Not posted here for a while. (Usual story…not enough hours in the day, and computer problems!)
My house is rapidly turning into a menagerie! My beautiful ginger and white cat is having kittens in 4 weeks time. (The dad is my parent’s long haired ginger male). I can’t wait!
Also, I’m getting two beautiful Corn snakes at the weekend. Just putting the finishing touches to their new vivarium, so everything’s all ready. Even got a box full of frozen baby mice sitting in the bottom of my freezer! …for all you squeamish ones out there, this is the peril of snake keeping…they don’t eat anything else except mice!
I’ll post some pics when my furry and scaly new arrivals arrive!
If you have Corns together from hatchlings, or from being quite young and just keep them apart to feed them (pop one in a seperate little viv), they’ll be fine. Occasionally 2 males together will disagree with each other, and a male and a female together will obviously mate, but 2 females will be fine together. They’re usually really laid back snakes, and if they’ve got a big enough viv, they’re OK.
I also was thinking this was going to be some kind of warning about not letting corn snakes be around kittens . I’m glad it’s a happy story. I can’t wait to see the photos of the little furry ones----as long as that doesn’t mean the frozen baby mice! (I suppose they don’t have much fur.—Not sure I need the details on that one )
There are a lot of people on C&F who have snakes. It makes me glad.
Many people feed kittens to snakes. It’s not as bad as people think, as long as the kittens are humanely killed. It’s no different from feeding a snake a rat. It’s much less severe than a person eating ham, because a snake cannot live without eating other animals.
Do you mean kittens as in baby rabbits?? I hope so!
Feeding (cat) kittens to a snake would be seen as totally barbaric in the UK and totally unnecessary. Big rats are the same size and are bred specifically for this purpose. Kittens are not.
Right, and around here we see eating dogs as barbaric even though they do it in China. But ultimately, an animal humanely killed for snake food is an animal humanely killed for snake food, regardless of species. (I think that’s Cran’s point. I too have a greater emotional reaction to the kitten idea, but rabbits and rats are people too, so to speak.)
No, I mean (humanely euthanized) baby cats. As in, meow. It’s no more barbaric than feeding a snake baby rats or feeding a human baby dogs, chickens, or cows. Emmline is right–that is my point. If my snake were ever large enough, I’d let it eat a cat.
It’s taken me a long time to realize this, and I’m still realizing it, but kittens and puppies are no more “special” than rats, cows, or rabbits. Saying so is an ethno-cultural bias. As somebody else pointed out–they eat dogs in part of China and most people in India would never eat a cow.
I feel that in order to be intellectually consistent, people (but not snakes) have the liberty to either accept all of them as food or none of them. There are no good, solid, reasons to pick and chose based on “puppies are cute” or “chickens taste better.” I accept none of them–eating a cow is the same as eating a puppy. Maybe you will accept all of them, and maybe you will start eating puppies because they taste good.
Ethno-cultural bias is an intellectually perfectly consistent basis for dietary choices. And among most people I know there is a pretty strong ethno-cultural bias toward considering it rude to tell others what they are at liberty to accept as food or not.
Pointing to Chinese culinary choices is not so straight forward, either. The Chinese keep dogs as pets, but these are specific breeds, just as there are specific breeds of dogs raised on farms specifically for human consumption. The Chinese also eat rats.
There are restaurants in some parts of China that specialize in snakes. The snakes are presented live in a large basket at the table. You pick your snake(s), specify what type of dishes you want prepared, and within half an hour the delicasies start coming to your table. Freshness is very important in Chinese cuisine.
The Chinese have a saying that anything that shows its back to the sun is edible, but there are refinements within that broad generalization.
ok, that is just not attractive.
But to be fair, I was turned off when Fuddruckers used to hang sides of beef in a windowed refrig-room that you’d pass as you walked in. At least they removed the heads.
. I’m glad it’s a happy story. I can’t wait to see the photos of the little furry ones----as long as that doesn’t mean the frozen baby mice! (I suppose they don’t have much fur.—Not sure I need the details on that one 
You should post pictures.
