Someone asked me to estimate how many animals are fed to crocodilians, snakes, and stingrays farmed for their skin. I thought that a comment under this article would be a good place to share what I found in case anyone else also would find it useful. Note that I didn’t spend much time on this and I am not confident in what I claim.
CROCODILIANS
For crocodilians, I made this model that estimates how many kilograms of food are fed to farmed crocodiles globally. If we assumed that all they were fed were broiler chickens, then I estimate that they would eat between 20 million and 70 million broilers per year. Since they seem to be mostly fed various waste from farms and various other food (see my notes on that here), I think that eliminating the demand of crocodile skin would spare the lives of fewer farmed animals than 20-70 million per year. How many animals are killed to be fed to crocodiles depends heavily on how much fishmeal they are fed because fishmeal is made from small wild-caught fishes. But I haven’t found any information on that. While some videos talk about large portions of food fed to adult crocodilians, it seems to me that on average they eat maybe 2 pounds per week. I think this is because farmed crocodiles are smaller through most of their lifetime. For alligators bred for watch bands who are killed when small, it would be even less than 2 pounds.
SNAKES
With snakes, I think that tables below from this report show that relatively few animals are farmed specifically to feed them, at least when it comes to Pythons:
Baby chickens and baby quail are probably male chicks from the egg industry, which is a by-product. I suspect that whole chickens and whole ducks are spent hens from the egg-laying industry. But if they are broilers, then there are some animals farmed to be fed to snakes. According to the text in the report, most rats seem to be caught, but it mentions one farm in Thailand that breeds its own rats. If more farms do that, then there could be many animals farmed to be fed to snakes. But most of the feed animals seem to be not specifically farmed for the purpose of feeding pythons, it seems. Of course, any profit from by-products helps to sustain the factory farming industry. Number of animals fed to snakes would be quite large based on the tables above, but I think that citing it would be misleading as most of them are by-products so I did not estimate it.
Based on the same report, it seems that pythons are farmed for 1-2 years before they are slaughtered.
Various sources also seem to disagree on whether a large portion of snake skins that are labelled as farmed actually come from wild-caught snakes but more serious sources seem to say that most of those snakes actually are farmed.
“Larger captured snakes are often first starved to loosen their skin and then stretched by being forcibly pumped with water. Snakes are routinely nailed to a tree and skinned alive, their bodies thrown on to heaps where they can take two days to die.”
STINGRAYS
I’m unsure if stingrays are even really farmed for meat and skin in significant quantities. There is surprisingly little information about it, just a few mentions that they are commercially bred. When exotic animals like that are farmed, there usually is some media coverage. Now, I just see a fewarticles mentioning in passing that they are farmed, without any evidence. Some sellers also claim that they use farmed stingray skin (https://www.paulinwatches.com/products/shagreen-stingray-leather-watch-strap, https://hugodegroot.co.uk/finishes-shagreen/). Maybe they are lying to avoid concerns about the environment or something, although stingrays are not a threatened species so I don’t see why they would do that. I saw some videos about them being bred to be pets. In those cases, they are fed a significant amount of shrimp. But I imagine that it would be too expensive to feed stingrays farmed for skin and food with an expensive feed like that. So if the industry exists at all, I have no idea what they are fed. This screenshot from FAO yearbook suggests that stingrays are only caught from the wild not farmed.
This page also claims that stingrays are not farmed, that they caught from the wild only. And that stingrays are caught for their meat, and leather is only a by-product. But the page does not look at all dependable. But we know from FAO stats above that stingrays are caught from the wild, so it seems likely that at least some of the stingray skin comes from wild-caught stingrays, because why wouldn’t they use that (perhaps there is a reason, I don’t know)
Someone asked me to estimate how many animals are fed to crocodilians, snakes, and stingrays farmed for their skin. I thought that a comment under this article would be a good place to share what I found in case anyone else also would find it useful. Note that I didn’t spend much time on this and I am not confident in what I claim.
CROCODILIANS
For crocodilians, I made this model that estimates how many kilograms of food are fed to farmed crocodiles globally. If we assumed that all they were fed were broiler chickens, then I estimate that they would eat between 20 million and 70 million broilers per year. Since they seem to be mostly fed various waste from farms and various other food (see my notes on that here), I think that eliminating the demand of crocodile skin would spare the lives of fewer farmed animals than 20-70 million per year. How many animals are killed to be fed to crocodiles depends heavily on how much fishmeal they are fed because fishmeal is made from small wild-caught fishes. But I haven’t found any information on that. While some videos talk about large portions of food fed to adult crocodilians, it seems to me that on average they eat maybe 2 pounds per week. I think this is because farmed crocodiles are smaller through most of their lifetime. For alligators bred for watch bands who are killed when small, it would be even less than 2 pounds.
SNAKES
With snakes, I think that tables below from this report show that relatively few animals are farmed specifically to feed them, at least when it comes to Pythons:
Baby chickens and baby quail are probably male chicks from the egg industry, which is a by-product. I suspect that whole chickens and whole ducks are spent hens from the egg-laying industry. But if they are broilers, then there are some animals farmed to be fed to snakes. According to the text in the report, most rats seem to be caught, but it mentions one farm in Thailand that breeds its own rats. If more farms do that, then there could be many animals farmed to be fed to snakes. But most of the feed animals seem to be not specifically farmed for the purpose of feeding pythons, it seems. Of course, any profit from by-products helps to sustain the factory farming industry. Number of animals fed to snakes would be quite large based on the tables above, but I think that citing it would be misleading as most of them are by-products so I did not estimate it.
Based on the same report, it seems that pythons are farmed for 1-2 years before they are slaughtered.
Various sources also seem to disagree on whether a large portion of snake skins that are labelled as farmed actually come from wild-caught snakes but more serious sources seem to say that most of those snakes actually are farmed.
Some snakes seem to be killed in extremely cruel ways. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/oct/03/fashion.animalwelfare (trigger warning, the next paragraph should not be read by sensitive people):
“Larger captured snakes are often first starved to loosen their skin and then stretched by being forcibly pumped with water. Snakes are routinely nailed to a tree and skinned alive, their bodies thrown on to heaps where they can take two days to die.”
STINGRAYS
I’m unsure if stingrays are even really farmed for meat and skin in significant quantities. There is surprisingly little information about it, just a few mentions that they are commercially bred. When exotic animals like that are farmed, there usually is some media coverage. Now, I just see a few articles mentioning in passing that they are farmed, without any evidence. Some sellers also claim that they use farmed stingray skin (https://www.paulinwatches.com/products/shagreen-stingray-leather-watch-strap, https://hugodegroot.co.uk/finishes-shagreen/). Maybe they are lying to avoid concerns about the environment or something, although stingrays are not a threatened species so I don’t see why they would do that. I saw some videos about them being bred to be pets. In those cases, they are fed a significant amount of shrimp. But I imagine that it would be too expensive to feed stingrays farmed for skin and food with an expensive feed like that. So if the industry exists at all, I have no idea what they are fed. This screenshot from FAO yearbook suggests that stingrays are only caught from the wild not farmed.
This page also claims that stingrays are not farmed, that they caught from the wild only. And that stingrays are caught for their meat, and leather is only a by-product. But the page does not look at all dependable. But we know from FAO stats above that stingrays are caught from the wild, so it seems likely that at least some of the stingray skin comes from wild-caught stingrays, because why wouldn’t they use that (perhaps there is a reason, I don’t know)