Can I request feeder animals on this forum......???

[decterlove]

I know this will rumple at least a few feathers....and it's restricted on CL....

but the fact of the matter is snakes gotta eat too and deserve life as well just as much as any cute fuzzy mammals that would have completely over run the earth, and probably prevented the very evolution of mankind...certainly made agriculture virtually impossible...........if not for the efforts of slithery serpents and other predator animals......(course that might have been a good thing depending upon your point of view!)

not a freak about this.........I feel compassion toward mice and rats and say a little prayer for their spirits...........I don't feed live either.........prekill quickly or preferably feed frozen, but have to buy in large quantities from Texas and can't afford to at the moment.....

Soooooooooooo.....anybody raising mice, rats, chickens.....medium sized eggs would be very excellent.............that doesn't have qualms about the natural order of life? thx ds

[decterlove]

So let me get this right........you are against all animals being kept as pets right? Or if you keep a cat.........you should feed them sprouts, right?

If so, I can respect that...........

If not.........you are guilty of being a sentimental foggy headed hypocrite...

Not trying to start any massive controversy here....In fact I was kinda hoping WACCO would be rant free unlike CL which is just ridiculous.......if it is not acceptable to request feeder animals on this website........that's absolutely fine with me......Can you pardon me for just ASKING?

What's irritating is people who refuse to think rationally about these matters...

[decterlove]

Reread my post...............I do not feed live animals to snakes!

[wolfcarnahan]

Cats in captivity? No, I don't think so. Anyone who has the fortune to have a cat live with them knows that the cat owns the human. THey're there, willingly, and will leave, at the drop of a hat, if they don't like the environment.

:-}>
Wolf

[Barry]

Here we go again...

Thanks to dectorlove for posting a considerate request and thanks to Dian for your measured ire!

I think dectorlove makes good points. Snakes are carnivorous. If you keep one as a pet you still need to feed them. I don't think you can say snakes belong in nature any more than you can say that cats belong in nature. I have witnessed personal relationships between snakes and their owners.

Or are you saying that you should not feed your pets any animal products? Have you read the ingredients of your sanitized-from-nature pet food? Is it not better that your pets get animal products from local humane breeders rather than some factory farm?

Tolerating/accepting someone feeding animal products to their pet is the same as tolerating someone feeding animal products to themselves (ie non-vegetarians). I know that's a hard one to "swallow" for many of you vegetarians out there but most of you manage to have civil relationships with omnivores, many of which frequent this category.

Dian, I notice that you have weighed in against "the breeding of animals as companions or food". Regarding the issue of breeding, there is convenient ethical safe-haven to say it OK to own pets (feeding them only vegetarian food, of course, and not worrying about killing all those plants :wink:) that are already reproducing outside of breeders. However, if it got to the place that no cats were being bred outside of breeders, and the only way you could have a cat as a pet would be to get one for a breeder, would that be un-ethical and why?

So please weigh in with your respectful opinion.

I may add a poll to this thread at some point as another tool of gauging the sense of the community, however I reserve the right to make the final decision. So far there has been only tepid response to polls on this site.

I can also understand how Dian and people hold a similar view point can find such posts disturbing. One possible solution is to choose to ignore all posts from dectorlove and others who post topics that your find offensive. You can see how to do this here (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19804). Note that Ignore Users is a Supporting Member feature that is available to everybody for a limited time.

[decterlove]

Wow! I am impressed! That was an awesome, well thought out, and balanced view you presented, Barry. The thing that impresses me the most is that someone who moderates such a community forum would actually be AVAILABLE to even respond to an admittedly controversial issues as I presented.....a striking contrast to the anonymity of the hosts of CL who are seemingly unapproachable in spite of their attempts to provide a real sense of community on the internet.

I should have been prepared for it but I really did not intend to spark controversy or offend with my post. It is simply a practical need for me to fill and I often find it difficult to find affordable food for my beloved pets.

The whole issue of the way we Americans treat our animals....total schizoid attitude really....to me is a fascinating one, for lack of a better word, and by your remarkably intelligent response, provokes in me an effort to articulate my humble, and generally private, observations.

First off, I am in total sympathy with animal lovers that wish to reduce and regulate in some way the terrible suffering creatures experience at the hands of human beings. The advances in science and commercial agriculture in the past 100 years have led to an abysmal lack of respect for other living creatures we share the earth with, and simultaneously invoked a cold-hearted indifference to this suffering by many people who view the world from a purely scientific materialistic paradigm. This cold heartedness has sparked a remarkable counterforce in the past 3 decades of individuals devoted to protecting animals and combating their often unnecessary (as in the cosmetic industry, for example..) and cruel suffering.

But most, if not all "counterforces" in human history....tend to go to far in their efforts to combat the injustices they are inspired by and perhaps also in their efforts to create their own version of a utopian perfect world view that will insure such injustices will never occur again...but their view often creates a whole new set of absurdities and injustices to take the place of the previous condition...

We cannot entirely eliminate the suffering other living creatures are destined to go through in their struggle to survive on the planet earth. Every time there's a forest fire down south I cringe at all the reptiles that didn't make it to cover and were to be found among the ashes. More subtly, even a simple drought as we seem to be headed for this spring causes much suffering among animals species and reduces their population in many cases..

Now if someone really insists that no animals should be kept in captivity OR as pets by humans........I can kinda see where they are coming from but I think it's a unrealistic and impractical world view. We Americans LOVE OUR PETS! In part, I'm sure, due to the alienation we feel from each other! I do believe there is a lot of exotic pet trade that should be highly limited or restricted altogether. (I am in favor of requiring licensing to all , iguana, boa and python owners and severely restricting the sale of these animals as well.....Legislation was introduced in Washington a couple of years ago to do just this....I'm not sure if it passed or not...)

But Americans resist all such restrictions on their "lifestyles"...We are a nation, not so much in favor of freedom but rather of license. Be that as it may, I keep snakes because I love them! I've been infatuated now for 50 years and I am passionate about presenting them in a favorable light to the public whenever I can. There is a logic to say all wild creatures should be left wild but I believe, like Steve Irwin, did that there is a valid and correct counter argument that unless people become EXPOSED and AWARE of the beauty and subtle intelligence of many of these creatures disappearing in some remote forest or in your neighbor's backyard, and to what we are in rapid danger of losing..All will be lost without most people even noticing it. I "intuit" that my animals have "agreed" to be "ambassadors" on behalf of the reptile kingdom, at least, to prevent this from happening. And they need to eat.

So, if the general consensus on this forum is that it is simply too disturbing to imagine one animal eating another animal.......especially a whole one vs a canned of ground up animal which is much easier to view abstractly and thus deny the actually suffering of whatever animal is actually ground up in that can...........then I will certainly be happy to respect such boundaries and abide by them. But I do think something of great value and critical importance is lost..........if we merely succumb to the comfort zone of our gut feelings about fuzzy, furry creatures.........and ignore the deeper mysteries and realities of life as they present themselves to us....


Here we go again...

Thanks to dectorlove for posting a considerate request and thanks to Dian for your measured ire!

I think dectorlove makes good points. Snakes are carnivorous. If you keep one as a pet you still need to feed them. I don't think you can say snakes belong in nature any more than you can say that cats belong in nature. I have witnessed personal relationships between snakes and their owners.

Or are you saying that you should not feed your pets any animal products? Have you read the ingredients of your sanitized-from-nature pet food? Is it not better that your pets get animal products from local humane breeders rather than some factory farm?

Tolerating/accepting someone feeding animal products to their pet is the same as tolerating someone feeding animal products to themselves (ie non-vegetarians). I know that's a hard one to "swallow" for many of you vegetarians out there but most of you manage to have civil relationships with omnivores, many of which frequent this category.

Dian, I notice that you have weighed in against "the breeding of animals as companions or food". Regarding the issue of breeding, there is convenient ethical safe-haven to say it OK to own pets (feeding them only vegetarian food, of course, and not worrying about killing all those plants :wink:) that are already reproducing outside of breeders. However, if it got to the place that no cats were being bred outside of breeders, and the only way you could have a cat as a pet would be to get one for a breeder, would that be un-ethical and why?

So please weigh in with your respectful opinion.

I may add a poll to this thread at some point as another tool of gauging the sense of the community, however I reserve the right to make the final decision. So far there has been only tepid response to polls on this site.

I can also understand how Dian and people hold a similar view point can find such posts disturbing. One possible solution is to choose to ignore all posts from dectorlove and others who post topics that your find offensive. You can see how to do this here. Note that Ignore Users is a Supporting Member feature that is available to everybody for a limited time.

[colleen farrell]

OK ... deep breath, everybody. I always cringe when animal rights comes up as a topic because there is so much emotion and so much misunderstanding--on both sides. I usually refrain from jumping in, but the moon is full and ... ;)

I worked for PETA for over a decade--I'm a card-carrying animal rights advocate. I am also a realist, and I hope, a compassionate person. I dislike people shoving animal rights rhetoric down other people's throats as much as I dislike the two or three endlessly-parroted and fallacious attacks on the concept of animal rights. (e.g., "if your baby or a cat were drowning, which would you save first?" or "you wear a leather belt, therefore *everything* else you say must be false" or "don't you feel sorry for the carrot you ate?")

The fact is, life is messy, people aren't perfect, and we always think otherwise. The other day I saved a quail from a hawk. How irrational, crazy, and utterly human is that? Well, last summer a quail couple decided to raise a family in our yard and since then, I've grown terribly attached to them. I know hawks (and everybody else) eat quails--I just couldn't stand to watch it! I rationalized my behavior by saying the quail population is in peril, which it is--but when that didn't work, I fell back on emotion ("I just LIKE the quails!").

What bothers me most about this topic is not that people disagree with animal rights--it's that 90% of the people *I* have come across who disagree with the animal rights position do NOT even know exactly what it is!

Come to think of it, a good percentage of the people who AGREE with animal rights are fuzzy on what it really entails. (For example, one thing it entails is that carnivorous animals should eat meat. 21st century humans are omnivores, not because we *must* or *should* be, but because we *prefer* to be.)

I don't speak for PETA here, but I would encourage *anyone* who thinks they know everything about animal rights to read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. It's an excellent primer on the subject--and quite possibly a life-changing book.

And it's far more rational, reasonable, logical--and all the other "human" characteristics we love so much--than you might think.

With respect for all,
Colleen :wink:

[decterlove]

You make some very interesting points, Colleen and once again, as a newbie, I am very impressed by the level of discourse on this forum.

I confess to, while having a basic fundamental sympathy towards the concept of animal rights activism, I also have a negative view of PETA and it is simply because I really don't know exactly where they stand on all the issues, and what I often hear about them (ex...no animals should be kept in captivity or as pets, etc..) seems extremist, impractical and unrealistic.

I plead guilty to not taking the time to adequately research their positions myself and "relying" on the mass media to give me "straight up" information. Now I happen to know a lot about snakes (which are getting a lot of good press lately fortunately) and I also know A LOT about vitamins, (which constantly get bad press probably due to the untold influence and power of the pharmaceutical industry) and I do watch a TV as well. I know that 95% of the "news" about supplements that comes across your local tv channel is patently false or at best about 30 years delayed...The major difficulty here is unfortunately most people are so pressed just to survive in today's economy that they don't have the time to educate themselves in every arena and about every issue. Personally if I had 200 hours a week, I would definitely stay up on all that PETA is doing. But it's not a personal calling of mine and I simply have to stay focused on what is.

So I only know what makes the headlines regarding PETA and for the most part, of course, that often paints an unsympathetic portrait although I would hope most people at this point are okay with giving up their fur coats and perhaps using cruelty free cosmetic lines. Recently, there has been a lot of news about Duck Foie Gras and I am entirely in agreement with PETA's stand against this.....this obvious and completely unnecessary torture of animals is simply a vile act and should be confronted.

The problem I alluded to above still stands though and that is the tendency for every "rights" group that has sprung up in the last 35 years, with the exceptions perhaps of the civil rights movement of the 60s (I don't know why I put that in a special category but I intuitively sense that it deserves one...) has ultimately tried to create a "Utopian" vision of reality that satisfies its' own "members" and blatantly tends to disregard the real needs and sensibilities of the rest of the planet or nation depending on which subset you wish to contain it to.

Many groups that have influenced me have fallen guilty to this very strong tendency. The most disturbing example to me personally was Warren Farrell who was responsible in part during the late 80s for spawning the "men's rights movement" along with many others. His examination of media and articulation of how both men and women are disempowered in strikingly different ways by mainstream culture was right on the money. Unfortunately at some point of his own personal evolution, and I believe I have the facts straight in this matter, he became an (reluctant perhaps) advocate of men having sexual relationships to some extent with their own daughters. (again, if I am incorrect on this please inform me...I love for someone to put in a good word for Warren...)

Now even if Warren believed in the validity of this extremely controversial idea.........he should have kept it entirely separate and private from his public views on mens rights. In doing so he jeopardizes and perhaps seriously sabotaged his entire political platform and undermined all the great work he had previously done. Men's rights are the one political movement in the last 40 years that really failed to gain a significant following, audience, and stature in this ever more strange culture we live in. And likewise, I think that if PETA members seriously think that efforts should be made to eliminate all pet keeping in America........well, keep it under wraps please or you just alienate the very population you need to reach in order to achieve your basic and entirely valid platforms.

I'll stop here after mentioning one more point...really should be doing other things but your response was so honest and well thought out it deserves attention.

The point you bring up around the quail you rescued is a central one to the argument. At some point sometimes our simple emotional responses does indeed overwhelm our rational and practical knowledge of the world. I think my original post is just distasteful to some people on a gut level and I respect that. And I think you should to honor that gut level response on a personal level and act in accordance with in your own personal realm. BUT I also think that these personal sympathies and antipathies should not be extended towards condemning other people who may simply not respond the same way you do as long as they are acting consciously within their own set of values to the best of their abilities. Thanks again for reply.



OK ... deep breath, everybody. I always cringe when animal rights comes up as a topic because there is so much emotion and so much misunderstanding--on both sides. I usually refrain from jumping in, but the moon is full and ... ;)

I worked for PETA for over a decade--I'm a card-carrying animal rights advocate. I am also a realist, and I hope, a compassionate person. I dislike people shoving animal rights rhetoric down other people's throats as much as I dislike the two or three endlessly-parroted and fallacious attacks on the concept of animal rights. (e.g., "if your baby or a cat were drowning, which would you save first?" or "you wear a leather belt, therefore *everything* else you say must be false" or "don't you feel sorry for the carrot you ate?")

The fact is, life is messy, people aren't perfect, and we always think otherwise. The other day I saved a quail from a hawk. How irrational, crazy, and utterly human is that? Well, last summer a quail couple decided to raise a family in our yard and since then, I've grown terribly attached to them. I know hawks (and everybody else) eat quails--I just couldn't stand to watch it! I rationalized my behavior by saying the quail population is in peril, which it is--but when that didn't work, I fell back on emotion ("I just LIKE the quails!").

What bothers me most about this topic is not that people disagree with animal rights--it's that 90% of the people *I* have come across who disagree with the animal rights position do NOT even know exactly what it is!

Come to think of it, a good percentage of the people who AGREE with animal rights are fuzzy on what it really entails. (For example, one thing it entails is that carnivorous animals should eat meat. 21st century humans are omnivores, not because we *must* or *should* be, but because we *prefer* to be.)

I don't speak for PETA here, but I would encourage *anyone* who thinks they know everything about animal rights to read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. It's an excellent primer on the subject--and quite possibly a life-changing book.

And it's far more rational, reasonable, logical--and all the other "human" characteristics we love so much--than you might think.

With respect for all,
Colleen :wink:

[michellelise]

Umm, I just really quickly wanted to say that regardless of how you feel about people keeping snakes as pets, I do agree with Barry's point that asking a community forum about ways to potentially cut out the middleman, industry, and waste involved in commercial petfood, by seeing if anyone in the community can help out in some trade is a very good idea. That said I could never own a snake due to the fact that they require meat, but the same is true of dogs and cats...

Its like when I lived on a farm, we killed two chickens while I lived there (4 years) and people ate them (they were old), and I have to say even though it was terribly hard and sad, I felt better about my neighbors making soup out of them, then engaging in the hell that is the animal food production industry...

Just a thought...

[cloudwalker]

Since I was a child I've always loved animals. I still remember the pain of seeing a group of older boys throwing frogs against a wall and being unable to stop them because I was younger and alone. I wondered why the world wasn't like the story of St. Francis of Assisi ...where everyone was friends and got along with each other.

The reality of life is that every living being eats another who is alive in order to continue living. For years I cursed God for creating such a predicament, until I embraced reality and let myself feel the pain of existence.

Oftentimes, people who are hunters or who raise animals for food lack sensitivity and don't really think about the implications of killing an animal....but they are in touch with reality. Oftentimes people who work for animal rights are more in touch with sensitivity and feel the meaning of death, but they are out of touch with nature and reality. Native Americans and other indigenous peoples respected and loved animals that they relied on for food. They were open to feel and take responsibility for their actions and accepted nature as it is.

Falconry has been my teacher in trying to emulate the Native American reverence for animals and acceptance of nature. I raise homing pigeons and falcons. I care for two creatures that have existed as predator and prey since the beginning of their existence. I lose pigeons to migratory hawks and I've lost falcons to larger raptors. I cull the pigeon flock and feed some of the birds to my falcons. It's not a pleasant part of the process, but I take my role seriously and treat the pigeons with respect and care.

When we accept that suffering and death are an unavoidable part of life and the reality of life....I believe that we do the most to provide the best life possible and reduce the amount of suffering. "It's not what you do, but how you do it" is the credo that I try to follow in my relationships with animals as well as people. We can't please everyone and we sometimes have to make decisions in life that we may feel are for the best that may be disagreeable or even hurt someone. I believe that the degree of presence and compassion is more important than the decisions themselves.

[cobalt]

I too have snakes. There is a local man who breeds rats and mice to sell as feeders; he also has prekilled frozen for sale.
As he is not an internet person, I am not going to post his phone number here, so please email me for his info.
All animal rights debates and flames will be deleted.

email me at reptiles AT ciar DOT org