a discussion on the philosophy of feeding.

[nat]

This is meant to be a constructive discussion that has really interested me for some time, and one that I which to have a better understanding of. Please keep that in mind if you are offended or feel the need to defend yourself.

Maybe its because I am a philosophy student and am prone to presenting and debating arguments (its been drilled into me I am afraid), but I wish to gain some insight into and explore the "natural" argument for feeding live. I see it a problematic argument and one that has yet to be presented to me as a strong case. What confuses me the most is that the fact that here we have taken a traditionally wild animal and have placed it in an unnatural condition insofar as we have placed it inside a home, in an enclosure that will NEVER come close to its natural environmental construst, and train them (for lack of a better word) or at least force them on some level or another to interact with us... again an unnatural component and these same people who agree to keep their tegu despite all of these unnatural surroundings use "its natural" as the argument as to why they feed live mice. I would understand this argument better IF there was some necissary health component to it but there is not... feeding dead is just as healthy and arguably natural as tegus are known carrion feeders.

Also, if one is to abide by the "natural" argument, wouldn't one also be obligated under this theory to provide other natural components to their tegu's care rather than pick and choose what they choose to provide (provided that both means of care provide a healthy environment for the tegu).

and so it begins... discuss!

 

[DaveDragon]

There's nothing natural about being kept in a box and stared at.

If they're living in the wild, that's natural. Anything else is pick and choose.

That was easy!!

 

[COWHER]

Nat I agree with you 100% the ones who use this "its natural" argument are just trying to justify something that they are doing that the know is not necessary. they pick and chose what they want to do but when someone poses a problem with one of their methods they are so pompous and arrogant that they cant admit that the concerned person may be right. :rant

 

[PuffDragon]

I think alot of people would like to keep their reptiles as close to a natural setting as possible. However, in captivity it is just not 100% feasible. You can take steps to give extra comfort to your animals but never could a captive situation reach a natural setting. Sure it could be naturalistic but it's just not the same. As far as feeding and using this "its natural" concept I just don't get it either. I do believe it can be mentally stimulating and healthy for a reptile to eat live once in awhile but to put an animal in a gladiator type situation which we've seen so many times is just not right. I personally have no quams over live feeding as long as its supervised 100% of the time during feeding and the prey is size appropriate. I myself do not live feed though I think if approached in the right mind set and done correctly everyone can benefit. But to justify "its natural" well define natural in captivity?

 

[ColdThirst]

This topic only concerns the individual opinion. If they want to and supervise they can, if they dont want to because of cruelty issues or the danger it possibly presents to your pet, thats fine and their choice. There is no right or wrong and therefore this thread is redundant, people will do what ever they want reguardless of what others say to what they think is acceptable. On a personal note, I am always with my pets when I feed them, I dont see why you would go somewhere else while feeding them much less when your feeding them live prey. This is not an issue of do's or don'ts, this topic should only be a warning to people feeding live prey, not instructions to not.

 

[VARNYARD]

ColdThirst, while I respect your thoughts and admire your opinion, I must disagree. There is no reason to feed live, tegus will eat pre-killed or frozen thawed with no problem at all.

That said, has anyone else been bitten by a rat? I have, and I will tell you, they have a heck of a bite. These bites can happen very fast, even if you are supervising the feeding process. I have a female that had an eye put out by a rat before she came into my care, I cannot help thinking if that rat was dead before it was fed to her she would still have her eye.

Bottom line, dead rodents don't bite, live ones do. I will also add, tegus fed live are hooked on movement, when feeding dead they are not. Many bites can happen when cleaning a cage triggered by the movement of your hand, this is not as likely when feeding dead rodents.

IMO, frozen thawed are the best way to go, many parasites are killed during the freezing process. I was reading the other day about someone that had to treat their snakes for tape worms, the live rats they were feeding had fleas, the fleas are well known for the distribution of tapeworms. This would not have happened if he had fed frozen thawed instead of live.

 

[Lexi]

I beg to differ Bobby.. Skeletor wont touch a thawed rat.(well maybe if i starved him). I feed live..And i like it...I enjoy watching it.I dont feed live cause its "natrual"..haha my tegus live in a world far from being natrual.. And yes i know the rat can hurt my tegus or my snake..but not yet has this happend...and im not saying that its not going to happen either.. Iv been bitten by my pet rats befor and i know what they can do... My Tegus have never bitten me nor have they ever gone after me while i have been cleaning thier enclosure..Even Voren has never gone after me while i have been cleaning...they know that i am not food.

 

[nat]

This topic only concerns the individual opinion. If they want to and supervise they can, if they dont want to because of cruelty issues or the danger it possibly presents to your pet, thats fine and their choice. There is no right or wrong and therefore this thread is redundant, people will do what ever they want reguardless of what others say to what they think is acceptable.... This is not an issue of do's or don'ts, this topic should only be a warning to people feeding live prey, not instructions to not.

I think you misunderstood my intent and seem rather defensive... please don't be.

1) The argument that "there is no right or wrong" irks me (again... probably because I am minoring in ethical philosophy and have it ground into me that moral relativism is NOT tolerance but a refusal to explore what could be potentially good or bad). I am for the TOLERANCE of methods I don't agree with but I do think ultimately there are methods better then the other (in all aspects of life, not just tegus) I am not claiming to have the answer but I would certainly like to explore the discussion. Also, just because someone is going to do whatever they please does not make it right (I am not addressing feeding but just the logic of the problem you are presenting). I am not asking people to simply state their preferences but rather to give me their justifications for doing so.

2) This thread was not started to tell anyone any conclusive answer... I posed a question that was on my mind (for quite some time) that I wished to discuss with fellow tegu owners to see if I could come away with a better understanding in case there is something I was missing to the argument... or perhaps it would further confirm already held beliefs (isn't that what forums are for?) therefor I do not see how this thread is redundant.

 

[nat]

Lexi - do you feel that there are any benefits that your tegu gains for eatting live... and if so, in what way do the benefits outweigh the risks involved in feeding live?

 

[Lexi]

Oh theres def. no gains at all.. besides my enjoyment out of it. but i do feel it keeps my tegus sense's up...I know i am risking the fact that my tegus might get bit.. but im fine with that. Call me a bad owner so what ever you want.. But people take risks..its like smoking cigs. you know it could harm you.. but you do it anyways..

 

[AB^]

I think there is one benefit to feeding live. Mental stimulation.
In a life stuck in a wooden box 90% of the time not much mental stimulation occurs for tegus (or most other captive reptiles) Killing and eating prey obviously gets them excited, thus stimulating them.

 

[snakehandler]

I tend to feed my snakes live rodents because it stimulated them in their behaviour. However with lizards i would never do that, unless its a very young mouse.

 

[ApriliaRufo]

I wasn't gonna post but Kevin opened up my opinion and Lexi justified it. Tegus spend so much time in a centralized environment with the only stimulating activity of being allowed to explore the house each day and harrass my cat. I believe that all wild animals hold a wild sense in their mind and it deserves to be nurtured. I do not believe in the idea of choosing which traits of my animal are valid and which should be taken away. Apollo slowly scoops up a dead rat, eats it, and lays down. It is a defeatist move, and it saddens me to see him losing parts of what he is. I toss a giant roach in his cage and his world has changed, his eyes narrow, his stance changes, his brain becomes active. He hunts, stalks, kills, and remains in that mode until he has searched every last corner of the cage looking for food. The issue of it causing cage agression is a null argument from bad husbandry. If you look at your tegu through the glass and the majority of the time that you open it, you open it to feed. I have no sympathy for you. That's not how it works. Even live roaches and rats, Apollo follows my hand and does not strike until the rat hits the feeding stump. We are seriously miscalculating the intelligence of our animals. We have to show them respect. My tegus come out every day. Their light cycles were adjusted by me to be active in the evenings. I do not condone live feeding, but the point of this article was to debunk the plot of live feeding because of a natural lifestyle response. There is no way to say it wasn't. You present a statement for others to present evidence for you to disagree with. I agree with CT, this is redundant, because the main reason for live feeding is natural response, other reasons like sadism and picky eaters, are not so hard to come by. I didn't really want to discuss this because there are valid reasons to live feed, and I don't want some post to change a person's practices.

 

[nat]

I can appreciate your concerns about the intent of this thread and yes, I freely admit that I don't agree with live feeding. However, I am usually commonly confronted with the argument of it being "natural" and I was simply wanting to see if there was some genuine component to it rather than it be an excuse (most people IMO who have used this argument for me, have never actually been able to justify it, but rather pose it and then can't explain the actual logical justifictation behind it). I wanted to learn more and see IF there seemed to be an actual logical argument behind a concept that I feel has been poorly argued up until this point. Is there something I am missing ? In other words... is this a poor argument OR have people simply been arguing it poorly. I can understand however that people are apprehensive about giving people positive affirmations about feeding live since most people would agree that it is not a practice that most people should participate in. Yours is probably the best argument I have seen for live feeding ... ever, so this forum has been productive not redundant because I am understanding the otherside better than I did yesterday.

In truth... I would not consider posting this 99.9% of reptile forums due to people's inability to tolerate other perceptions and critically think (in the sense that people would just start flamming eachother and feel personally attacked rather than see that it is an attempt at an objective discussion) but I feel like the members this forum are mature and reasponsible enough to help me explore this issue I have had for some time now.

 

[AB^]

I myself dont agree with feeding live and in most scenarios it is avoidable.
But I do stand by belief that live feeding does add to mental stimulation among captive reptiles (especially concerning more intelligent species such a tegus).

The "more natural" arguement is garbage. A confined prey animal with no chance of escape (except obviously to fight) is NOT natural in any way shape or form. If you were to let a mouse loose in a yard and then have the tegu able to actually hunt it down and track it by scent (or sight) and capture it that would be a more natural method as the prey actually has a chance to escape (anyone who watches national geographic,PBS, or the discovery channel knows that predators miss much more often than they hit).

anyways I'm just kinda rambling so I'll leave it at that for now

 

[ApriliaRufo]

I can understand however that people are apprehensive about giving people positive affirmations about feeding live since most people would agree that it is not a practice that most people should participate in. Yours is probably the best argument I have seen for live feeding ... ever, so this forum has been productive not redundant because I am understanding the otherside better than I did yesterday.

In truth... I would not consider posting this 99.9% of reptile forums due to people's inability to tolerate other perceptions and critically think (in the sense that people would just start flamming eachother and feel personally attacked rather than see that it is an attempt at an objective discussion) but I feel like the members this forum are mature and reasponsible enough to help me explore this issue I have had for some time now.

This is why this forum thrives. Thank you Nat for introducing an argument, providing a factual collection of evidence, and listenning to others opinions without the need for child-like flaming. When I introduced the idea of a flame room, I meant for it to home arguments like this. The word argument comes with a negative stigma, but this is what I was looking for. Somewhere for us to discuss disagreements with scientific and practical background information for evidence. Unfortunately it seems that the internet flourishes when people sit around and type obscenities in attempt to protect themselves. Back to the topic.

I understand that pk'd rats pose no threat, but I believe that my animals find much more pleasure in their lives being able to hunt, just as I think people would learn to enjoy life without iPods, and capitalist beaurocracy, and a need to "keep up with the Jones'". We are animals and all deserve to feel at least a little like we were when we started. But lets not argue about that.

Instead of one live medium rat, Apollo gets to hunt out 4 small rat pups, individually offered to prevent being clustered. The reason I don't condone live feeding is exactly as you said, most people are not responsible enough to know where the line is, and temptation to give your tegu a rat that is too big just to watch the gladiator-esque (thank you Joe) fight between these animals, is simply too great.

Thank you to those of you who provided information that was on qeue and relevant. I really enjoy this forum and your ability to keep it running smoothly like this. Looks like their is no need for the flame room, because there are plenty of us and you that make debates a worthy cause, but to anyone who posts "I feed em live because they're alive in the wild", please don't post. That's not an argument, that's an opinion with absolutely nothing to back it up, and for those who posted the opposite, you did the same thing. Thank you Nat.

 

[ColdThirst]

Well, I guess I missunderstood what it was exactly nat was wanting to know or find out however what I said at first still holds. And that being the case I guess the question coiuld have been interpreted in different ways. I do not feed live just to throw that out there, for one I dont want to take the time and go to town and buy a live mouse and birn it all the way back to my house and feed it to one of my pets, also im not going to start breeding mice either. I agree that live feed is stimulating for pets, but think outside the box of reptiles to other kinds of pets. I dont think my dog has lost anything by eating dry dog food for 10 years and I dont even feed him raw meat like he would eat in the "wild." Also my Boa wont strike and eat anything without it moving around like it was alive, so I have to grab a fuzzy with a pair of tongs and make it "dance" for #%@$ 10 min. until it is convinced and eats it lol. And I agree with Aprilia now that he has posted that and was exactly what I was thinking in the terms of the size of the rat you were feeding it. If you still wanted it to have live or feed it live just dont put one in their soo big and the chances of your animal getting harmed go down significantly. And two or three little ones is just as good as one big one, and probably better for digesting also, and would be even more fun for the tegu to get to chase three instead of one. That is my peace.

 

[VARNYARD]

Stimulating activity?? Ok, so lets get live rabbits and live baby goats to feed our German Shepard or Doberman, or even live house cats and kittens. That should stimulate your dogs mind to keep him from getting bored; I mean most dogs will kill if given the chance. If you have a cat, buy it live parakeets, reptiles and rats. I don't see much of a difference there, thatÃ?Æ?Ã?â??Ã?â??Ã?¢Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¡Ã?â??Ã?¬Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¾Ã?â??Ã?¢s just my opinion. If you want your animal to have the wild instincts, then why not let all of them have them. And please donÃ?Æ?Ã?â??Ã?â??Ã?¢Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¡Ã?â??Ã?¬Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¾Ã?â??Ã?¢t tell me it is because these animals are domesticated, they have wild instincts as well.

Sorry, but I still disagree with feeding live, it just is not worth the risks. I also fail to see a good excuse for feeding live, not when it is not needed.

 

[AB^]

Stimulating activity?? Ok, so lets get live rabbits and live baby goats to feed our German Shepard or Doberman, or even live house cats and kittens. That should stimulate your dogs mind to keep him from getting bored; I mean most dogs will kill if given the chance. If you have a cat, buy it live parakeets, reptiles and rats. I don't see much of a difference there, thatÃ?Æ?Ã?â??Ã?â??Ã?¢Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¡Ã?â??Ã?¬Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¾Ã?â??Ã?¢s just my opinion. If you want your animal to have the wild instincts, then why not let all of them have them. And please donÃ?Æ?Ã?â??Ã?â??Ã?¢Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¡Ã?â??Ã?¬Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¾Ã?â??Ã?¢t tell me it is because these animals are domesticated, they have wild instincts as well.

Sorry, but I still disagree with feeding live, it just is not worth the risks. I also fail to see a good excuse for feeding live, not when it is not needed.

Bobby,

Cats and dogs are not enclosed all day everyday (at the very least in a comparable way to most reptiles) They have access to more mentally stimulating things than a lizard with some mulch a rock a log and a hide. Cats and Dogs also use "play" to a greater extent han is seen is tegus (which really I dont call flicking a mouse around play, but that's as close as it gets)

Nat asked if there was any benefits to feeding live, the mental stimulation is a benefit (but that does not mean negatives outweight the postives and vice versa)

Another point I would like to make is most tegu keepers have to keep their tegus indoors vs your tegus who live outdoors. An animal outdoors will experience many different sights,smells,sounds etc etc etc all of which is mentally stimulating (something different going on = stimuli) Captive (indoor) animals arent usually so lucky and I think often people (keepers) overloook providing mental stimulation for animals.

I dont condone live feeding nor would I ever, but mental stimulation whether you like it or not is a benefit to live feeding. It just doesnt outweigh the negatives.


~Kevin

 

[ApriliaRufo]

You can't act like dogs are just tame wolves either. They have been bread down for hundreds of years. I'm sure you could breed tegus 500 generations down the line in captivity and have quite a different animal. Dogs and cats have instincts, but have been bred so far down the line that most have no idea what to do. I've fed my cats mice sometimes. Doesn't work very often, they usually open their mouths intrigued by the smell and ignore it. I feed dogs meat many a times, but like Kevin said, they enjoy the outdoors, smells, winds, interaction.

But anyway, this thread was meant to share information, not to throw eggs and try to drill ideals into people's head. Look, a perfect new emoticon.
:dead :dead :dead


P.S. - I am with holding info from you all to see what this question brought up. I feed one live pup and 3 pk'd pups, or 1 live and 2 small adult pk'd. I believe in live food stimulation, but I won't feed live any bigger than a harmless pup. It's just not worth the risk. Rats and Mice can bite and bite HARD, there's no need to feed only live to your animal. The live harmless pups, get my tegu excited, and the others are eaten with the same fervor.