Live Kittens Fed to Snakes

Yes, live kittens are fed to snakes as a regular diet. Sounds gruesome. Do we care? This has been brought to my notice by Gahame, a regular visitor of PoC. He picked it up on the internet. People advertise "kitten free to good home" and Mr Macho Man with his large snakes rings up...that is it. He convinces the irresponsible cat owner who has allowed her cat to breed that he is a suitable candidate to provide loving lifetime care for this little vulnerable kitten. As soon as he has collected the kitten and returned home, he joyously chucks it into the snake's enclose and watches. You know, kittens put up less of a struggle than puppies which makes them popular with these horrible people. But puppies are used as well.

I seems that the normal snake food is raw prey type food that has been bred, pre-killed and frozen and then sold (mice, rats, rabbits etc.). But for some people this sort of food is not good enough. It has to be live for these macho monsters and Craigslist is an excellent source as it is probably the world's largest, online, free advertising agency.

There are probably lots of ads for cats on Graigslist although I read somewhere that at one time they prohibited the advertising of cats on their website. Is this still the case or have they relaxed their rules? Graiglist is a USA based website. This problem seems to be more prevalent in the USA than elsewhere. Americans do have a penchant for keeping exotic pets. This includes tigers etc. See Joe Exotic's story.

In the UK it would have to be animal cruelty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to fed live kittens to snakes as it must cause unnecessary suffering.

The whole thing disgusts me. But the snake owner will say, what is the problem? There are too many cats without homes that have to be killed at cat shelters because no one wants them. And live mice are fed to snakes and it seems few people find that objectionable. We eat rabbits, cows and sheep etc. What do you think? Please leave a comment.