How do I get over the guilt of 'live feeding'?

No I didn’t feel like that. It’s not like they feel anything, and they’re bred for that purpose, it’s not like they have little cricket families to go home to. You should have known what beardies eat before you got one. And to be honest, if you want reptiles as pets you’re just gonna have to get over it.

Crickets are feeder foods, they are bred for animals like your beardie to eat. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a part of the food chain. He needs to eat to thrive.

i want a fruity corn snake but when ever i convince myself on getting one i walk into the pet store and see the mice tank and feel like a monster lmfao even if they are already dead i can not decide if i am capable of feeding it to a snake ]; i had pet hamster so that is why, crickets though i have no problem with since they are bugs lol you step on them if one gets in your room so why not feed it to your pet

Think of it this way- even if you brought pre dead crickets for your dragon, they would be the same ones as you’re feeding him now, just dead a little earlier. They are going to die anyway, it’s part of the food chain. If your dragon was in the wild it would eat a cricket, then something else (I don’t know what though lol) would eat him. Part of life. I’m glad you feel bad about it though, it’s good that some people these days still have feelings!!! I’m sick of seeing teenagers setting ants on fire and throwing cats to see how far they can get them landing on their feet etc.

I had over 60 pet mice before, I now have a snake & feed him frozen babies. :P not much guilt, snakes’ gotta eat~

lmfao omg when i saw the pictures of frozen baby mice being fed to the little snakes i felt like snatching it out of its mouth and putting it in a blanket xD they are so tiny and pink!

True, thanks.

As a Buddhist, I understand your reluctance. I went through this battle, myself, when my daughter got her tarantula and asked me to care for it while she was away. The thought of directly taking a life was more guilt than I could bear … however … by taking that life, I was allowing another to thrive, and that’s how I had to look at it. Of course, each and every cricket that went into the spider’s box received it’s own prayer for a better life in the next, and I fed with conscious thought, knowing I was taking a life but, sometimes, we need to kill.

Think about it this way. If your dog got a tapeworm, would you allow it to live, or would you kill it to make your dog’s quality of life better? You would kill it of course. We need to take life every single day - even the water we drink contains life. The main thing you have done, that many others haven’t, and the one thing that pardons you from negative karma, is that you felt that pain from taking a life … you understand that all life is precious … that, alone, should lift your burden. You’re a good person.

Thanks, that’s made me feel much better about it.