out of interest in what way is it cruel??

Yeah, But I still havn't used lives for 3 yrs

Definetly F/T live ones could hurt them.

I feed f/t, I couldn't stand seeing a mousie die. And, of course, there are risks involved.

i dont like to live feed but sometimes you have no choice..

a few weeks ago a guy came to the shop with two mangroves he'd brought from somewhere, he'd had them for a couple of months and nither had eaten for itself.

i asked him what he'd tryed and he said all the usual things, he told me he was assist feeding which i majorly disagree with.

then after talking to the guy for about half hour he reveals they are wild caught, so i asked had he fed live to which he said no he didnt believe in it.

so i took them out back put them in the feeding pen and gave each a live mouse which they both snapped up without thinking about it.

so i told the guy for the time being id feed live until they get used to him and them they will more then likely bait feed.

the guy said no he won't live feed and will carry on assist feeding.

a couple of days ago the guy came in and asked if we wanted to buy one of the snakes, asking where the other was he informed us it died while assist feediing...

we took the snake and shes doing fine..

in some cases live is the only way!

I feed all my snakes frozen/thawed, but have fed live for a royal years and years ago as it was W C (at the time i was naive got it from a pet shop )
took me nearly 6 months but i got him on frozen thawed in the end
just one of those things you have to do if you want ya snake to survive and be healthy .
I had to visit a different pet shop every 10 days to buy the rats...we have 6 in my home town so i got away with it for a while but was getting dirty looks in the end and also got refused once and recieved alot of stick from one of the sales assistants when they asked me why i keep buying rats there expression was....
so i told them if you didnt sale W C snakes in the first place i wouldnt be in here buying his food...


she just walked off after that
personally i dont see live feeding as wrong , i dont like it but if it has to be done it has to be done im afraid...

hi all, i spoke to my local pet shop owner about feeding live and according to him there is some animal rights law against it, how true is this, not saying that i would, i quite like live mice and would feel to guilty, i'm just curious to know.

frozen/thawed its illegal to feed live in the U.K and plus it could harm the snake so I'm not going to risk the vet bills !!!

In this day and age where majority of snakes are CB their is no reason to feed live. I have only ever feed live when I rescued a WC Royal from a petshop and it had to be a gerbil.

Feeding live IS cruel, I don't care what anyone says about 'natural food' etc. In the wild a mouse, rat etc. isn't trapped in a 4' x 2' tank or viv, it's roaming free and most of the time doesn't have a clue as to what happened to it before it comes out the other end in the form of a black and white solid mass. But when you put a rodent alive in a tank with a snake considerably bigger than it, you tell me then that it isn't stricken with fear knowing it's about to be Sunday lunch! Just like you being put in an electric chair. That's my argument!

Royals are hard feeders but I still belive that from birth you can make them eat dead.

[quote=reptilemorphs;135425]frozen/thawed its illegal to feed live in the U.K

This is a misconception with a lot of people in the uk.
It is not illegal to feed to feed live prey to animals that would die otherwise.
It is however frowned upon by the rspca,and they have been known to pull some strokes with people who do feed live.
The only time you find yourself in trouble for feeding live is if you were doing it in front of other people for so called fun or in public.