Pets that are obligate carnivores/omnivores...

[brimstoneSalad]

A giant millipede looks like a good option. Long life, and apparently eats rotting vegetable matter.

[PsYcHo]

A giant millipede looks like a good option. Long life, and apparently eats rotting vegetable matter.

They could probably live in groups as well, and the interactions would be more interesting than seeing a single animal explore it's limited habitat.

[DylanTK]

Yeah. Giant millipedes have been near the top of my list. They are herbivores, long lived, docile, and should be pretty easy to care for overall. Getting more than one may be an option, but that runs the risk of accidental breeding. Whatever I end up choosing, I won't actually be getting until after at least a few months of research into their care. The main point of this thread initially was to discuss how vegans handled/felt about non-vegan pets. My rats weren't vegan, but they were mostly vegan, so I don't have an issue with being a vegan keeping a non-vegan pet in the strictest sense. At the same time though, there's a bit of a difference between having a 99% vegan rat, and a 100% insectivorous pet. Or is there? That's what I've been trying to decide. Is feeding something insects once or twice a week ultimately any different than my rats sometimes having access to egg or fish meal in terms of suffering caused? That 1% of animal products in my rats' diets may actually be worse than a 100% insect diet given the sentience level of the animals involved.

[brimstoneSalad]

That 1% of animal products in my rats' diets may actually be worse than a 100% insect diet given the sentience level of the animals involved.

And size, and metabolism. Maybe, but that's kind of aside from the point: If you have the option to have a herbivorous pet instead (unless it's a rescue, which adds more dimension to the issue) then why not choose that option instead?

Veganism is about choosing a less harmful option rather than a more harmful one, avoiding animal suffering where possible and practicable. Is it practicable to have an herbivorous pet instead of a carnivorous, omnivorous, or insectivorous one? Probably.

Or maybe it's both possible and practicable to not have a pet at all, and avoid the unknown of animal suffering.
I know not everybody is social, but I'm inclined to want to hang out with a human being in the evening. Pets involve opportunity cost to your social life, and it's not at all clear that most of their lives are worth living enough to breed them into existence in captivity with all of the other associated costs. Rescues make sense: if the alternative was to be euthanized, you're saving an animal from that, and that has at least some moral value to be weighed against the harm.

I'm not the vegan police, but keeping an animal strictly for amusement is more controversial. I would avoid adding additional complications to that question in the form of an animal product containing diet. With an herbivorous pet you keep things simpler, and dodge most of the worst nagging questions.

[DylanTK]

Of course, not having a pet at all certainly removes all question of the ethics of keeping a pet. Heh. None of us are ever truly 100% vegan in a first world country, try as we may. To one degree or another, it's all about picking our battles, prioritizing, and living happy, healthy, compassionate lives. I am a very introverted person, and I've always greatly benefitted from having a pet. It makes me happy to care for animals, and it reduces my anxiety to live with animals. The psychological benefits of keeping pets is well known. When I get home in the evenings, a human face is normally the last thing I want to see. I've been highly introverted my whole life, and not having a pet makes it feel like something is missing.

I could just go with the giant millipede and call it a day. To do so would mean missing out on the opportunity to get to know/care for an animal that I frankly find more interesting and therefore likely more rewarding to care for due to it's level of awareness and reactivity. Case in point: while researching leopard geckos, I found a youtube channel largely dedicated to educating people about them. In one video, the owner was using her iPad to record her gecko, the gecko felt threatened and so lifted and waved its tail at her. As she explained, the iPad prevented the gecko seeing that it was her there. She did take the opportunity to briefly record the uncommon behavioral display, but then she spoke softly to the gecko and it reacted almost immediately by relaxing once it knew it was her. An insect simply is not capable of that level of awareness/cognition.

So yeah, I'll admit that a giant millipede is the easy choice, but personal interest has motivated me to look at a more complex situation. There are vegans out there now who eat oysters, and while I personally do not have any desire to, I support their decision to be oyster eating vegans, as they are not causing suffering to the oyster by doing so. Along those same lines, insects do not have nervous systems with nociceptors, so... No suffering, it would seem. Insects don't guard or favor injured limbs, decapitated roaches go on about their business until they dehydrate, prey of mantids have been seen continuing to eat while being eaten. Sure, we can't know exactly what's going on in the mind of an insect, but studies of their behavior and anatomy point to them not feeling pain/suffering. So while it's killing an animal in the technical sense, there's solid scientific evidence to support that it wouldn't cause suffering.

Edited: I had a massive brain fart and wrote that insects don't have nervous systems/nociceptors instead of that they don't have nervous systems with nociceptors. Apologies to anyone who read that before my edit.

[Cinereous]

My main concern with some small animals would be the support of breeding. Going to a pet store and walking by the bird/rodent/reptile/fish sections is incredibly depressing. Being able to avoid that in an acquisition of a companions animal is less concerning. There is a great emphasis on not breeding and selling cats and dogs, yet this does not seem to extend to the smaller creatures. I avoid pet stores by getting companion food at an ag/farm store. A downside with an ag store would be the presence of baby/juvenile chicks and ducklings in the spring. Those poor, little creatures were shipped there and then shoved into a pin in the middle of a store to be sold. A better life than the alternative, but still. At least it is somewhat comforting to have known many people to let their chickens live out their lifespan, regardless of their 'use'.

I struggle with having two cats. I will never abandon them, but I still must feed them. I have researched vegan options, but it feels so wrong. On one side, having a cat eat a bowl of dried, pelletized food is unnatural in itself. Even premium pet foods are probably only 35-45% animal products by weight (meat, bone meal, by-product meal (although not in premium-labeled food), and so on). I understand the negative effects of fishing, but I was able to find a pet food that only included fish as a protein source. Do house cats naturally eat fish? No. Technically a 'domestic' cat would eat rodents and small birds. A rabbit-based pet food would then make the most sense (it exists), although I do not want to support rabbit-farming... I do not even know where rabbit meat is sourced.

I do know that most of the trout (the major ingredient in the food I buy) consumed and used in the US is factory-farmed within the US. Factory farming is not good, but at least it is contained and not disastrously housed in the ocean. I know freshwater fish farming has had negative environmental effects (and spills), but based on what I have seen, it seems less of an evil than industrially producing chickens, cows, pigs, and so on. A point positive towards vegan cat food is that a dry-food diet is especially unnatural in the first place in addition to the formulation composition already at a 55-65% plant-based level (possibly even more for cheap food)... so how does it matter as long as the nutrient composition is acceptable? I think a lot of it comes down to poorly formulated vegan cat food (or thinking that cats can have a similar diet to dogs as long as the taurine level is acceptable), which will ultimately cause digestive and urinary issues in many cats.

Overall, I have estimated that my two cats consume somewhere between 25-30 pounds of fish product a year. Not the best, but at least I am aware of my current impact. There is always room for change.

Didn't mean for this cat discussion to drag on, but perhaps the topic is applicable given that cats are obligate carnivores. I'd love to hear from others about this.

[DylanTK]

My main concern with some small animals would be the support of breeding. Going to a pet store and walking by the bird/rodent/reptile/fish sections is incredibly depressing. Being able to avoid that in an acquisition of a companions animal is less concerning. There is a great emphasis on not breeding and selling cats and dogs, yet this does not seem to extend to the smaller creatures. I avoid pet stores by getting companion food at an ag/farm store. A downside with an ag store would be the presence of baby/juvenile chicks and ducklings in the spring. Those poor, little creatures were shipped there and then shoved into a pin in the middle of a store to be sold. A better life than the alternative, but still. At least it is somewhat comforting to have known many people to let their chickens live out their lifespan, regardless of their 'use'.

I struggle with having two cats. I will never abandon them, but I still must feed them. I have researched vegan options, but it feels so wrong. On one side, having a cat eat a bowl of dried, pelletized food is unnatural in itself. Even premium pet foods are probably only 35-45% animal products by weight (meat, bone meal, by-product meal (although not in premium-labeled food), and so on). I understand the negative effects of fishing, but I was able to find a pet food that only included fish as a protein source. Do house cats naturally eat fish? No. Technically a 'domestic' cat would eat rodents and small birds. A rabbit-based pet food would then make the most sense (it exists), although I do not want to support rabbit-farming... I do not even know where rabbit meat is sourced.

I do know that most of the trout (the major ingredient in the food I buy) consumed and used in the US is factory-farmed within the US. Factory farming is not good, but at least it is contained and not disastrously housed in the ocean. I know freshwater fish farming has had negative environmental effects (and spills), but based on what I have seen, it seems less of an evil than industrially producing chickens, cows, pigs, and so on. A point positive towards vegan cat food is that a dry-food diet is especially unnatural in the first place in addition to the formulation composition already at a 55-65% plant-based level (possibly even more for cheap food)... so how does it matter as long as the nutrient composition is acceptable? I think a lot of it comes down to poorly formulated vegan cat food (or thinking that cats can have a similar diet to dogs as long as the taurine level is acceptable), which will ultimately cause digestive and urinary issues in many cats.

Overall, I have estimated that my two cats consume somewhere between 25-30 pounds of fish product a year. Not the best, but at least I am aware of my current impact. There is always room for change.

Didn't mean for this cat discussion to drag on, but perhaps the topic is applicable given that cats are obligate carnivores. I'd love to hear from others about this.

No need to apologize. Discussing these things is definitely the point of the thread. Might I suggest finding a cat food whose primary source of meat is animal byproduct? Animal byproduct is a meat industry "waste" product not fit for human consumption, but is often used for animal feed. If not for pet food, it would largely be going into landfills. So, in this way, you're not really increasing the demand for meat, just utilizing something that would be thrown away otherwise.

I am not a fan of pet stores overall. Though to be fair, some are much better than others. Unfortunately I did buy most of my rats from pet stores because I could not find a single small breeder in my entire state. I also did rat rescues when the opportunity arose. I don't think breeding animals for companionship is automatically unethical. It's not that black and white. Cat and dog breeding is problematic because there is a massive surplus of of cats and dogs in shelters needing homes. There's not a massive surplus of most other pets, although there are certainly animals of many species in need of homes.

[Cinereous]

It's not black and white at all. Don't want you to think that I think that way by any means!

Almost all food used for cat/dog food is still a by-product of the meat industry. Of course there are exceptions, but it's the only way to keep costs down. By-product meal is very similar to meat meal. The major difference is the absence of more flesh-meat in by-product meal... just more processed and other parts of the animal. I can't remember all of the regulations... A good idea, but technically all options are still 'waste'. I have thought about going half-and-half with a plant-based food and seeing how that goes... Still tallying it all up.

Just to note, I did use the word 'premium' before, but this has no regulation. By this I mean that the food does not contain corn/soy/wheat, although what I give my cats has plenty of rice/potato. I also liked a smaller ingredient list, so that was a factor, too...

I know a lot of people in the pet food industry. I will have to ask them many more questions than I already have.

[ReginaL]

Cinereous, have you seen Unnatural Vegan's pet food video? She deals specifically with cats. You might find it helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQXzcPt3CT4

[Cinereous]

Thank you! I have watched it, but I am still tentative, especially with one male cat.

Thank you, again, for linking.