Well it has been since 1911

It constitutes cruelty to animals..since you are causing the prey suffering..NOT only that its pretty silly considering if the snake doens't strike quick enough it could end up losing eyes etc due to rat bites etc etc..

Leopard Gecko's are brilliant little guys. I had them a couple of years ago and will get some more one day soon. Great little characters, very easy to handle and maintain.

They do require live insects (crickets mainly, mine also loved the odd meal worm) which you will have to keep and feed additionally. If you do not feed the crickets they will have little to no nutritional value for the gecko. They also need their food dusted with a calcium supplement a couple of times per week.

Price of vivariums really depends. The best thing to do if you are starting out with reptiles is get an all-in-one kit. That could potentially set you back £100-150.

You might want to inform them of Animal Welfare Laws...of all places a learning institution should know!

How was he feeding the dead ones? if it is just plonked in the cage cold most snakes won't touch it. If it is warmed up and scented (rubbing it through some smelly rodent bedding) most snakes should accept it.

We built our own Viv's from TV/Video units from Ikea..I have 3 stacked on top of each other and they match the unit my tv is on lol..

Suze probably meant that they feed invertebrates live there, that is legal. If they were feeding live vertebrates they wouldn't be open for very long Feeding living prey is incredibly cruel though, it is unnatural (as they're in a confined space) and of course the risk of injury or death to either or both animals is very high in fact its quite worrying that anyone would still consider doing that...

for a first time reptile leopard geckos are very good, as they are docile and easy to care for i would go with a chinese water dragon over an iguana though, if i remember rightly iguanas are more prone to loosing their tameness if they're not handled regularly enough and of course they're humongous! water dragons are just the right size, and very sweet i wanted to get one but we didn't have enough room for the viv...

Well he's fairly experienced, he's been keeping them years so i expect he knows about the feeding dead prey, the snake refused it totally. I don't like the idea of live prey either tbh. Not sure if he still has that particular snake anyway now.

Its not the idea of it..its illegal!!
I have a snake now who has many scars from being fed live prey..his owner told me he would NEVER eat dead food..When he came to me he had no option as I would never feed live..
He has successfully fed on defrosted food for the last 3 years..

There are ways of making snakes eat defrost..its totally inhumane to feed live prey!

It is not true that it is illegal to feed live food.

Most (if not all) keepers of lizards like gekos will feed them live insects. Many fish keepers feed live fish fry/bloodworms/brineshrimp, and bird keepers will often feed live food to their breeding birds, they sell these things in pet shops so it is certainly not illegal.

I had snakes years ago, those were fed dead, defrosted rats. I dont think i could see a snake kill and eat a live rat lol

Iguanas make fantastic pets and they eat fruit and veg mostly so are good for the squeamish owner. Here's the one my family had when i was younger, she was HUGE! Very tame, used to sit on my lap, or across the back of the sofa, whilst we were watching TV and stuff

I think it was mentioned above that it's vertibrates that you cannot legally feed live. INvertibrates are ok.