Snakes are strict carnivores. They can not feed on anything but meat. So it is not possible to feed a snake vegan. However, there are two species of snakes that eat a vegetarian diet.
Snakes in nature eat exclusively other animals. However, there are two rare species of snakes that are vegetarian – they feed on bird and reptile eggs.
What do snakes eat in the wild?
Snakes can be found in almost all regions of the world, living for example in deserts, in the mountains and in the rainforest. Thus, the spectrum of their food is also large, but all snakes have one thing in common: they feed exclusively on live animals.
Snakes eat small animals of all kinds, i.e. rodents, reptiles, amphibians, insects and birds. They only eat plants via the stomach contents of their prey. Depending on the species and size, snakes eat the following animals:
- Mice
- rats
- squirrels
- chipmunks
- frogs
- Insects
- Lizards
- Worms
- Beetles
- Snails
- Birds
Larger snakes can even eat animals much larger than themselves – such as deer, monkeys, or wild boars. The king snake even eats other snakes, including venomous snakes.
How do snakes eat and digest their food?
Snakes are nimble due to their design and can ambush their prey. They usually lie in wait for their prey over a longer period of time and then bite with lightning speed. Most mammals have no chance to flee when attacked so quickly.
They cannot chew food with their teeth, so they must swallow their catch whole. Their jaws are designed to open wider than their own bodies to swallow their prey whole.
Venomous snakes inject venom into their prey, which the animal ‘predigests’ even before the snake has swallowed it.
Their muscles are then used to push the food deeper into their body towards their stomach. During 3-7 days (depending on age, size and temperature of the snake) they digest their prey there. This requires a lot of energy: the heartbeat increases and the snakes need about 40 times more oxygen than at rest.
Hydrochloric acid then comes into play in the stomach. The gastric juice becomes more acidic from the moment the prey is eaten. Whereas before it had about the pH of water (about 7), afterwards the pH is about 1.5. The stomach acids process the prey into a pulp. They attack everything except chitin (insect carapace) and keratin (hair, feathers and claws), which they excrete undigested.
Why can’t snakes be vegan?
Snakes cannot already mechanically crush their food with their teeth, since their few teeth are only loosely attached to the jaw and are not as deeply anchored as, for example, those of us humans. With their teeth they can hold the prey and inject venom if it is a poisonous snake.
This also means that snakes cannot, for example, tear off grass or pull a carrot out of the ground. The body structure of snakes is entirely designed to swallow food whole.
Not to mention that snakes do not have the teeth or digestion to eat plants, they are also very picky animals. They probably wouldn’t touch plant food. Many snakes won’t even eat mice that just came out of the refrigerator – they have to sense the prey’s body heat before they snap.
Can you feed a viper vegan?
Corn snakes are probably the most popular snake among pet owners. However, they are no exception among snakes – corn snakes also feed only on animals. Juveniles should get a dead mouse every 7-10 days, adults every 2-4 weeks.
In fact, however, there are two species of snakes that do not live on meat, namely the African and Indian egg snakes. Both feed exclusively on eggs.
These egg snakes are non-poisonous. They eat fresh reptile and bird eggs, which they ingest whole and break open with muscle pressure in the esophagus. The contents of the egg they swallow, the eggshells they regurgitate. Thus, there are no species of adders that can eat a vegan diet.
What should you look for when purchasing a snake?
These are the five most common ways snakes enter private homes:
- The majority of snakes that are offered for pet keeping come from breeders. They often breed as a money-making hobby. By regularly ensuring that new snakes are brought into the world, breeders create double suffering: firstly, there are more snakes that will spend their lives in captivity, and secondly, during a snake’s life, quite a few mice are collected that have to be sacrificed as food. Assuming a life expectancy of 30 years, and taking an average of one mouse every two weeks, a snake’s life costs the lives of 780 mice. So it is important to avoid breeding under all circumstances.
- Even in pet stores, snakes are often offered for sale. This is purely financially motivated and should not be supported under any circumstances – for the reasons mentioned above.
- Even less should one buy a snake from a wild catch. In this case, the snake is taken from its natural habitat and confined for life. The fewer people who support this business, the less demand and hunting for these fascinating reptiles. It goes against the vegan idea of using animals for the entertainment of us humans.
- Animal shelters or reptile sanctuaries often have snakes. The animals are given away there because the owners can no longer take care of them or because abandoned snakes have been found.
- There are always animals from private households, which are looking for a new home. These are mostly advertised online or in specific magazines. Here it is important to clarify exactly how the snake was kept, how it is doing and why it is given away: Were there (unexpected) offspring? Or is the snake already older and the owner can no longer take care of it? Only by a careful clarification one can prevent that one supports here a breeding or even a bad attitude.
I am vegan and have to take care of a snake – what now?
Snakes are wild animals and do not belong in a terrarium. This habitat is much too small for them. Besides, you have to feed snakes with other animals. So keeping snakes is not vegan under any circumstances.
Now, of course, there can be several reasons why a vegan living person still has to care for a snake: For example, because you take care of an animal in need or because you got the snake several years ago and only became vegan afterwards – after all, snakes can live up to 40 years.
Now the snake is already living in captivity, so it can’t be abandoned because it wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild. So it is a matter of caring for the animal as best as possible until it dies a natural death.
This situation gives vegans two possible options:
- Give the snake to someone who would have gotten an animal from a breeding instead. It is important that you inform the new owner about the disadvantages of breeding and in the best case you get a promise that the person will not get animals from breeders anymore. Of course, it is not easy to find someone with whom you are also sure that he will take care of the animal in the best possible way. But the effort is worth it, because you can reduce at least a little suffering.
You keep the snake, and do your best to reduce the animal suffering. Because someone else will feed the animals with meat in the same way – you can at least control that everything goes as well as possible. So on the one hand it is important to offer the snake in its Terrariu, the best possible life, on the other hand the food of the snake should also experience as little suffering as possible.
Snakes learn quickly in the terrarium keeping to accept even already dead animals. These simply need to be brought to room temperature before feeding.
Frozen mice from pet stores come from cruel to animals mass production. The best option is to obtain the necessary food animals only from a personally known breeding with species-appropriate mouse husbandry. This can also be the zoo, for example, as they also breed mice for their carnivorous animals.
When feeding, it is also important to ensure that the snake is not fed too much – after all, each meal costs an animal its life. Obesity is a common disease among snakes and develops in combination of limited exercise and too frequent feeding.
These questions might also arise:
What happens when you feed snakes plants?
The instinct of snakes demands that they hunt or wait until the prey is in their immediate vicinity. Then they strike and eat the animal. If you were to present them with a carrot or grass, they would not even perceive it as food. It becomes dangerous if you force a vegan diet: The animals would starve.
Which reptiles are suitable for vegans?
Vegans do not use animals for entertainment and therefore do not keep pets for fun. However, there are many animals in need that vegans can provide a good home for. Reptiles that can easily be fed a vegan diet include the ornate spiny-tailed dragon, green iguanas, and turtles..