# Anyone ever feel bad for the roaches?



## fantasticp (Nov 12, 2004)

I understand its the food chain, but they just don't seem to give up as easily as a cricket. I just watched an 8in pede get dragged around the cage by an adult orange head roach as he was eating it until about half the roach was gone. Crickets just seem to take it and accept their fate. I'm not saying I won't do it again, I was just wondering if anyone else ever feels bad... just a little.


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## oblivion56 (Nov 12, 2004)

well,to tell the truth............no


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## Jakob (Nov 12, 2004)

I do...they will be 75% eaten and still twitching, it's a little sad.


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## Bob (Nov 12, 2004)

YES...I feel real bad for mine if they are not true deaths heads !   

Jury is still out on these guys...............Scolopendra Gigantea getting hungry...


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## HorridumAngeli (Nov 13, 2004)

I feel happy when my pedes eat anything. That is one of the most enjoyable parts of owning pedes to watch them devour prey.   Feel bad for the roaches ?    are you kidding me ;P  
I have to keep it real
HorridumAngeli


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## Jaytek (Nov 13, 2004)

> I understand its the food chain, but they just don't seem to give up as easily as a cricket. I just watched an 8in pede get dragged around the cage by an adult orange head roach as he was eating it until about half the roach was gone. Crickets just seem to take it and accept their fate. I'm not saying I won't do it again, I was just wondering if anyone else ever feels bad... just a little.


the very first time i fed my first centipede this same type of thing happened to me except it was with a pinky mouse. it squealed the whole time. its bottom half end was gone and it was still crawling around on its front legs. it was doing this for about 5 minutes until it finally died. wasn't grossed out at all (good or bad?)


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## J Morningstar (Nov 13, 2004)

I never got to see the pinky thing but I don't think I would have dug the squealing much. I did however love to watch my "Vietnamese" eat. he was absolutely vicious with any thing I gave him, a most awesome sight. :clap:


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## oblivion56 (Nov 13, 2004)

when my haitian hits a mouse,it doesnt last long!


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## Jaytek (Nov 13, 2004)

> when my haitian hits a mouse,it doesnt last long!


understood 

but my first pede was a polymorpha, a little 5 incher. bit more painful for the prey.


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## deathrattle (Nov 13, 2004)

blame god or nature or whatever.
in my opinion it's more cruel to keep an animal in a cage and let it starve to death.
imagine how the cow, chickens, turkeys, etc feel that we eat everyday. nature is a bitch.


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## fantasticp (Nov 13, 2004)

I am just clarifying: I never meant it was cruel or anything. Like I said, its the food chain. I think it's neat and savage to watch pedes eat too. I think it's possible to feel bad for the roaches at the same time. Watching the little guy drag something four or five times its size around the cage with the will to go on...... if he was dragging another injured roach with him, they would have made a movie out of it.


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## OldHag (Nov 13, 2004)

I feel bad!!  I have certain roaches I CANNOT feed to my critters. The kids have named them and well.... I have fallen in love  with them too.  Even the ones I DO feed to things I feel really bad, but it doenst stop me 


Michelle


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## deathrattle (Nov 13, 2004)

do roaches feel pain?


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## ghost_tomb (Nov 14, 2004)

:wall:  :wall:  :wall:


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## Mister Internet (Nov 14, 2004)

ghost,

Your incredibly academic insight into the American mind is mind-boggling.... you must be a Ph.D.  I guarantee you don't want to hear my "stereotypical European" speech, which is why you won't see it in this thread, because it DOESN'T BELONG HERE.  Stop trolling for the flames you know statements like that are going to cause.

I'm terribly curious to see any credible scientifically conducted studies that show this "loads of evidence" you speak of.  Please PM it to me, as it doesn't belong in this thread, but maybe I'll start it up at TWH.

And we can't know for an indisputable fact that roaches don't feel pain if we work in Academia.  In the real world, most people would say they do not feel pain.


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## Highlander (Nov 14, 2004)

To tell you t he truth roaches kinda creep me out.


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## Jaytek (Nov 14, 2004)

> bugs don't feel pain, but mice do.
> 
> i'm interested Jaytek if your american?<edit yup not suprising.*
> 
> ...


america is no doubt a ridiculously violent nation, but not all americans are violent. i never said i took pleasure in seeing the mouse die the way it did, what im saying is i wasnt grossed out. is the reason that i wasn't grossed out because im american? no, not really.


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## deathrattle (Nov 15, 2004)

there's nothing sick about it.
in nature if a centipede comes across a small animal like a mouse, it eats it. suffering or not.


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## Steven (Nov 15, 2004)

> I guarantee you don't want to hear my "stereotypical European" speech


i wanna hear it  :}   
could be amusing,...   

really love stereotypical views  



to be on topic:
i never feel bad giving food to something i choose to take care for.


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## Chironex (Nov 15, 2004)

I love watching them squirm, don't you? "Squirm lil' fella, SQUIRM!"  

I was one of the many kids that burnt ants with the magnifier glass and pulled the wings off of flies turning them into "walks"    

A roach is a roach, their species will probably out live ours along with Keith Richards so don't worry so about all that squirming when the fangs of your beasts enter its tiny body.  :evil: 

Brent

PS: No roaches were harmed during the making of this reply!


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## Ultimate Instar (Nov 15, 2004)

Anything that can live without a head is NOT capable of experiencing pain.  However, it is a hassle to try to feed a glass-climbing insect to a non-glass-climbing pede, so I prekill everything.  I do admire the grace and beauty of a pede making a kill, however.

Karen N.


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## OldHag (Nov 15, 2004)

I think EVERYTHING feels pain!!   Remember when babies couldnt see, or recognize mom, or feel pain??   If a roach can "feel" you touch it... it goes to assume it can also feel pain. If it can feel how could it know when to Run from hot, cold, etc etc etc to keep it safe??  Just because its different than us, and can live with out a head doesnt mean it can't on some level feel pain.    Just my uneducated opinion.


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## Pokie1 (Nov 15, 2004)

*Pain*

Oldhag, I sympathize with your position.  On some level I dislike the whole concept of predation; but I know that is the nature of the world.  I guess I am waiting for the whole lamb lying with a lion thing.  Until then I guess I will have to learn to live with this seemingly antithetical nature of the hobby.  

Pokie1


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## danread (Nov 16, 2004)

OldHag said:
			
		

> I think EVERYTHING feels pain!!   Remember when babies couldnt see, or recognize mom, or feel pain??   If a roach can "feel" you touch it... it goes to assume it can also feel pain. If it can feel how could it know when to Run from hot, cold, etc etc etc to keep it safe??  Just because its different than us, and can live with out a head doesnt mean it can't on some level feel pain.    Just my uneducated opinion.


Hi OldHag,

i'm not going to say anything more than this one post, as this topic has been discussed recently in the tarantula forum. You are confusing the ability of an organism to respond to a stimulus, and the ability to feel pain. In this case, pain implies the ability to have emotional suffering as a result of a stimulus. There is no doublt many many organisms can respond to stimuli that we would consider painful, many plants can show responses to unfavorable conditions, but this does not mean that they can feel pain. Amoeba will respond to electric currents and heat, but they are surely not feeling pain, responding yes, but not suffering as a result. The fact that a roach can survive for many days (possibly even weeks?) without a head proves that they have a completely different system to ours, and it is highty highly unlikely that they are feeling pain, even when being eaten by a centipede. 

I'll post this picture again, as i think it is the best evidence i have. This is what was left of a male mantid after leaving it in with the female to breed. At first i thought it was dead, but it moved its head when i went to pick it out of the enclosure. Just out of interest i put a cricket near it, and it caught it and started to feed. It carried out feeding for about 5 minutes or so before i finished it off.


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## OldHag (Nov 16, 2004)

Pokie1 said:
			
		

> Oldhag, I sympathize with your position.  On some level I dislike the whole concept of predation; but I know that is the nature of the world.  I guess I am waiting for the whole lamb lying with a lion thing.  Until then I guess I will have to learn to live with this seemingly antithetical nature of the hobby.
> 
> Pokie1



Dont get me wrong. Just because I think everything is capable of feeling pain, regardless of different nervous systems etc., I'm not against feeding them to my Tarantulas and lizards!!  I support mother nature wholeheartedly 

Dan-- Yes I agree they have different systems than us...No question about it. But no one can say that they don't feel pain just because of that difference. Of course, I can't prove they DO feel pain. I just give them the benefit of the  doubt.    Sorry if I worded it wrong before.


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## danread (Nov 16, 2004)

No problem    I can understand you view and i'm not going to try and change your mind. You're entitled to your view and i'm entitled to mine. There.... a debate about pain in animals that hasn't turned into a flame war. How civilized  :clap:


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## Crunchie (Nov 16, 2004)

Dan - I wasn't going to post in this topic as I don't really know enough about this to participate but that photo is amazing. Never seen anything like that before in my life


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## Chironex (Nov 18, 2004)

I still think squirming is good  Interesting conversation though, perhaps I'll ask the next roach if he could feel those fangs going in...? ITS ONLY A ROACH. I don't mean do be a smart ass about it    but this whole debate is kind of worrying me about the stability of some when it comes to keeping pet "bugs and stuff"   

Just kidding, maybe I've had a bad day hehe! people kill people and the planet is dieing,  so lets all worry about bugs feeling pain.


Brent

PS: I don't know whats wrong with me today


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## deathrattle (Nov 18, 2004)

last night i tried to feed my emperor scorpion a tiny pinkie rat and he seemed confused by it. he would pinch it and then let it go. so it was all bruised up but he would not kill it. eventually i put it out of its misery by cutting it's head off with a butcher knife. it sucked.  i convinced my girlfriend that pinkie rats don't feel pain tho, based on this forum. now he won't even pay attention to the dead pinkie tho. stupid scorpion. 
anyway that's not myriopod related, but it is related to this thread, so...yeah.


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## danread (Nov 18, 2004)

deathrattle said:
			
		

> i convinced my girlfriend that pinkie rats don't feel pain tho, based on this forum.


Where did you get the evidence for that belief?


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## OldHag (Nov 18, 2004)

RATS DO FEEL PAIN!!! I can Guarantee that!!!....dont get me started


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## deathrattle (Nov 18, 2004)

oh i know. that's why i put it out of its misery. i just thought it would be better if my girlfriend did not know the rat was suffering.


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## Darwinsdad (Nov 18, 2004)

I am with the whole mother nature thing. If we as humans decide to keep some of her creatures as our pets we are obligated to do our best to feed them in a maner consistant with the species. I am of the opinion that in most cases if an animal feeds on live prey in the wild so should it be in captivity. Sure it is hard at times for me to get pinheads for slings and such so it is required to pre-kill larger items for them but I think they scavenge in the wild so its fair in my book. A python gets live food and the T's get crix. I do not feel sorry for them since I understood that fact before I ever got involved.


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## Mister Internet (Nov 18, 2004)

deathrattle said:
			
		

> last night i tried to feed my emperor scorpion a tiny pinkie rat and he seemed confused by it. he would pinch it and then let it go. so it was all bruised up but he would not kill it. eventually i put it out of its misery by cutting it's head off with a butcher knife. it sucked. i convinced my girlfriend that pinkie rats don't feel pain tho, based on this forum. now he won't even pay attention to the dead pinkie tho. stupid scorpion.
> anyway that's not myriopod related, but it is related to this thread, so...yeah.





			
				deathrattle said:
			
		

> oh i know. that's why i put it out of its misery. i just thought it would be better if my girlfriend did not know the rat was suffering.


That's not a good excuse for passing along gross misinformation.  I have no idea how you could have told her that baby mammals "don't feel pain, based on this forum", but NEVER has it been postulated here that higher mammals, infant or no, do not feel pain.  Any discussion, spirited though it may have been, that we've had here at AB has been strictly about the capacity of invertebrates to "feel pain" as we know it, and even then it is usually centered around feeder insects.

If you're seriously telling your girlfriend such blatant misinformation and trying to attribute it to THIS forum, PLEASE STOP.  You're doing Arachnoboards a huge disservice by claiming it is responsible for that type of ignorance.  Blame it on another forum, or better yet tell her the ACTUAL FACTS, but don't say you read it here, because you didn't.


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## deathrattle (Nov 19, 2004)

take it easy. i just used the "response to stimulus is not the same as feeling pain" that i read about the roaches in this forum.
i don't think my girlfriend will be spreading the word on some misinformation she recieved from the illustrious myriopods section of www.arachnoboards.com.


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## misfitsfiend (Nov 19, 2004)

My girl frien always feels bad for the mice when its feeding time for my snakes, but the way I look at it is... Being strangled is a much better death than how cattle farms kill their live stock. Plus after the neck is broken they cant feel a thing.


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## Professor T (Nov 20, 2004)

Mister Internet said:
			
		

> And we can't know for an indisputable fact that roaches don't feel pain if we work in Academia.  In the real world, most people would say they do not feel pain.



I'm with you in spirit, but I have a slightly different spin. In the "Real World" I think the layperson *WOULD* think roaches feel pain. Of course nobody really knows if a roach feels pain and to what degree if any. In "Academia" people would tend to be of the opinion roaches don't feel pain because all the scientific evidence leans in that direction.   

Back on topic:
IMO nothing wrong with feeling bad for feeder animals. Feel bad for mice or roaches if you want to, but I can't understand why you don't feel worse for cows, they're feeder animals too! They get shot with a "knocking shell" in the head to stun them, and their tongue flies out of their mouth as they hit the dirt. They get their leg shackeled to a conveyor belt as they are lifted off the ground, and someone cuts their jugular. The blood pours out as they bleed to death.

I'm a meat eater. I worked in a slaughter house while I was going to school. I helped put steak on your plate. The fate of feeder animals is pre-planned. Its the cycle of life like a lion eating a zebra, but with a human control element, but nature is brutal and so are we. Nothing wrong with feeling bad for roaches, mice, or cows in my book.


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## Runaway987 (Nov 22, 2004)

^ Couldnt agree more.


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## Israel2004 (Nov 22, 2004)

Professor T said:
			
		

> Nothing wrong with feeling bad for roaches, mice, or cows in my book.


I agree with you on the feeling bad for the animal that's getting killed.
Hell, I'm going to fell bad for the deer I kill during this huntng season, but I accept that something has to die for something to eat. It's the way of nature.

Now onto the roach, it may or may not feel pain, who really knows. But do I feel sorry for it, no, it must die for my geckos to live.

Israel


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## james (Nov 29, 2004)

*deathrattle*

Its much easier to just toss it in the freezer. The cold will put the pinkie to sleep in a very short amount of time and its a lot less of a mess. While you guys are on the subject of orange heads one must note that these are one of the more cannibalistic roaches. They need space and lots of high protein food or they will eat each other. Right after one molts they gang up and start chewing. One of my friends says his orange heads love to eat mice. Back in the days when I kept snakes I used to kill everything by hand so I didn't have to worry about my snakes getting bit, but they struggling prey doesn't bother me a bit. It all nature, it just happens we've brought nature into our homes.
James


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## FelixA9 (Dec 4, 2004)

I had a mantis once that ate a cricket from the butt to the head.  All that was left at once point was the cricket's head but it's antenna and mouthparts were still moving.


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## marebear (Jan 1, 2005)

I think roaches feel pain, I think every animal does.


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## Elizabeth (Jan 1, 2005)

If something can be more than half eaten and still not go into shock, can keep walking around or twitch or chew on another thing despite their own state, then I don't know if I personally would think of their discomfort/disability as particularly "pain"ful.  Screaming pinkies? That sounds more like the type of pain that would make me want to end their suffering.


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