Dyskenetic syndrome

[Colin D Wilson]

Bryan,

Regarding the freezing of mice etc, unfortunately if you're a reptile owner in the UK you end up supporting (by having to purchase) those "people" as, i'm sure you're aware, its illegal to use live vertebrates as food items.

The only time i felt really "completely guiltless" (can't think of another way to put it) was when i was given large rabbits, that had died of old age, to feed to my larger Burmese Pythons.

There was a company (late 80's Devon area, UK) that used to provide frozen vertebrates for food items, the difference here was they used high voltage electric shock initially.
morally, i dont know where this fits in, but i know the company was issued an instruction (backed by local autorities) from one of the animal protection societies to stop and they went back to freezing. The companies argument was that we had once used the electric chair as the most efficient way to execute a person. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall at that courtroom meeting i can tell you.

You're right with your theory about listening to people with clout (or apparent knowledge), but isn't that just the way of the world !!!

[James Box]

i have to feed pre-killed mice to my Brazilian rainbow boa...
the shop keeper, who seemed an ethical bloke based on his treatment and care for his reptiles, told me that the mice as far as he knew were gased. so i don't know how that all fits in, either.

it makes sense to use pre-killed rodents only as prey items, where ever possible, as a dead animal cannot harm your pet (except if it gives them gas)...so that's a good argument for it.
perhaps the predator would kill the prey more humanely then freezing, though...so i don't know.

yes, would definitely have been interesting to be at that trial!
imagine that...being told to stop killing the creatures quickly in favour of a slow freezing death. nice. good of those "animal rights" people to be so caring. that really winds me up...i'm all for animal protection, but we can't approach these issues (or any issue) with a knee-jerk reaction. this is evidently a case of that, if i've not misunderstood it.
death will never be a "pleasant" experience for the prey animal, so it's best for it to be over with as quickly as possible with minimal suffering...

[colin haris]

i have say i would agree with bryan, I think the heavy object thing would work best in terms of speed and most humane. I remember when my works offices had a mouse infestation issue, they would use horrible spring loaded traps, and sometimes when i got to work in the morning a mouse would be badly injured but not killed. I would always put then out of there misery swiftly with a brick...the girls moaned about it, but i couldnt see them suffer and die slowly

btw i mean on the T thing...not the snakes and mice thing :P

[Colin D Wilson]

. this is evidently a case of that, if i've not misunderstood it.

From what knowledge i picked up on the incident, you're right on track James.
"Knee-jerk reaction".....good phrase....nicely put!!

[Bryan_Dennis]

I totally understand that if you have reptiles then you also have to supply them with food they'll eat however my main disagreement is with the practice of bagging live young and then freezing them in a regular freezer.
It's inhumane and in my opinion should be illegalized, especially when theres relatively cheap alternatives...I can understand the freezing and vacuum packing, it's just that i believe the animal should be dead first.

Reptile/invert owners in Denmark are not forbidden to use live feed and every now and again a thread will pop up on a scandinavian forum with a title like "just fed my imperator a pinkie..PICTURES!!!". There'll then be a host of replies all along the lines of "wow", "cool" "gotta try that!" "how long before it was dead" and so forth..
It'll be a fun day at a political conference before someone shows any sort of dissaproval.

I also often notice at trade shows that some dealers try to squeeze as many pinkies into a bag as possible before freezing it..............! Apart from the slow death in the freezer a lot of them are getting bones broken and various other types of damage pre-mortem.

You're right with your theory about listening to people with clout (or apparent knowledge), but isn't that just the way of the world !!!

Only if you allow it...

[Colin D Wilson]

my main disagreement is with the practice of bagging live young and then freezing them in a regular freezer.
It's inhumane

Agreed, never done it for food stock, never will.

There'll then be a host of replies all along the lines of "wow", "cool" "gotta try that!" "how long before it was dead" and so forth..

Same as some of the American forums then, gets a bit tedious and boring reading through them at times.

Only if you allow it...

Only accept it if it makes sense, check the validity first though

[Rich.Harrington]

Ironically the best method I've seen used for vertibrates was also the most brutal. A chap who had an exotic store near me a number of years back would buy in pre-killed for anything small, but for adult mice and up it would be live. His method was place the animal in a bag and proceeed to hit it hard against a wall. I've seen freezing being done, and I've seen neck breaking practiced, both of which involved sounds of distress coming from the animal. However with his way you saw a curious healthy mouse/rat go into a bag, 2 seconds later you took out a dead food item without a peep. Perhaps all our animal rights folk only class "humane" as the ways they can bear to perform without any guilt?

[Taki Tsonis]

One thing that hasn't been properly answered in this thread is if anything can be done? I have a L klugii that has dyskinetic syndrome, but it has survived for a year now, gone through a molt and is heading for a second molt! It seems to be improving ever so slightly (unless I'm getting used to it). It is catching crickets a bit more easily lately!
It is about 12-14cm LS. 1 or 2 people have suggested that if it keeps going, there's a chance it may improve?????? Any definitive ideas?

[Stuart Collins]

i think those animal rights people have got it all wrong, it would seem now they don't want to protect animals in a way that makes the animals happier, but makes them happier. I feel there is absolutely no problem with killing anything, as long as your going to eat it, or give it to something that will, and in nature if a tiger or something is chasing after a gazelle it's not going to try to have a bit of fun killing it, or put it in the freezer as it can't bear to physically harm it itself, it kills it as fast as possible. We should recreate this in modern life, kill it as fast as possible, if you feel that taking 5 minutes to die is too long then beat it with a blunt object like Brian said, as long as it's dead and it's going to good use then it's fine.

[James Box]

it would seem now they don't want to protect animals in a way that makes the animals happier, but makes them happier.

think you've hit the nail clearly and humanely on the head!

[Colin D Wilson]

Yes Stuart, i agree with James (as you will see in my earlier post)

spot on mate !!

[Bryan_Dennis]

Animal rights people are not all bad and are for the most only doing what they believe is right......It's just a question of perspective and majority rules.................and lets be fair, as an organisation they do do some good work when the funds are there.

However such a cavalier attitude as to say that there is no problem with killing anything as long as the end product is food is something i can't personally identify with.

I don't use mammáls at all for feeding spiders or scorpions as there seems something fundamentally wrong with a mammal feeding other mammals to a invertebrate.
I know it happens in the wild but at least in the wild the prey has a chance of escape if's it strong, quick and smart enough.....Battery mice where every one is earmarked as food apparently conflicts with my principles of fairness.
I find that i have absolutely no problems feeding my spiders up on variety of feeder insects and occasionally a cube of raw meat. In the wild meat would be a rarity for many spider species and there's no doubt that insects would make up the bulk of their diet.
I understand if other people want to include fresh mammal in a spiders diet but for the most cases i would have thought that one mice per spider per year would suffice and for anything not yet adult it's not necessary at all.
However the amount of mice sold at trade shows every year would suggest that i find myself in a minority of a minority....!

[James Box]

um...that comment that you've interpreted as "the end product being food" was more to do with the fact that, for him, the death of one organism results in the nutrition of another organism, and thus is not wasted.
in that spirit, i have no guilt issues with using something that's already dead.
after all, i eat meat myself.
everything else is fair enough and a personal choice, but you've really jumped to a conclusion on that statement you've called "cavalier."

as for the animal rights associations doing good work...of course, that definitely happens at times, but there is alot of ignorance at work there too. the culling of deer up north is necessary, sadly, because we have removed the natural predators from the area. the culling of seals in the Canadian Arctic is again a sad necessity, because the alternative would be painful starvation.
these facts are often blatantly ignored by the more emotive members of normally well-intentioned animal rights organisations.
if i was to form an animal rights movement, i'd do my research and defer to the experts. if the animal i was concerned about was a tarantula, i would defer to the BTS for instance, as i could trust that their knowledge and passion for these creatures results in the best treatment and conservation that we currently know how to give.
unfortunately, due to alot of people anthropomorphising invertebrates, they base their interpretation of the care these animals receive on how they personally would feel. that's not ever going to result in an accurate interpretation of the facts!
"oh the poor tarantula, sitting in a tank...it'd be so much happier free"
well, sorry but that tarantula has the equivalent of its natural burrow, with all its needs met and no danger of a predator or invasion. it defends its "burrow" as it would a hole in the ground, and it behaves exactly as we've observed in the wild. there is no evidence of its unhappiness whatsoever!

that's the problem we're addressing in regards to animal rights groups. yes, they can definitely do good. wonderful what they do for dogs and cats. the problem is they need to keep their well-intentioned noses out of the area of exotic pets, and trust that the associations (like the BTS) that exist are doing their part.

[Stuart Collins]

you say you don't agree with feeding mammals to mammals, does that mean other than poultry and fish you are a vegetarian? is not a cow, a sheep, or a pig a mammal? then how can you say such things? and also the amount of tarantulas that would be needed to consume a whole cow or pig! i think that would save hundreds of crickets lives, so if you are talking about what is right should not we breed more big animals and dice them up and feed them to save the lives of thousands? of course the animal rights activist definitely deserve credit for helping thousands of animals, but as James said they need to get their facts straight and weigh them up (pros vs. cons) before they start telling people what they can and cannot do!

[Bryan_Dennis]

Allright line up boy's....who's first....lol

This sentence.......

I feel there is absolutely no problem with killing anything, as long as your going to eat it, or give it to something that will,

was the basis for this comment..........

However such a cavalier attitude as to say that there is no problem with killing anything as long as the end product is food is something i can't personally identify with

No matter how many times i run that through it seems a perfectly valid comment and i can't see how i've jumped to any sort of conclusion, the words speak for themselves....however if you mean i have then fair enough, i'll take that slap.

As for your comments about animal right organisations they were fair enough but you didn't address the issue of HOW these culling are done, nor that in most cases it's human intervention that has cause their problems.
Many methods of culling could be considered barbaric. The simple fact that most culled animals bear witness to their own slaughter should be enough to find other solutions...What right have we to inflict the terror of death on any animal before the act of death itself....If they must die then it should be immediate and without prior knowledge. Research should have been done years ago to discover just how this could be accomplished.

you say you don't agree with feeding mammals to mammals, does that mean other than poultry and fish you are a vegetarian

Hmmm, you are right, i should have worded that differently...I wouldn't feed poultry or fish to a tarantula either but i'm also sort of guessing that not many other people would either and if they would, yeah then that's up to them..

you say you don't agree with feeding mammals to mammals

lol......No, i said as a mammal it seems fundamently wrong that i should feed a mammal to an invertebrate.....duh!

Ignorance...yeah, that's a relative thing if ever there was one....stones and greenhouses comes to mind as does focus and misrepresentation....

Don't think about it to much..