morality

[Johnny909]

Hey everyone,

I have been looking into getting one last reptile, im not sure yet, im looking into maybe melleri or a melinus monitor. The second being quite large at 4' average.

I leaning towards the monitor honestly, but Im having a moral issue about feeder mice. This has been posted about often, but I want to be refreshed and get some opinions, Please stay respecfull.

I know in the wild monitors would end a mouses life in a disturbing fashion, but I like to think think that the mouse at least, even if its one in a million, has a chance of escaping and making it back into the wild.

My problem is understanding where I stand throwing a mouse in there that has no chance of survival. I am deciding its faith and it sorta feels wrong. I dont even wanna talk about pre-killed mice, if people feel like using pre-killed saves them from the guilt, they are just lying to themselves cause those mice have no odds to even see the light of day.

What is your feeling about live mammals has feeders?

Sorry for typos i am using my android phone.

 

[Jimturner]

Well… I see your point. I have no personal experience feeding mammals out but I would think about the food chain and how everything has its place in it. Small mammals are a BIG part of that cycle. The problem that I see are the few who would get a thrill from feeding live rodents. If I had to feed mammals out, I would use thawed/frozen myself. Cheers!

 

[jojackson]

My problem is understanding where I stand throwing a mouse in there that has no chance of survival. I am deciding its faith and it sorta feels wrong. I dont even wanna talk about pre-killed mice, if people feel like using pre-killed saves them from the guilt, they are just lying to themselves cause those mice have no odds to even see the light of day.

What is your feeling about live mammals has feeders?

Ofcourse they have no bloody chance, they're dead Mate! They have schucked the mortal coil, kicked the bucket, bought the farm, they are no longer, this is the whole point!

I think your kidding Yourself if you beleive a mouse stands any chance confined in an enclosed inescapable environment with a hungry monitor, thats laughable. Its simply unnecessary to feed live to a monitor, at all, ever, they eat carrion you know. With patience and consistancy they will eat prekilled. Not only this, live mice and rats, do fight back and if your monitor is disinclined to eat, they will feast on the monitor when it sleeps.
Pre killed is the way to go not only for convience but the reason above, with all but the very most fussy of snakes.
If you own a monitor, you are going to be responsible for Stuart Littles death regardless, directly or indirectly, so get used to it!
As for cruelty to the rodents, yes, no sane honest person will deny a trapped live rodent in with predator knows quite well whats going on and experiences great fear.
The death itself from a predator is just as quick as humane destruction, with the obvious exception of an instant brain destroying/stopping trauma.

 

[fluxlizard]

Just buy frozen mice and thaw them.
Hardly anyone feeds live anymore- you can buy frozen by the hundreds, packed very efficiently like hot-dogs for the freezer.
When it is feeding time, pull one out and thaw it, then feed it to the lizard.

No different than burgers or chicken or bacon.

Couple of other thoughts-
If you've ever watched shows where someone is attacked by a large shark or big cat or bear or whatever, they all seem to say that they didn't feel the pain and became very calm during the attack. The pain and shock comes after if you survive. They say it is the same for animals when a predator gets them.

And live mice will not know what is going on until it's too late- they will wander up and crawl on mr. lizard, touch noses with him, nibble on him, etc. A small monitor will take a while to kill a mouse, a large one and gulp- it's gone in a flash.

 

[JackP308]

mmmm honey grab the frozen burgers they're under the box of mice

 

[fluxlizard]

mmmm honey grab the frozen burgers they're under the box of mice

You've been to my house I see

In the fridge below, top shelf, left side of the milk we have a big bag of scraps for the roaches, bottom shelf by the lasagne we have waxworms, butterworms and earthworms.

In the butter keeper in the door we have vitamins, calcium with d3, and baytril and fenbendazole.

 

[jojackson]

Go Flux, I have A separate little Bar-fridge sized freezer I keep my hideous dead creatures in! Youll find baby ducks and chicks, occasionally quail, mice and rats, frozen superworms, frozen crickets, frozen fish (for the turtles, though they catch their own now). On rare occasions deceased lizard visitors to our front garden where the neighbours cat lurks, out of range of our dogs.

 

[laurie]

You are so lucky. My husband tossed a fit and got me a small frig "for my critters". He does not want anything from them anywhere near the kitchen - not anything, not ever! His words, oh well he is gone a lot....

You've been to my house I see

In the fridge below, top shelf, left side of the milk we have a big bag of scraps for the roaches, bottom shelf by the lasagne we have waxworms, butterworms and earthworms.

In the butter keeper in the door we have vitamins, calcium with d3, and baytril and fenbendazole.

 

[kaylie]

My mom made me get a mini fridge too lol.

My friend now has my sister's old snake. He lives on the beach where there is no pet store and he doesn't drive so every here and there I'll pick a mouse up for him. I always get them live. He thinks (I'm not really sure) that his snake needs more exercise. Isn't live food good for their hunting, just as free ranging insects for chams? For those of you who feed thawed, you don't worry about it not being completely thawed out before feeding? I most certainly am not going to poke it to see if the insides are still crystalized or not...

 

[jojackson]

Thats exactly what you Do Kaylie, If in doubt, reheat the water and let it defrost another 10 mins, nice and soft and hot.
Live feeding would certainly come under environmental stimulation, but few do so for that reason. It's not really hunting in a few square foot , if your honest, is it!
The point is firstly a saftey issue as I explained, for the snake (or whatever) (see pic below) The second is that too many folk do it just for kicks, and too many others who think they have to do it, dont have a clue, and that eventually results in this:

Hi. My friend put a rat in with her snake to eat it and she went back in later and the rat had eaten 5 holes all the way to the bone. What can she do?? She can't get her into the vet until tomorrow and we are wondering what is the best thing that we can do for it. Should they put peroxide on it and wrap it in gauze? That is what her sister told her. Will the snake heal back up?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080415182101AAsCULk

How can I treat the injuries to my snake that the feeder rat did? During regular feeding of the snake I dropped a full size rat in the tank. Usually the snake takes about 20 minutes to eat it. A couple of hours later I returned to check on the snake expecting to see that the snake had eaten the rat, I found the rat still alive and the snake mauled in several places.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Snakes-3545/2008/1/Snake-badly-attacked-feeder.htm

http://bellsouthpwp.net/j/b/jbuncc/feeding.htm

A mouse did that by the way. Obviously, this owner was VERY negligent and left the mouse with the snake overnight, but it does illustrate that mice can and will do damage. Imagine if it was left with a rat…

 

[kaylie]

Holy crap the snake didn't feel that at night?
And I didn't know you used water, my friend said he used to throw them in the microwave. I blend up my feeders' food and put in ice cube trays and defrost in the microwave, and sometimes I still get pieces that are still like ice, which is why I asked.

 

[jojackson]

I always use hot water, mice and microwave ovens dont mix either. If you ever had toss a microwave because the inside was splattered with rodent guts, you'll know why. Yes it happens, quite often.
defrosting frozen cubes will be easy enough, longer on lower heat, also you can add gelatine to the mix before you freeze, holds it together.
Whole animals (whole anything) explodes because heat expands air, microwaves heat from the inside out, expanding hot air has nowhere to go inside a mouse. Boom!
Re the snake, im quite sure it felt every moment, however unlike us, a reptiles pain response is not associated with a withdrawl reflex, the havent evolved one because its not necessary in the wild. Its the same reason they burn to bone if they wrap around a hot bulb or ceramic heat emitter.
Nothing they touch in nature gets that hot, nothing in nature eats them alive (that dosen't kill them quickly in the process. birds of prey, cats)
A mouse or rat in nature encountering a snake that doesn't eat them, runs away, A mouse trapped in box with a snake without food, will hide if it can, until its hungry, then anything it finds alive or otherwise becomes food. Humans in third world countrys have woken to find rats eating them.

 

[Sporkthedork]

I have a lot of snakes that I mostly feed live prey (mice and rats) since they won't eat frozen/thawed food. At first the guilt was really bad since the mice look really cute when they huddle together. They actually look like they know what's going to happen next when I grab them one by one with the tongs and they cling to each other or whatever is around like crazy. The saddest part is when they do their mousy browsy thing and I keep thinking to myself, "No, don't go there! That's where (insert snake's name) is!!" You will feel some sort of guilt. I even started walking away from the cages once I put them in, until one of my snakes got bit and had to go the vet. Her wounds were not as bad as the pic JoJackson put up, but I still feel bad for her getting bit. I tried frozen/thawed food and some of them just won't bother with it. The snakes will investigate and investigate but won't eat. I even tried jingling it above their heads when the mouse just came out of the microwave, hot water bath, or heat lamp. Still won't bite.

As for the rats, even though I don't like them, I still feel bad when my snakes strangle the life out of them. I always watch the rats since they can do some major damage to the animals. In fact I never let them go from the thongs and keep them hanging above the door of the cage by their tails(hinge down or sliding).

From my personal observation, I think snakes can feel pressure pain. Just like when you accidently close the door on their tails they get all jumpity. However, when they get attacked, their first reaction is to coil into a ball and protect their heads. I think that's why, as seen in the pic. The damage is usually more towards one side (the outer side of the coil) or on the middle of of the spine ridge. That's just my personal obersvation. Also once they get attacked, they cowar like crazy and don't fight back, especially with the sand boas.

You will get used to feeding live and the guilt will lessen over time, but there's usually some guilt there. I also agree with you on how frozen/thawed food is just the same. They breed the mice/rats and then put them in a box and drop them in liquid nitrogen or put them in the freezer. They have as much of a chance as the cows and pigs that are going to the slaughter house.

As for the storage of frozen food, I used to keep it in the frezer of our garage fridge where we keep sodas. That fridge's sole purpose is to keep our sodas cold. The freezer doesn't store anything. It used to store ice cream since we buy ice cream in bulk when Rite-Aid or Ralphs has a sale, but now we just keep 3-4 at a time so it can fit in the house fridge. Frozen is supposed to be cheaper if you buy it bulk (bulk) from the vendors at kingsnake like micedirect or rodentpro. But I just buy what I need from Petco/Petsmart. Their frozen food is expensive compared to live ones.

Going back to the original thread - go with the Mellers!! I love my mellers and he's very easy to handle!! But if you really want a monitor then go for it too. Don't go second guessing yourself. We might see you posting a thread on how boring your Mellers is and that you really wanted to buy a monitor instead.

Oh I forgot to add, I also know some people who have no problem feeding live prey. Doesn't bother them at all. The people at all 3 reptile stores that I visit, pretty much most of the staff feel that way. Also some of the snake breeders I know, say the same thing.

 

[Johnny909]

Thats exactly what you Do Kaylie, If in doubt, reheat the water and let it defrost another 10 mins, nice and soft and hot.
Live feeding would certainly come under environmental stimulation, but few do so for that reason. It's not really hunting in a few square foot , if your honest, is it!
The point is firstly a saftey issue as I explained, for the snake (or whatever) (see pic below) The second is that too many folk do it just for kicks, and too many others who think they have to do it, dont have a clue, and that eventually results in this:


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080415182101AAsCULk


http://en.allexperts.com/q/Snakes-3545/2008/1/Snake-badly-attacked-feeder.htm

http://bellsouthpwp.net/j/b/jbuncc/feeding.htm

Holly crap! poor snake, I would love to feed that rodent off!

I just came back from the reptile shop where I wanna get the monitor, he is already of the frozen pinkies, he is very small, just a baby.

I think my biggest issue is sorta facing the reality that we has lifeforms have the capacity to decide the faith of another in such a manner, but then again nature itself is no better. Its strange how I love to eat meat and am a hypocrite when it comes to feeder mammals. Why are we wired to see mice has less of a life than cats for example? But that's just how it is, I guess I will get used to it, I think man has lost its connection to the reality of nature.

On a brighter note.
He had some Mellers in also, they are wonderful, very nice green, much bigger than I imagined. They look very peaceful, but I have a chance to own a true yellow monitor, those are a very rare species in the reptile world... I don't know what to do :S