chardonnay9 wrote:
Phil L wrote:


Yes, carnivorous means meat eater, but if you feed any meat eater
nothing but meat, it will eventually starve to death,

What planet does that happen on? I know people who have fed nothing
but meat to their pets for decades and the pets certainly didn't
starve to death.

Earth, and that's because they didn't feed them entirely on meat, or their
animals had to scavenge for vegetable matter, which is essential.


people have tried feeding
reptiles on nothing but meat and offal because they disagree about
the furry animals thing, but they have killed their pets instead

Furry animals *are* meat.

And inside the furry animal is corn, oats, rice, carrots, peas, broccolli
and seeds, which is what keeps the snakes alive (snakes can't chew)




Even lions and tigers make a bee-line for their prey's digestive
system, which is normally full of hay, roots, leaves and other
vegetation, as do wolves, which I presume you are making your
assumptions on.
Are you sure of that? Cuz it's not true.

It is true, and the 'lions share', meaning what the pride leader
gets, before any of the cubs or females get, is just this - the
entrails, the most nutritious part of the kill, which may be
responsible for the high mortality rates of lion cubs.

Entrails are not stomach content and this has nothing to do with high
mortality rates of lion cubs.

They eat the stomach contents of their prey:

Characteristics of carnivores
Characteristics commonly 'associated' with carnivores include organs for
capturing and disarticulating prey (teeth and claws serve these functions in
many vertebrates) and status as a predator. In truth, these assumptions may
be misleading, as some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers (though
most hunting carnivores will scavenge when the opportunity exists). Thus
they do not have the characteristics associated with hunting carnivores.
Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems as they are not
required to break down tough cellulose found in plants.


Plant material
In most cases, some plant material is essential for adequate nutrition,
particularly with regard to minerals, vitamins and fiber. Most wild
carnivores consume this in the digestive system of their prey. Many
carnivores also eat herbivore dung, presumably to obtain essential nutrients
that they could not otherwise obtain, since their dentition and digestive
system do not permit efficient processing of vegetable matter.

-------------------------------------------------------------
The above passage is from wiki's carnivore page :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore

Even though it's debatable as to whether dogs are true carnivores,
facultative carnivores or omnivores, either way they cannot live on meat
alone, because it's already been shown that pure carnivores (lions, tigers
etc) *have* to eat some vegetable matter regularly, so even if you lump dogs
in this class, you have yo agree that dogs need vegetation to thrive

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008