Conundrum over Predator and Prey

[Oz_]

So we are the proud owners of a ball python. Have had her for a little over a year now. She's grown quite a bit since we got her from my niece who had her for about a year prior. Originally we fed her 3 mice every 10 to 13 days, but as she grew we upgraded to 4 mice, then to a single small rat, and now to a single medium sized rat. Going from feeding her mice to rats was a very difficult transition for me because about 10 or 15 years ago I had a pet rat. I had no difficulty feeding mice to Thulsa (snake's name), because I see them as inferior to rats. Like goblins to orcs, for those familiar with D&D. But I realized that my duty was to my pet, and I had selected a pet a bit higher on the food chain than my prior pet, so I feed her what she needs to eat.

The snake goddess gets her weekly live sacrifices lol

That all said, every so often Thulsa refuses food. Sometimes this is because she detects that it's sickly, as I've found when putting the intended prey into a holding cage (which I've dubbed "Pergamum") overnight with food and water only to find it dead in the morning. Sometimes her reasons are all her own. One time I returned a "surviving champion" to the pet store, with the suggestion that it should be placed with those intended to be pets rather than back with the feeders, and that it's resale value should be higher now that it has faced death and emerged victorious. Such an event occurred again this week, although I suspect the reason to be that Thulsa is beginning to shed, and the skin on her eyes has risen up off of them enough to temporarily blind her. She's eaten before despite this condition, so I figured I'd try this time too, but she was totally uninterested. Upon retrieving the little fella (who by the way had extremely huge testicles, quite noticeably so), He kept looking at me as though he was talking to me, in that way that animals who "choose" you as a pet can do. I started to like him, enough so that I mused about naming him something like Testicules or Cojo (short for Cojones).

But the idea of keeping him as a pet whilst continuing to sacrifice his kind weekly to the snake just didn't sit right with me. I opened the topic up for debate on my Facebook page, and the idea was suggested that I could get a female and breed them, feeding the offspring to the snake, and in my mind I pictured a Faustian hermit signing a pact with an Elder Thing (me) to sacrifice all of his future progeny to the snake goddess in exchange for his continued life of opulence. As cool as that sounded, I don't really want to put in the effort it takes to commit to successful animal husbandry. Another friend of mine who had owned pythons for a long time (one big enough to require live rabbits) made a convincing point that I would be being disingenuous to the food chain by permitting such a disruption of the natural order. I respect such things, and so I needed a different solution. I thought perhaps I could keep it long enough until she moulted, but I was sure Jena and I would have grown attached to him by then. I prayed on it and went to bed. 

In the morning, my friend Bob offered to take the little guy as a reward pet for his 6 year old daughter after she did a good job taking care of his cat for the school year prior. She chose a rat as the pet she wanted, and they're intending to get one at the store as well, so hopefully the two will get along (maybe even mate). Only adding this part in so that the reader will have a sense of closure to my tale. 

The reason I post this is to ask a question of the group: What are your feelings regarding keeping both predator and prey as pets? Am I alone in finding this a (ever so slightly) moral conundrum, or do most people feel nothing when keeping a favorite of a kind whilst feeding it's people to another beast within earshot?

[Scary Guy]

This reminds me of a story, (apologies for the language, it is from 4chan after all).  

 

Now I should mention I don't like pets.  I do like other people's pets but they've never really been my thing.

When it comes to feeding mammals to reptiles it feels weird to me; as you're feeding a higher evolved creature to a lower one.  Mammals have more cognitive reasoning and understand emotion better.  Reptiles are mostly instinct but can still be pretty brilliant.

Personally I'd keep them on separate floors, or at least separate rooms.

That said, I'd also create an enclosure based off of Jabba's lair in The Empire Strikes Back, for funsies.  But only if she won't eat dead food of course.  I'd prefer to end them quick if possible.

Oh, this is fun too:

[Scary Guy]

I JUST saw this.  Makes me happy the littler but smarter guy won for once.

Kind of wish they could have just been friends though.

[Oz_]

The person that left that mouse in the tank with the snake was an idiot and should have known better. I didn't realize you had such a hatred for snakes. I don't know what I expected when I posted this, but this wasn't it. 

[Scary Guy]

I don't hate them, sorry if I came across as anti-snek.  I just like them less than I do mice and other animals with a higher brain capacity.  I've also had multiple friends (five off the top of my head) who've owned snakes and hung out with them.  Here's an album with my friend Mike who brought out a turtle and a snake (people need FB to view unfortunately).

https://www.facebook.com/pg/MortisCity/photos/?tab=album&album_id=212719815440072

Also I like laughing at horrible things too, because that's about all you can do.  I'd have liked it if the snake and the mouse could have both lived and been buddies forever.  Unfortunately life doesn't work that way.

Also if you noticed I did try to offer (my limited armchair) advice.  So I was actively trying to help.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Scary Guy