In article ,
"Cindy" wrote:

I eat meat every day, kill every mosquito that lands on me, poison fireants
regularly to keep them out of my yard and trap the mice in my garage.
I feed rats to my snakes and crickets to my lizards because that's what they
*eat.* They can't survive on salad.
My dogs eat dry food made from meat, and I cook them a lovely ground chicken
mixture, because dogs are not vegetarians.
When I lived home on the farm, I shot gophers and coyotes, killed millions
of houseflies with bait traps and poisoned lots of mice.
We all do what we're taught and what we consider necessary to protect our
livelihood and quality of life, and I doubt anyone is thrilled be told
they're wrong, bad, heinous murderers for doing it.

What kind of lizards do you have? :-)
I just dropped 5 bucks on crickets yesterday for my pet bullfrog. She is
still a baby but is really growing fast, so beginning to eat a lot more!
She morphed in early January of this year. I bought her as a tadpole.

I've always wanted a large frog! G Pretty tame too, especially
compared to leapard frogs. Siggy lets me handle and pet her. She's about
2" long now and gettng hefty.

I gut load her crickets with a mix of fish food and reptile vitamins.
She has also increased her cricket intake since I put her on moss
instead of fishtank gravel. I think she finds it more comfortable. I
should have used that as substrate in the first place! I was worried
about ease of keeping it clean, but it appears it's actually going to be
easier than rinsing gravel once every couple of weeks.

I want to eventually build her a large vivarium once I finish
redecorating the livingroom. Half land and half water. Once she gets
bigger, she really should have access to feeder fish to eat, so that
will require a better aquatic habitat.

It's funny how the crickets all swarm the food dish when they are put in
her terrarium. The pet store does not feed them so they are always very
hungry... Poor things! :-(

Also, how are you killing houseflies? I'm having a problem with them on
the sun porch and the usual stinkbait drowning bag trap is not
attracting these for some reason. I've considered Golden Mallorin (sp?)
but the last time I bought it, it did not work very well.

I used to keep a pet boa constrictor but I lost her after a very long
(and expensive) fight with some sort of gastrointestinal disorder.
sigh Sucked too. I had her for several years and Babs was a really
nice pet. I won't keep pet snakes anymore. I just don't really have the
space now that we've moved into a smaller house. I always did feel a bit
sorry for the rats. ;-) I've kept pet rats and they are smart and
interesting pets. Too bad they only live about 2 years. My last pet rat
was one of those naked, hairless ones. She only lived about 1 year. :-(

Many snake owners train their pet snakes to eat fresh frozen rats,
thawed and warmed. It's less risky for the snakes as rat bites during
constriction can be a problem and can get infected. Or, if a rat is left
unattended with a snake that is not ready to eat, the rat can inflict
severe damage to a snake. I've seen horrible photos of that. :-( I
always supervised feedings when I fed live, but I did eventually switch
her to FF thawed rats. She ate them ok.
--
Om.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." -Jack Nicholson