Moral issues regarding Royal Pythons

Every year thousands of Royal Captive Farmed hatchlings are shipped into Britain. This is their story.

I would urge everyone thinking of buying a Royal Python to do their homework and try and be sure to buy a captive bred snake. Although captive farmed hatchlings are a bit cheaper to buy, they do come with problems. Their mothers will have been collected from the wild and herded into a fenced area where the eggs they lay will be collected. They are then put in dirty warehouses to hatch. The mothers are sometimes released back into the wild, but some are used for meat and the skins made into belts and bags etc. As they hatch, sometimes before they have time to absorb their egg sack, the young hatchlings are put into bags and crated up ready for the journey here. Being unable to absorb the yolk sack causes it’s own problems, but they arrive here, having had no water, heat or food, probably with parasites. Tens of thousands of Royal hatchlings are brought into Britain like this and for every one that survives, probably ten die. CF hatchlings and WC (Wild Caught) snakes are not snakes for beginners. The CF babies may take weeks to coax to eat, if they do at all, and WC will only eat live until weaned onto fresh thawed, which can take months. WC adults will also have internal parasites which need to be treated by a vet, and some may have tics which need to be removed.