I've had great luck with self cloning crayfish breeding tubs to use as feeders. If they arw legal where you are they reproduce large quantities regularly and you don't have to worry about fish illnesses.
That’s my take on it tooI don't think there is a way to make live feeding more humane. Either you are ok with feeding one animal to another or you are not. Not judging one way or the other. Just my opinion.
The reason for smacking live food for reptiles is so the rodent doesn’t injure the reptile, not to make it less miserable for the rodent. Rodents can do serious damage.I do wonder if the clove oil or other substance would have a negative effect on the fish eating it. Had a friend who kept snakes. He would smack them in the head before feeding them to the snakes stating that it was more humane. Still doesn't make any sense to me.
Well my thought is that the clove oil in a small minnow, would be a dose too small to affect, say a wild caught bass. It'd be like taking a childrens melationin pill, no affect because it's too small a dose.I do wonder if the clove oil or other substance would have a negative effect on the fish eating it. Had a friend who kept snakes. He would smack them in the head before feeding them to the snakes stating that it was more humane. Still doesn't make any sense to me.
I would think it be like Myrrh infused Wine in a sense, clove oil is used as a sedative, and basically makes the fish incredibly tipsy and unable to function normally.I do not think there is a humane way to feed live. Using clove oil to drug a feeder is essentially doing torture before the execution.
Swallowed Alive, then Chewed apart by pharyngeal jaws, yeah... much worse than oilI wouldn’t feed a tiger a deer fawn that was loaded with propofol (one of the common animal sedatives, especially in dog/cat euthanasia) - even at a proportionally small dose there’s still dangerous chemicals in play.
I don’t feed live fish - bugs and shrimp I have no problem with. I’m sure my opinion may change if I have an overabundance of fry on my hands. It’s really all about what you are comfortable with.
The feeder is still going to die no matter what, and I’d bet being swallowed isn’t any worse than suffocating in clove oil.
You’re talking about light sedation anyway - the fish will be either awake enough to experience being eaten or dead and likely no longer palatable for the predator.Swallowed Alive, then Chewed apart by pharyngeal jaws, yeah... much worse than oil