Do they really skin the snake ALIVE to make the Python Silverado???

[chloehandbags]

I doubt if they'd be able to skin a snake alive. I'm almost positive they would have to kill it first. Their bodies are so muscular, I would think it would ruin the hide to try to do it that way. We have a ball python, and his strength is amazing! Once he decides he wants to coil around something, it is quite difficult to persuade him to move. LOL

No, they do skin snakes alive (there are pics and video footage of it happening) - probably only small to medium ones, though.

 

[chloehandbags]

I don't mean to ruffle a lot of feathers but I wonder how many people know what a chicken farm looks like. I live in a big hunting and farming area, I actually am friends with a woman who runs a chicken farm with her husband and the inlaws of one of my best friends own a cattle ranch. Really, there is nothing humane about the food we eat. Chicken farms have thousands of chickens housed together in coops with barely room to move and are kept alive basically for their eggs and for them to be fattened up to kill for food. The cattle ranches are nicer in that the have room to graze and mill around, but they're killed for meat to, of course. And these are the small family owned farms that raise their own organic items. These aren't the big industry farms where I'm sure conditions are worse.

It's also a big hunting area. I've eaten deer (venison), elk, rabbit, and turned down moose but know people who have eaten it. These animals are food as much as any other type of meat, but somehow it's become less politically correct to eat them eevn though they are not endangered or extinct.

I have no problem when people are vegan for ethical reasons, or refuse to eat red meat because they think it is unhealthy, but I get offended when people tell me I'm unethical for carrying a python bag when they are more than happy to carry a leather one.

While I realize that's my own emotions I feel the need to get that out there.

Yes, but whether we like it, or not (personally, I don't like it, so I don't eat them), cows and sheep would be killed for their meat, anyway (or killed as a 'waste product' of the meat industry), regardless of whether the skins were used, or not and they are not generally killed in a particularly cruel way, just to preserve their skins.

Whereas, most snakes (and other exotic skin and fur producing animals) are not killed primarily for their meat - they are killed primarily for their skins and they are killed in particularly cruel ways (including being skinned alive) to preserve them.

There are also laws surrounding the rearing and killing of animals farmed for their meat; totally inadequate ones, in most cases, of course (please check out the fur thread on the Wardrobe subforum for what happens to rabbits! ), but generally better than nothing. This is not the case for animals that are reared for their skins.

Also, people who eat meat, dairy and/or eggs can choose free range. As far as I know, there is no such thing as free range exotics, or fur.

Therefore, to use most types of leather, but not exotics, or fur, is not hypocracy - it's logic.

 

[chloehandbags]

Just a heads up for people really concerned about food production - one of the best things to do to combat cruelty in food production is to buy locally produced meats and eggs. You can actually visit the farms in some cases and see the animals and how they are being cared for. It's a really easy thing for me to do in Illinois, I'm guessing that it's a little bit harder in certain areas of the country/world! But there's a growing market for meat and animal products that are produced in humane ways - a little hunting around should allow you to find humane farmers and dairy producers.

 

[chloehandbags]

No actually, there is not much difference. The snake is skinned alive, and the lamb also suffers quite a bit. When a lamb is killed, it is also usually shocked or hit on the head, and then it is cut at the throat while it is alive and then hung upside down and allowed to slowly bleed to death. This clears the body of blood and the meat remains tender. So yes, the lamb is also breathing for quite some time, and according to some sources, they may also be boiled alive to get their skin.

I have heard that this sometimes happens to kids (baby goats) but I hadn't heard that it also happened to lambs.

Personally, I would never knowingly buy or use a bag that was made from an animal that was killed in this way. Even if it was a by-product of the meat industry.

This is because it has, obviously, been killed in a particularly cruel way, to harvest and/or preserve its skin and that's a definite no-no for me.

However, there is still a difference between the two - the snake has been primarily killed for its skin - meaning that the vast majority of the money gained from the snake's rearing and slaughter is from its skin.

Therefore, if the skin was not purchased, in the form of a handbag, or whatever, the snake would not have lived in misery and died horrendously, at all; as it would not have been financially viable to rear it.

 

[canada's]

Honestly, Danica- You are blowing my post way out of proportion!

what she is saying is completely relevant to the topic, actually. it is such an awful double standard as far as reg. leather vs. fur/skins, but that's the world we live in. the majority choose to look the other way when things are too gruesome or inhumane. we feel it's out of our control, i guess.

 

[chloehandbags]

well, ladies, appalling or not, the only way to hurt that inhumane industry is NOT to buy into that genre of bags: skin.

by the way, inhumane? duck liver pate. you want something to scream about? google it. its sad but true ladies. this is the world we live and what kind of treatement we support for our animals!

Pate de foie gras is the worst - the EU are trying to ban it, but the French farmers who produce it are revolting.

Pun intended.

 

[chloehandbags]

I'm from Australia. I just didn't like how he tortured the goldfish first; it could have become somebody's pet. It wasn't a "feeder" fish.

To me, it would be the equivalent of stabbing one of my dear guinea pigs and tossing it to a Rottweiler, while it was bleeding to death!

I did watch the goldfish dying; it put up quite a fight for its life. But who is to argue with my burly cousin and his sharp implement?

I know, it's not your fault.

I own 3 inexpensive snakeskin items; a small purse, shoes and trim on a small tote. After reading these posts, I won't be buying anymore!

Good for you!

And I only buy "free range" chicken eggs and chicken meat from the supermarket; I like to call it "happy chicken".

I think free range is definitely a massive step in the right direction.

 

[chloehandbags]

THIS IS RIGHT!
THEN THERE IS A CREATURE WRITHING AROUND IN PAIN WITH NO SKIN, JUST A RAW OPEN WOUND COVERING ITS WHOLE BODY TO THE WORLD!!!!!!!

 

[chloehandbags]

I know this guy who sells fur and animal skins, and he actually hunts them too sometimes. He says there's absolutely no way an animal is skinned alive for such an upscale company as Chloe. In China some companies sking rabbits alive for their fur, but that's cheap stuff. You can tell by the quality of the skins that those animals are treated well. That's what he said anyway. I kind of believe him too.

Yes, it would be nice to believe, wouldn't it?

But remember, he has a vested interest in promoting the industry in a positive light.

I'm not arguing that animals in China are not treated even worse than animals generally are in the West, but believe me, there is plenty of horrendous animal abuse in the West, too.

 

[chloehandbags]

Ok, my coworker just forwarded this to me and I had to share it. I'm not feeling so bad about the purse after seeing this. Scary creature. Here it goes:

Seems a sheep farmer was puzzled about the disappearance of some sheep on his farm. After a few
weeks the farmer decided to put up an electric fence. Wow, I know we've all heard of people being eaten by snakes & I bet most of us have said, "If a snake tried to eat me, I'd blah, blah, blah & get away.

Well, this is a Python & they're extremely aggressive & have a few teeth that they use to hold their prey while they wrap around them & then constrict. Could you get away if this one bit you &
held on with its "few teeth?" (Note: the wires are 10 inches apart.)

​

​

It can't help what it looks like, or that its drive to survive means that it is driven to eat meat - snakes are completely carniverous (although, they do also eat eggs) and so, cannot choose to be vegetarian, even if they wanted to.

We, however, are evolved creatures, with massive brains, in comparison to most other animals and with power comes responsibility.

We have the ability to choose to not use products that are obtained particularly cruelly and if we don't use that choice, perhaps we are the real monsters?

 

[chloehandbags]

rubylola- I don't think Chloe ever answer! I've emailed them a dozen times about leather treatment, cleaning etc., but they've never acutally answered.

Me too!

I thought it was just me they were ignoring!

 

[chicbabacool]

We, however, are evolved creatures, with massive brains, in comparison to most other animals and with power comes responsibility.

We have the ability to choose to not use products that are obtained particularly cruelly and if we don't use that choice, perhaps we are the real monsters?

Well written. I wish there were more laws making the procurement of exotic skins more humane. If I knew the animal had been killed humanely, I would have no problem buying exotic skins. But as it stands, there is no way I'm going to purchase anything that was made out of an animal that has been cruelly killed.

 

[goldendelicious]

I have had the misfortune of seeing this happen (snake skinned alive). They are pinned down behind the head, then nailed down to a wooden board, and SKINNED....ALIVE. This is how they are subdued, even larger sizes - they can't get away! I saw this whilst on honeymoon - can you imagine? I would never touch a bag made from exotics.

 

[chloehandbags]

^

 

[rosieroseanna]

I won't eat foie gras either. It makes me so mad when we go out for dinner with my fiances parents and they all tuck and and his mum makes out she is an animal lover and against animal cruelty etc. I ONLY buy toiletries from the Body Shop or the Co-op and I buy my cleaning products from the Co-op too as they are BUVA approved. Just wondering saninsburys says they are against animal testing on the back and they fund research into alternatives, does that mean they fund research but that their products are actually tested on animals?