live feeding anyone?

[Meaningless End]

YES I FEED LIVE... not always but sometimes i do.. i know everything you could possably say to me about why not to feed live.. i dont care.. please spare me any negitave comments...

but if your a person who belives that it can be good for a monitor to be able to kill its own food... check it out
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[hardlucktattoo]

This isnt intended as a bashing or a negative comment more as an inquisitive notion But How is it in anyway beneficial to feed anything live ok I can Understand wanting them to kill their own food from time to time but what kind of challenge is it when you dangle it right in front of him IF you want him to feel like he catching it on his own why dont you just set them both free

 

[seanbond]

that vid was wack.

if your going to feed it live food, how about letting the monitor hunt and do natural feeding movements instead of dangaling a mouse in its face, humans.

 

[halfwaynowhere]

I feed most of my snakes live, except for my crazy old king snake. I've seen and heard of snakes that are fed f/t that don't even try to constrict their prey anymore, they just swallow it. To me, that's like losing a natural instinct. I like knowing that my snakes can constrict and kill their food if need be, and I try to simulate live food the best I can with the pre-killed mice for my king. Safety is still very important, but honestly, most (but not all) of the statistics for injuries caused by live feeding are from people who just leave a live rat in with their animal overnight or for several days... Rat gets hungry, and eats the snake.
I carefully supervise all of my live feedings.
I don't approve of live feeding videos, though. It shouldn't be done because its cool to watch, and the feeder animal needs to be respected. Posting videos all over the internet seems very disrespectful to the animal that gave its life so that your critter could live.

 

[clam1991]

not cool in any way

how would you feel if you were dangled in front of a crocodile

its pretty sad what people think is funny nowadays....

 

[starmaiden]

...I don't approve of live feeding videos, though. It shouldn't be done because its cool to watch, and the feeder animal needs to be respected. Posting videos all over the internet seems very disrespectful to the animal that gave its life so that your critter could live.

Thank you for saying this. While I tend to disagree with live feeding of captive reptiles, I realize it's not my place to judge since I feed live crickets to my tarantulas. Knowing that my pet rats could very well have been snake food makes me treat my crix gently and well and with respect. I have a real problem with some reptile people who think it's ok to revel in, joke about, and basically enjoy the slow painful death of another creature.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

I don't approve of live feeding videos, though. It shouldn't be done because its cool to watch, and the feeder animal needs to be respected. Posting videos all over the internet seems very disrespectful to the animal that gave its life so that your critter could live.

Particularly when it opens up with you swinging rats around by the tail while your stupid friend with the camera titters about it.

 

[starmaiden]

Particularly when it opens up with you swinging rats around by the tail while your stupid friend with the camera titters about it.

OUCH! I'm glad I didn't watch the video.

Most people think its wrong and cruel to pick up and swing puppies and kittens around by their tails. It's not any less painful for a rat.

 

[xBurntBytheSunx]

i like how this thread started out by saying "no negative comments please, i don't care" and then turned into a negative comment thread ;P

 

[clam1991]

this is only because of how immature they were about it

and there was no reason for the way he threw the rat by his tail right to the thing
there was no hunting involved just the rat suffering

 

[arachyd]

People shouldn't expect to post in a message board where people are free to comment and not expect any negative comments. There's nothing wrong with live feeding if you are responsible and as humane as possible. I have no idea whether you are responsible to remove uneaten food items but I think you've made it quite obvious that you are not humane about it. There is no reason for holding up a rat by the tail and letting it hang for longer than necessary to transfer it immediately to the snake's enclosure. They suffer terribly from that and I've seen their tails stripped from being held that way. Whether a monitor should be fed live prey has nothing to do with us patting you on the back for treating a rat inhumanely and joking about it. I, for one consider it very juvenile especially since you demonstrate in the video that you are quite capable of holding the rat in a safe and secure manner.

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

Well, on preview i see that this post is going to be echoing previous post, but I had to step away before finishing, somewhat ironically to feed my frog, so it's late getting submitted. But anyway....

I didn't watch the video, but when I opened the thread and read it, I thought, "Yeah, right, there will be no negative comments here!".

For starters, you can't really start a thread and demand that nobody post anything contradictory. It's an open forum, so it just won't happen. Secondly, according to the comments I've read, your presentation was bad. Perhaps showing an animal going about it's natural methods of stalking and killing it's prey could possibly be of some interest to some, but dangling a live prey item in front of a carnivore for it to snap up really isn't very interesting as the only thing it really displays is something dying painfully, however briefly. What's the difference between wiggling a dead prey item in front of a lizard's snout and doing the same with a live animal?

So yeah, this thread will take it's lumps.

I'll tell you all what predator really seems to bring out the worst in some folks. The big frogs. Guys really get off on seeing them inhale the biggest, impractical prey items they can find, usually to the accompaniment of heavy metal music for some reason. I guess it's an image thing.:? Now, by nature, most frogs require live food, they are sight predators and will ignore anything that isn't moving. But I've seen mice, chicks, leopard geckos and snakes gleefully tossed to them, none of which are necessary to the well being of the frogs, and at best are beneficial as a dietary supplement. And to illustrate the point that it's not all about the benefits for the animal, I've seen guys say that if their frog did not become a more voracious feeder, they would feed it to another frog that was.

For a lot of people the feeding habits of carnivores is the main incentive for keeping them. Because hey, a badass pet means a badass owner, right?

And another thing, videos such as that really serves the anti-exotic pet movement more than it benefits anybody else. The ARAs can point at the footage and say "See? That's not nature in action, that's animal cruelty!", and people would agree. Shoot, even people within the hobby agree to a certain extent, so what is Mary Sue who volunteers on weekends at the local Humane society going to think?

 

[dtknow]

Can someone show a video they believe the prey animal was treated with respect and allows the fed animal to show natural predatory behavior? I only watched the beginning and stopped.

 

[hardlucktattoo]

Can someone show a video they believe the prey animal was treated with respect and allows the fed animal to show natural predatory behavior? I only watched the beginning and stopped.

NO #1 if you wanna treat the prey animal with respect you dont film it if you wanna see a natural predatory watch animal planet or discovery

 

[Diggy415]

i own 11 snakes and all frozen except pinkie mice that can't do harm or for those males whom starve themselves due to breeding season. I don't feed live for the fact the head of the rodent comes out of the coil and the teeth are right there and can cause injuries to the snake, so i whack the prey and then feed therefore you still have that movement some need and the rodent can;t bite as if it were awake. I have a 7' boa who shall starve due to breeding season and he won't be bred and will be fed a fresh whacked full grown rat and if he refuses i know i have 2 back ups for it. I won't watch the video either, as i don't like seeing the animals being fed on substrate much less what everyone is talking about. Besides, frozen kills any possible bacteria and is good for all and you can worm the snake by injecting the food with the med's.

 

[arachyd]

For those who didn't watch, he used tongs to dangle the rat by the tail and wave it around for what seemed a long time. Simply putting the rat in the enclosure and videoing the feeding would have been fine IMO. It loaded too slow for me to see the whole thing but I'd seen enough at that point.

 

[xBurntBytheSunx]

i will have to say you guys have awfully big hearts if you care about the dignity of feeder rats.

i'm not going to watch though, i have kept pet rats for 5 years, and honestly can't stand to see them be fed to anything

 

[fantasticp]

i will have to say you guys have awfully big hearts if you care about the dignity of feeder rats.

I used to have pet rats. Out of respect (because I think it is very rude) If I whack one or feed one off (breed my own) I always make sure no live rat can see it.

 

[arachyd]

It isn't so much an issue of dignity or liking feeder rats as an issue of finding fault with causing unneccessary pain and fear.

 

[Meaningless End]

well... this dosent at all make up for the pain thing but the reason i did it is because i know how she hunts.... she was cold. i wanted to make a video so i put it there to speed things up a bit.. i was trying to get her out on her own and is wasnt working.. simple as that. as far as the suffering thing i guess i grew a little numb to it.. ive spent so long disliking rats having to clean up after about 1000 at a time that i loose compation for them..

dose that make me a mest up person.. ya probrably.

now there was a actuall real question in there somwhere.. what benifits can be had from live feeding? its not the natural argument i go with at all. but a good chase realy is good exersise for them.. people talk about rats hurting a snake and ya ive sceen it plently of times... but not a 4 foot monitor i promice you that.

to sum this up i like feeding vids.. lots of people dont.. but theres a select few that for some twisted reason get enjoyment out of watching such discusting things... theres a few people out there reading this right now that like feed vids.. same argument comes up about handling and other simular topics..

sorry for the spelling.. i know its bad
Brandon.