Feeling sorry for live food.

basin79

ArachnoGod
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Sep 14, 2013
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5,893
That's why we got butchers my friend. Those are for chickens like me. :D
There's nowt wrong with butchers or slaughtermen/women. But I still think you should be able to kill the animal yourself in order to eat it. Yes it requires honesty but if you couldn't end a life you don't deserve to eat the life.

My opinion.
 

Tanner Dzula

Arachnoknight
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Feb 29, 2016
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190
We might feel worse about eating them if we had to kill them ourselves, before eating them...but I get your point.

I just don't like seeing an animal suffer, but I'm a hypocrite, I will go home and have a steak with a nice beer and side of potatoes. ;)
as somebody who did FFA in highschool and had to Not only Raise cattle/pigs but also had to then slaughter those same animals, its not as hard as it sounds to do so.

in fact, i actually prefer it to the way big industries do it, as atlas when you raise and slaughter them, you know they get a quick death, and they had a good happy life. just like the dubias and crickets, you know they weren't just sitting there waiting to die.
 

GreyPsyche

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Jun 19, 2016
Messages
92
Depends on the feeders, honestly.

I hate crickets, they're like the scummy thugs of the insect world. I also hate mealworms. I'll never feed mice because I like mice among other reasons. I don't know how I'll feel about Dubia roaches but I'll let y'all know later on.
 

Magenta

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Mar 29, 2013
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55
I don't feel too bad about it, considering the damage that a cricket or superworm can do to a tarantula. I do feel a bit like a monster when I crush their heads though.
 

Brumbleberry

Arachnopeon
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Apr 16, 2017
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6
I don't particularly feel that awful about the roaches. They live a good life with their huge extended family in the colony box and feast as much as they can stuff themselves with.
 

Lucashank

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Mar 8, 2017
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When I was much younger, it felt strange to watch my Solifugae tear apart their crickets. And as mentioned by other keepers, watching my mantids feast on a cricket in the ravenous manner that they do, also gave me a strange feeling. One of my favorite times was when I fed a fiddler crab a large cricket, the crab tore that guy up so bad, it was like watching someone "make it rain".
I absolutely despise crickets, and only crickets though. I've felt bad for superworms on account of how long they survive generally.
 

Ondottr

Arachnopeon
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May 16, 2017
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17
I don't think I feel bad for the crickets, but I definitely feel for them a little. I've always thought they were kinda cute looking. Probably haven't been keeping them long enough to develop hatred of them yet haha
Defnitely feel a bit of sympathy when I watch one get slowly eaten from the dorsal side and stabbed through the face multiple times. But I'm also happy to watch the spider eat. It's just nature.
It's ridiculous, but the thing I can't stand the idea of doing is keeping the live food on the same shelf as my T. The thought of making them live right next to the big hairy thing that will eventually devour them slowly just seems cruel. :(
 

Vermis

Arachnoknight
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Dec 11, 2005
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214
Invert livefood, not so much. Crickets, fruitflies, bought from a shop, not really. I used to breed mealworms and morio worms, which was some fun in itself, but any twinges of regret were outweighed by the satisfaction that they were available and fit for their intended purpose: making spiders and things fatter. I've just got a couple of tubs of dubias, setting up a feeder colony for re-entry to the hobby. We'll see how teary I get.

Vertebrate livefood, nope. I wouldn't do it. Hits a bit closer to home than insects. I've seen a few seconds of some live feeding vids on youtube and it comes across more as someone getting their jollies from it than about providing for their pet. It's illegal in the UK AFAIK, and while I'm not naive enough to imagine it never goes on, I'm glad it's discouraged.

Eating things myself: I've watched the whole procedure of local abbatoir practises and standards on documentaries and I'm reasonably satisfied with it. What's left is the thought that if I'm willing to have an animal killed and served up to me, it has to have had a decent life up to that point. To that end, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's cursed me to go off intensively-farmed pork and chicken. Outdoor-reared bacon is expensive, but eating a bit less of it won't do me any harm...
 

Grimmdreadly

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Mar 13, 2017
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Invert livefood, not so much. Crickets, fruitflies, bought from a shop, not really. I used to breed mealworms and morio worms, which was some fun in itself, but any twinges of regret were outweighed by the satisfaction that they were available and fit for their intended purpose: making spiders and things fatter. I've just got a couple of tubs of dubias, setting up a feeder colony for re-entry to the hobby. We'll see how teary I get.

Vertebrate livefood, nope. I wouldn't do it. Hits a bit closer to home than insects. I've seen a few seconds of some live feeding vids on youtube and it comes across more as someone getting their jollies from it than about providing for their pet. It's illegal in the UK AFAIK, and while I'm not naive enough to imagine it never goes on, I'm glad it's discouraged.

Eating things myself: I've watched the whole procedure of local abbatoir practises and standards on documentaries and I'm reasonably satisfied with it. What's left is the thought that if I'm willing to have an animal killed and served up to me, it has to have had a decent life up to that point. To that end, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's cursed me to go off intensively-farmed pork and chicken. Outdoor-reared bacon is expensive, but eating a bit less of it won't do me any harm...
When I feed my snakes, many of which won't switch to pre-killed, I'm not getting my jollies. It's the cycle of life. I can't reprogram them to eat what I eat. And they need to eat too
 

Vermis

Arachnoknight
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Dec 11, 2005
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214
I was going to say 'fair enough', but one thing made me reread:

I can't reprogram them to eat what I eat.
Either you think that I imagine snakes will easily move onto a diet of roast dinners, potatoes au gratin, MacDonalds, or whatever catches your fancy; or you think I'm really not all there.*

And rereading got me thinking: if a snake will not move on to pre-killed food items, how ethical is it to keep - and continually feed live mammalian prey to - that snake? How much of the 'circle of life' is relevant to an artificial environment enclosed in a small vivarium for personal pleasure? (Let's assume that the average amateur herpetology enthusiast is not involved in critical conservation activities.)

* That, or it's an admission you eat dead mice. ;)
 

Grimmdreadly

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Mar 13, 2017
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I was going to say 'fair enough', but one thing made me reread:



Either you think that I imagine snakes will easily move onto a diet of roast dinners, potatoes au gratin, MacDonalds, or whatever catches your fancy; or you think I'm really not all there.*

And rereading got me thinking: if a snake will not move on to pre-killed food items, how ethical is it to keep - and continually feed live mammalian prey to - that snake? How much of the 'circle of life' is relevant to an artificial environment enclosed in a small vivarium for personal pleasure? (Let's assume that the average amateur herpetology enthusiast is not involved in critical conservation activities.)

* That, or it's an admission you eat dead mice. ;)
Only if dead mice were plant matter. I'm a vegan. That leaves another question, if I were to go by your logic, how humane is it to keep any living creature?

Also the majority of my snakes are rescues from people who were mistreating them and snakes that were given to me because their owners just didn't want them anymore.
 

Grimmdreadly

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
29
I was going to say 'fair enough', but one thing made me reread:



Either you think that I imagine snakes will easily move onto a diet of roast dinners, potatoes au gratin, MacDonalds, or whatever catches your fancy; or you think I'm really not all there.*

And rereading got me thinking: if a snake will not move on to pre-killed food items, how ethical is it to keep - and continually feed live mammalian prey to - that snake? How much of the 'circle of life' is relevant to an artificial environment enclosed in a small vivarium for personal pleasure? (Let's assume that the average amateur herpetology enthusiast is not involved in critical conservation activities.)

* That, or it's an admission you eat dead mice. ;)
Only if dead mice were plant matter. I'm a vegan. That leaves another question, if I were to go by your logic, how humane is it to keep any living creature?

Also the majority of my snakes are rescues from people who were mistreating them and snakes that were given to me because their owners just didn't want them anymore.
 

Nephila Edulis

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Feb 27, 2017
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I only ever feel sorry for feeders when it's people who do things like feed live geckoes or mice to centipedes and Ts. Something like a vine snake I could understand a song they don't eat mice, but a centipede? That's a nasty way to go

I dislike crickets, a cricket gnawed the legs off a huntsman who had an unexpected moult a few years back. It always feels good when a spider sinks its fangs into one
 

Eva

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Jan 14, 2017
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When it comes to feeling sorry for feeders, nothing can beat the time when I tried feeding a live pinky mouse. The haunting screams were enough to make me regret the decision immediately and never repeat it again. Much later I found that it might not even be that beneficial for the T and the opposite might even be true -molting problems etc. Nothing conclusive has as of yet been presented to me to convince me either way, but better to kill two birds with one stone - not risk the health of the T and not feel like a monster.

I do, occasionally, feed dubias, but the things are so cute I cannot but feel sorry for them, even if they are inverts, and therefore it's quite resonable to assume that the pain they experience is far less complex than that of mammals. They are still cute and therefore succeptible to me projecting things onto them:angelic:. They also keep kicking for quite some time -in my experience. That doesn't help either.

A little less cute are B. lateralis, which is currently my primary feeder source. Thing is, as someone mentioned already, when you keep a colony you generally try to care for their health and well-being, which can inadvertently turn into caring for THEM:grumpy: -which I sort of do, but I try to make it up to them by feeding them yummies so that they have a good life before I feed them off, rather than not feed them at all, because where would I be then?!:D Ts gotta eat!

I also keep a small colony of mealworms - which are the exact same story!

The only thing I don't feel sorry for, as mentioned numerous time before me, are those foul, chirping, smelly cannibals, but I am so repulsed by them that they don't come into question anymore. I won't even touch those - bleh :yuck:

In conclusion, I do feel compassion towards the feeders, but I'd feel worse about my Ts starving;)
 

Nephila Edulis

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Feb 27, 2017
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I do always feel like a bit of a monster cutting or crushing the head off a mealworm. I always feel as if I haven't done a good enough job and that the mealworm is still in pain despite its head first being crushed and then cut off
 

nburgmei

Arachnopeon
Joined
Sep 19, 2004
Messages
12
I've never felt bad about it until tonight, actually. I was chasing a Dubia around the enclosure with a pair of tongs, and I commented to my wife that this particular Dubia just doesn't seem to want to get eaten. In that moment I did feel a little bad.
 

Nosiris

Arachnosquire
Joined
Aug 5, 2014
Messages
62
I feed roaches exclusively these days - dubia and Byrsotria fumigata. There's a small twinge of guilt when they're in their last few seconds but it's all part of the old circle of life so I don't feel too bad. I console myself with the knowledge that my roaches live in perfect roach conditions and eat better quality food than most humans.
 
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