Posted by:
rwoodyer
at Wed Mar 9 13:19:40 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by rwoodyer ]
Most F/T mice/rats do not die of hypothermia, usually they are put with dry ice and suffocate well before they freeze. Some other people use CO2 more humanely to first intoxicate the mice and then soffocate them.
Either way, there is no real "humane" way to kill a mouse...but there are a lot of inhumane ways to go about it...like smacking it against a brick a bunch of times and then putting it back into the mouse rack if it isn't eaten (any readers remember that one...some people are a little heartless).
The biggest difference for me is price. I feed all of my snakes mice if possible. I pay about 50 cents for a frozen mouse or about $1.30 for a live mouse. So its a no brainer, I guess I should also mention that I don't want to raise any live mice myself, they smell like sh it.
Also when I get home from a long day of work, it is easier for me to reach in the freezer and grap a mouse than to drive off to the pet store and buy one.
Finally, when I feed my snakes I usually move the prey item around with a pair of tongs to force the snake to "work for its meal". So it is more like a live meal and not eaten off a cage floor.
I do not think constrictors really care if the food is alive or not, they still constrict until they feel that the prey item is sufficiently dead, and snakes have been known to eat dead rodents in the wild if they happen upon them, so this is not unnatural.
Still, one of mine has never eaten F/T, and only rarely eats live rats (at $3-4 a rat this is a lot more expensive than a couple of F/T mice). All of my snakes that are worth $1000 or more will only rarely get a live meal, the last thing I want to happen is to have one of them injured by a mouse or rat trying to escape.
just my opinion.
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in this order F/T, then P/K, then Live, but feed what they will eat - rwoodyer, Wed Mar 9 13:19:40 2005