Reptile Law in Great Britain?!?

striko_69 · 08-19-03, 01:34 PM

Hi all, i used to live in south africa where it was legal to feed live mice/rats to reptiles. A year has past since i moved to england, i went to buy a small pinkie for my beardie, but they refused me!!! they only sold frozen ones! This is surely a problem for snakes and such in this country because we tried feeding defrosted frozen pinkies to our snakes in S.A. and they wouldnt take them, they only ate live ones, which makes sense because they were moving! i tried feeding my beardie the defrosted frozen pinkies but they refused, i do not own the beardies anymore, which i sadly had to sell as i didnt have the money to keep them in this country since everything is too expensive for a teenager. I do plan on getting a reptile in the future but i am concerned about the laws of these creatures!!! What are the laws in this country concerning reptiles? anyon know?

spyderman · 08-19-03, 01:40 PM

It's NOT supposed to happen in U.k. Any Reptile you but in England, should be on f/t food already. I think it is actually Illegal to feed live prey because it's supposed to cause stress to the prey item. (It's gonna die, so I don't see that stress will be a problem anyway.) Like I said, all reptiles sold in this country will already be on f/t.

XxRachxX · 08-19-03, 07:22 PM

spyderman: i think the stress issue applies to the animal which you are feeding too.

i think the law is that you are not allowed to feed live vertabrates. (or so the guy at the zoo said) it also applies to not feeding live antelope to lions in zoos and live mice to pet owls and stuff like that, so its not only reptiles that are affected.
theres some stuff about native species laws and the dangerous animals act, but i think thats only for venomous species and crocadilians. http://www.netgoth.org.uk/~caleb/uklaw.html it also tells you about native reptile law, and import/export also about releasing animals
hope i helped some....