CARNAGE
My hubby took some great video very recently, so good I
decided to share it with anyone who might like to view it. You may find it interesting, completely natural,
fascinating, alarming, disgusting and horrific, all at once.
We’ve taught our kids at a young age to respect nature, and
I think these feedings have instilled respect and awe for the miracle of
life. What you’re about to see, if you
choose, is our almost five-foot corn snake Patches having a meal of mouse. The habitat is also home to Snakey (I didn’t
name him), a water snake who eats goldfish.
Currently, the cricket population has been wiped out, so all is quiet,
and the last lizard died a natural death (we think) a few weeks ago. The population will be replenished when hubby
feels like restoring it. The circle of
life.
The carnage doesn’t begin on sight. The mouse (you never name animals who are to
be served as a meal) is busy tearing up the terrarium and burrowing for who
knows what as soon as he’s introduced to his temporary home, unaware of the
danger he’s in. He will think he’s
landed in paradise when his little mouse feet hit the bark. Although he does have the good sense to
spring instinctively out of the way of the snake as he slithers by.
Patches pokes his nose out, actually his serpent tongue, from
his lair to get a good whiff of the air now scented with mouse. He stretches out to do a couple laps around
the tank, surveying his prey before coiling to strike. I’m guessing he’s sizing
up the mouse, deciding on an angle to strike to minimize the chances of being
bitten or scratched when the mouse gets put on the defense. I don’t really know this for certain. I don’t speak Snake. But it looks like his strategizing; his
patience appears deliberate. He a
beauty, although I’m going predict when you see him unhinge his jaw to stuff
his mouth with mouse, you won’t be admiring his exquisitely colored markings.
So now here’s the part – here’s where you’ll find you won’t
be able to look away. You know the
expression about rubber necking, and how you we can’t look away from the scene
of an accident. This is it. You can decide for yourself how upsetting it
is to watch one animal attack another.
The outcome is fatal, but it’s what occurs within a food chain. Like any ecosystem, the balance is
delicate. And survival involves
violence. (If you can watch Hunger Games, you SHOULD be able to
handle this.)
The next video is the part that makes me release my breath. The mouse has stopped struggling, and if it
isn’t dead, it’s unconscious. Completely
oblivious that the worst is yet to come.
Although that may be a matter of opinion. Poll question: Which is worse? -- Being strangled, slowly
crushed, the air leaving your lungs while your bones are simultaneously
crushed, OR being consumed, the muscles of your attacker forcing you down his
gastric byways? May you never find
yourself in either situation.
I could have intervened early on in this process, but why? Save a mouse, and then what? Starving my snake is equally awful, less
violent, but equally fatal. Stop the
feedings and he dies a slow, painful death by starvation. Then I’m left with mice that serve no
purpose.
I could release the mouse and let the cat have at it. He’d happily hunt them down, but I doubt he’d
eat his kill. He gets three squares a
day and then some. He’d hunt for the
thrill of the kill. After that, the
wildness goes out of him. He’s an
animal, but he’s a pampered animal. They
don’t call him “domesticated” for nothin’.
Once finished with his dinner, Patches’ jaw
will reconnect with his skull, and he will slink back to his hole. This
incredible animal will coil itself many times over, and take up space
under a formation of bark. Stretched out, is three times the length of
his glass cage, but when he goes dormant, his compact form can fit in
the palm of a large hand.
He’ll remain like this for days, maybe even a
week or two. The size of his meal determines the length of his nap.
When he ventures out again, we know he’s ready for his next meal.
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