracy theory. The FDA is one of the largest and more powerful agencies in the United States. Getting something through them is incredibly hard and may take several years. If things like aspartame where as proven to cause cancer as you believe than the companies who produce these products would have gone out business long ago in this sue happy country. The truth about cancer is that we really have very little understanding of its causes. I am not alone in thinking the biggest reason for the rise of cancers is our ability to diagnose it and that people are living far longer.

[SSSSnakes]

It is now proven that EVERYTHING causes cancer in white mice.

[prairiepanda]

Originally Posted by SoPhilly

You're half right. If the ingredients list says "chicken-by-product meal", then legally, that has to come from chickens. But you're obviously buying expensive to medium priced dog food if that's the worst you're seeing. LOTS of dog foods still contain "animal-by-product meal", which can be ANYTHING, and is a result of the roadkill/expired supermarket/dead farm animal slurry. Also watch out for "Animal fat", Meat-by-products" and "Meat and bone meal". It's in Purina Puppy Chow, Pedigree, Alpo, Beneful...

Legally, they're not lying to you.

Not saying there arent good dog/cat foods out there, but they're expensive and it's hard to tell.

So yeah, feeding my snakes a whole, intact, somewhat humanely killed single rodent is ethically fantastic to me, by comparison.

I've never seen such vague ingredients on pet food, even the cheap Cat Chow and stuff like that. The least descriptive ingredient I've seen on cheap food was "poultry fat", which could be from a Frankenstein of different poultry birds, but shouldn't be anything too scary. Maybe the regulations in Canada area bit more strict? I definitely wouldn't buy a cat food that didn't identify what animal its meats/fats came from! Reminds me of some fruit bites I read the ingredients on once...something like "apple puree and/or bananas and/or pear puree and/or grape juice" so I jokingly called them "and/or bites"...but mystery fruit is a lot less scary than mystery meat. I always read pet food ingredients before buying, though, even on brands I regularly buy in case of formula changes. Hopefully I'll never see some vague ingredient like "animal fat" in the future!

Originally Posted by SSSSnakes

It is now proven that EVERYTHING causes cancer in white mice.

Indeed, I'm always skeptical of all these announcements of normal everyday things causing cancer. The experiments that are taken by so many as proof involve exposing the lab animals to insane levels of the substance and also utilize mice that have been selectively bred to have a predisposition for developing cancer and/or tumors. Okay, so cancer-prone mice fed aspartame sometimes develop cancer sooner or more frequently than the also cancer-prone control group. To me, that just says don't consumer toxic levels of aspartame if you're genetically predisposed to developing cancer. Heck, you shouldn't be consuming toxic levels of it anyway since it would be, well, toxic. Aspartame tastes nasty anyway and is legitimately linked to heart disease, so we should avoid it, but I wouldn't be worried about cancer. And nobody's going to take it off the shelves because of it's link to heart disease, either; after all, we can still buy bacon whenever we please.

[RAD House]

If they even tried to take bacon off the shelf, I would lead the revolution.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Originally Posted by MesoCorney

If they even tried to take bacon off the shelf, I would lead the revolution.

I wouldn't, bacon is gross. Most pork anything is.

[MDT]

Queue Vincent Vega (Pulp Fiction): ...."bacon tastes good...pork chops taste good"...

'Nuff said.....

[sSAIRSCHUTTSs]

Originally Posted by pet_snake_78

I do cringe when I see the stereotypical video feed of someone feeding live to the tune of a Screamo band. It's pretty well accepted that snakes should be on F/t when possible for the benefit of all involved. However, when people become so far from the sources of our food, as most are today, we begin to become divorced from the reality of the food chain. Just by existing every human on earth is killing thousands of animals. The house you live in has killed dozens of animals when being built and prevented hundreds of others from having a place to be born and live. The roads you drive on kill and injure tens of thousands of animals daily.. right now there are deer with broken legs waiting to die, turtles about to be smashed by oncoming traffic, etc. Right now there are chickens being killed so you can eat. Cows will be slaughtered today and the meat hung on a hook. SO in retrospect, do I think feeding a thawed mouse to a snake is a moral issue... no way.

Even if you don't eat meat, you will kill thousands of animals. Pesticides, land clear, tractors chopping animals to pieces, water being taken from wildlife habitat and sprayed onto monocultured fields designed specifically to prevent any type of ecosystem from living in there so the plants can maximize their enegy, etc. There is no way any human can exist without resulting in the death of thousands if not millions of other animals in his or her lifetime.

.... Could not have said it any better! 100% accurate and to the point.
People will continue to do these things, even if a percentage of the population (Vegans, vegetarians, ect) stop supporting their methods.
Fact is, everyone rely's on farmed meat.. as do our snakes.
The higher in the food web, the more options for dinner and our snakes have limited option compared to us humans.
Its just life, eat and survive.