The Animals That Feed Our Animals

This is an uncomfortable subject.

Perhaps one of the most uncomfortable in all of herpetoculture.

Because beneath every healthy snake, monitor lizard or frog lies a question that most of us don't spend much time thinking about.

What responsibilities do we have to the animals that feed our animals?

The reality is simple.

Many of the animals we keep are predators.

That isn't because they're cruel. It isn't because they enjoy killing. It certainly isn't because they harbour some deep-rooted hatred of small furry things.

It's because, over millions of years of evolution, that's exactly what they evolved to do.

Predators eat prey.

Without prey...

There are no predators.

For many keepers, that means buying frozen rodents from reputable breeders. Others choose to breed their own rats, mice or multimammate mice to feed their collections.

And when we decide to become breeders ourselves, something changes.

We're no longer responsible for one collection of animals.

We're responsible for two.

Watching the Fur Fly

When Penny and I decided to establish a breeding colony of multimammate mice, it wasn't because we'd suddenly developed an overwhelming desire to become rodent enthusiasts.

We needed a reliable, healthy source of prey animals for our growing collection of rescues and breeding reptiles.

Fortunately, some good friends of ours—who breed both rats and multimammates for their own snake collections—helped us get started.

My first job?

Work out what on earth a multimammate actually was.

Like many keepers, I'd always thought of them as slightly unusual-looking rats that royal pythons seemed disproportionately enthusiastic about.

As it turns out...

They're nothing of the sort.

They have their own natural history, their own ecology, their own preferred temperatures, social structure and dietary requirements. They aren't simply "snake food." They're a species in their own right with their own behavioural needs.

That meant I had another collection of animals to understand.

Another enclosure to build.

Another species to learn.

And, perhaps most importantly...

Another welfare standard to uphold.

Making the enclosure escape-proof, of course, sounded wonderfully straightforward.

It wasn't.

Furballs

The adults settled quickly and wasted absolutely no time making themselves at home. They fed enthusiastically on an incredibly varied diet of... well... just about everything. If it was edible, they were interested. Their enthusiasm for food rivalled my own, which is saying something.

The three females were also heavily pregnant. At this point Penny and I were still referring to them as gravid. Some habits die hard.

Three weeks later...

There were considerably more multimammates.

More than thirty tiny pinkies squirmed away in communal nests, fed, cleaned and cared for not just by their mothers but by the other females in the colony as well. Watching them was fascinating. The social structure of multimammates is remarkably sophisticated. Multiple males coexist peacefully within mixed colonies under suitable conditions, females cooperate in raising young, individuals groom one another, communicate audibly and engage in what can only be described as play.

The more I watched them...

The less they resembled "feeder rodents."

They were simply another social mammal.

Of course, as the babies grew, so did the amount of food and water disappearing every day.

That part was entirely expected.

What wasn't expected...

...was discovering the one weakness in our supposedly escape-proof enclosure.

One evening Penny and I were doing what every exhausted reptile keeper dreams of: children in bed, animals fed, glass of wine in hand and half an hour of uninterrupted television.

Then...

A young multimammate ran straight across Penny's foot.

Which, in hindsight, was remarkably fortunate.

Had it chosen my foot instead, instinct would almost certainly have introduced it to low Earth orbit.

Penny's response was considerably more measured.

"What was that?"

Those three words marked the official beginning of what has since become known in our house as...

The Great Multimammate Hunt of 2025.

Sixteen youngsters had discovered a gap we'd somehow overlooked and were now scattered around the living room.

Penny's priority was obvious.

Catch every last one before they injured themselves—or, even worse, discovered one of the snake enclosures and accidentally became an unscheduled midnight snack.

My priorities were rather different.

"They'd better not chew through my bloody cables."

The Hard Part

The multimammates turned out to be fascinating little animals. They breed at a rate that would make rabbits slightly self-conscious, they're inexpensive to keep and, if I'm honest, they're great fun to watch.

But they were here for a reason.

That reason was to feed our snakes.

I won't go into the details of euthanasia. The animals were humanely dispatched and any surplus frozen for future use. It isn't pleasant. Nobody enjoys it. Even now I wait until the kids are in bed before firing up what has become known in our house as Ratschwitz.

Humour helps.

It doesn't change the responsibility.

Penny and I have always aimed to provide the highest standards of welfare for every reptile, amphibian and invertebrate we keep. Somewhere along the way, without really thinking about it, we started doing exactly the same for the multimammates.

They had a spacious enclosure.

A varied diet.

Fresh water.

Good health.

The opportunity to behave like multimammates.

One evening I caught myself asking a question.

Why do we bother?

The answer came back almost immediately.

Why wouldn't we?

They may be feeder animals, but while they're alive, they're still our animals. Their welfare is our responsibility, right up until the moment it isn't.

We can choose how they live.

We can choose how they die.

To me...

That's just good husbandry.

It's All About the Money

Let's be honest for a moment.

Money is part of the decision.

Electricity isn't getting cheaper. Frozen rodents certainly aren't getting cheaper, and keeping reptiles these days can feel like taking out a second mortgage. For many keepers, breeding their own feeder rodents can reduce long-term costs, particularly if they're maintaining large breeding collections. Pretending finances don't influence our decisions would simply be dishonest.

But...

If saving money is the only reason you're thinking about breeding rodents, I'd suggest thinking twice.

The animals you're breeding don't stop being animals simply because they're destined to become food.

There is nothing unethical about buying high-quality frozen rodents from a reputable breeder. Equally, there is nothing unethical about breeding your own. The ethics don't lie in where the animal came from.

They lie in the standard of care it receives while it's alive.