I’ve stumbled across videos on YouTube that show snake owners feeding them a live rate or rabbit or whatever. Some people in the comments say well that’s just nature, others say it’s animal abuse. What do you think?
On reddit I saw a snake owner saying what they normally do is kill the prey beforehand with a CO2 chamber and freeze it, and that there’s no reason to feed live. Like the snakes don’t need it. If that’s true I guess it’s needless suffering then. Weird that these videos are so available on YouTube then.
I think with animal welfare, it matters less how the animal dies, and more the quality of life before death. Of course, death by torture or something would be bizarre and inexcusable. Some animals, even specific individual animals, need live prey if they are to be kept in captivity. It’d be more productive to advocate for better living conditions than “comfortable” deaths.