You know and Im saying this respectfully.... I feel like you are telling me im wrong for feeding live prey. I don't have rat bitten worm infested animals so i must be doing something right. I just feel that my opinion to feed live is frowned upon here...
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a discussion on the philosophy of feeding.
- Thread starter nat
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I still fail to understand. They are reacting to the stimuli and conditions they recieved during their lives. They know they do not have to go all out to capture the animal. I don't think they are lazy because of that. They are just reacting to their environment. If your into the excitment point of view, yes, kind of boring. But for me personally, I enjoy just watching my animals do anything. Could be just me I suppose. As a pet owner I don't understand feeding for my own excitement. As an example, why don't people get all pumped up to feed their dogs? I have reptiles for the same reason people would have dogs. Obviously there are things that can never be the same, but why just because someone has a reptile do they feel the need to feed live for excitement purposes? I don't think its a strong argument for feeding live with the potential risks involved.Harveysherps said:
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Lex it's cool...I was just trying to relate how feeding live is not like in the wild. In no way personally attacking anyone who feeds live. I would even feed your tegus live with you
Serafim said:
That is not how it is, Go ahead feed live prey, I am not agaisnt (as previosly stated) I choose not to do it for a variety of reasons.
I have seen many animals that have been fed live all their lives and are perfectly fine, but bad things do happen on occasion, I am not just regurgitating things, I have seen them with my own eyes.
As long as you know the risks then by all means make your own decisions regarding your animals care
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Ok before this gets started up again..I think we should all take a step back and evaluate how we can benefit from this thread. We know it's the owners preference whether to feed live or not. Its obvious the pro and cons of each side. Now how can we constructively discuss any further ideas to this topic?
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OK, to be totally honest, I feed f/t because it's more economical and I get free frozen feeders. Back in the days when I only had a couple of carnivores I did feed live but it was always stunned before feeding and then tong fed. I have seen too many injured reptiles that were live feeders left alone with a rodent. As much as you claim to supervise until the feeding is over there is always that chance of a distraction...phone ringing, kid calling from school saying they are sick, a sudden bout of montezuma's revenge, etc. One bite, even from a small mouse, can turn into an abscess, especially in an already debilitated animal that is being rehabbed (which we deal with a lot).
By feeding f/t with tongs you can still stimulate some natural hunting behaviors in your reptiles. I especially enjoy doing this with Savannah monitors! They are so intent on the prey but their depth perception can be pretty bad and it gets quite comical. I also enjoy watching my Argus monitors tripod for their food being held high on tongs.
If anyone believes I'm a wimp for feeding with tongs I challenge them to come and feed my monitors by hand. You will have Argus teeth embedded in your flesh in no time at all. Tossing not allowed.
By feeding f/t with tongs you can still stimulate some natural hunting behaviors in your reptiles. I especially enjoy doing this with Savannah monitors! They are so intent on the prey but their depth perception can be pretty bad and it gets quite comical. I also enjoy watching my Argus monitors tripod for their food being held high on tongs.
If anyone believes I'm a wimp for feeding with tongs I challenge them to come and feed my monitors by hand. You will have Argus teeth embedded in your flesh in no time at all. Tossing not allowed.
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As I said before, you can keen their senses and keep them happy with a live pup and pk'd others. That's what I do with Apollo. The pup isn't gonna do anything to the tegus, and when it's moving he flips a switch in his head and goes after it. Then I feed pk'd by tossing em in various places in the tank, he flies after them. Mission accomplished. Keeps their "natural behaviors" up, their thrill sense up, and nice and safe. However, picky eaters are picky eaters, andd there's not much you can do about it. However I got my BP to eat by changing to a ft rat insteadof lie mice, anshe had no commlaints.
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as a new reptile owner 3 months :mrgreen: and being a totally neutral party, i have been feeding live, and now hearing both sides im back in the dilemma i was about a month ago. A couple questions how often do reptiles get sick from eating bad or diseased mice? and secondly is there a process to giving my tegu dead or frozen food or should he/she will take it no problem?
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I'll say this Tegus and Lizards it doesn't matter cause they will eat it either way. But snakes are the only carnivores that eat healthy live prey animals. Most carnivores eat sick animals. A snake is made to digest fresh meat. I don't mean to insult anyone. But a snake owner just makes his snakes fat and lazy by feeding F/T.
Is it really necessary to have to feed a living and potentially dangerous things to provide stimulation?? Can we not think of other ways to keep our tegus stimulated with out putting them in danger? Are we THAT lazy??!!
we have sooooo many other opportunities to keep our tegus happy and stimulated and SAFE yet avoid dangerous activities.. for example I do hide a f/t mouse and let Barbossa smell the trail and "hunt" it down then he feasts. safe, and stimulating. huh, look at that! and I see no possible way for him to get hurt doing that...
come on people if your only feeding live to "keep them stimulated" then lets get brain storming on other methods of stimulation that are safe!
we have sooooo many other opportunities to keep our tegus happy and stimulated and SAFE yet avoid dangerous activities.. for example I do hide a f/t mouse and let Barbossa smell the trail and "hunt" it down then he feasts. safe, and stimulating. huh, look at that! and I see no possible way for him to get hurt doing that...
come on people if your only feeding live to "keep them stimulated" then lets get brain storming on other methods of stimulation that are safe!
