Our Love of Pet Snakes Breeds a Mouse Quandary

America's growing fondness for pet snakes has quietly spawned another booming population: factory-farmed mice and rats. In a piece for Vox, Kenny Torrella traces how the surge in snake ownership—as of 2024, 1.3 million US households had at least one pet snake, a 60% increase from 2018—has driven a "feeder" rodent industry that has virtually no welfare oversight and "condemn[s] many ... animals to suffer." These mice and rats are "confined in small tubs, never to breathe fresh air or step on grass," and they're gassed with carbon dioxide, frozen to death, or killed using more grisly methods.

Torrella notes that zoos also buy from these suppliers, and while there's no official count of how many rodents are farmed each year, one 2024 estimate found the number could be as high as 650 million. If true, that would mean "more than twice as many mice and rats are farmed just for snake food each year than cows are killed each year to feed people." The piece explores some potential fixes, from tightening standards for zoos' suppliers to curbing pet snake sales. Read the full piece here.