Ethics in snakekeeping

[crono_vivi]

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]

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)

[Katt]

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]

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]

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.

[marisa]

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

[hhw]

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]

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]

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.

[rwg]

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

[Linds]

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.

[rwg]

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]

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]

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.

[Jayson]

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.