not allowed to breed - The rodent thread

[mommanessy247]

i had it all figured out, written down, everything down to a breeding schedule.
then my hubby said "nope, not gonna happen." :mad:
now im gonna have to spend $62 on mice, food & bedding every month.
i tried to get him to see how costly thats gonna be, but he wont budge.

[Will0W783]

For one snake (don't you have just one?), trust me, you do NOT want to go through the trouble of breeding your own mice. They are smelly, dirty and they tend to eat their young if conditions are not perfect. I tried breeding mice for a while, and it was a disaster. I have cats, and they meowed constantly because they smelled the mice and wanted them. The mothers ate their babies and beheaded and ate the male one night. I will never try it again.

[mommanessy247]

i dont actually have any pets yet. i will be getting the snake in august.

[Feebo]

Yep, totally unecessary! :) The best way to keep the food bill down is don`t get a snake lol or don`t have too many. It now costs me about £25 every time I feed my snakes, and that`s WITH the discount I get for keeping the local herp shop going....

[Will0W783]

Ah, well with only the one snake I would really stick with just buying it food. Mice are some seriously smelly buggers and a good colony of rats take up a lot of space. If your BP will eat f/t you will save a lot of money ordering in bulk from sites like RodentPro.com or buying a lot at shows. I have a bunch of snakes, and I buy a large supply of various sizes of frozen feeders at shows. I stock up about once every other month, and spend about $100-150, depending on how much I buy. That lasts me two months, for a lot more than one snake. You can easily feed your snake on a $30 bag of medium rats for several months if you buy at shows. The trick is getting it to reliably eat frozen/thawed, if it doesn't already. Where are you getting your ball python? Make sure you find out if it's already been being fed on f/t.

[mommanessy247]

i am getting my ball python from a breeder in north carolina. im in south carolina & he's the only breeder close enough to me. i want to avoid buying at the pet store since pet store snakes are not reliably healthy & most often then not, are wild caught.
the breeder feeds his snakes live prey, so i was thinking i'd keep it the same here at my home.

[infernalis]

Its best for the snake if you can get it switched over to F/T.....

F/T is more convenient, safer (Dead mice don't bite) and so much cheaper.

[shaunyboy]

its all pretty much been covered so i'll just tell you my personal preference.i buy 2 months of food at a time from a local breeder that breeds all food items at his house.i would never breed my own food as imo i would spend more time and work on the food than i'd ever have to put in on my snakes.also they stink and make loads of noise.probably attract wild rats,mice,etc.then as willow pointed out with mice they have a bad habit of eating each other.oh and its that bad i'll mention it twice they stink.i have a friend who has an industrial unit out in the country that breeds every type of snake food.before she even opens the door of her unit all you can smell is the amonia from the urine.it actually catches your breath for the first few minutes after going inside the building.its gross.....!!! if you want to fund your hobby after you've got a few years experience under your belt why not breed pythons.
cheers shaun

[mommanessy247]

eh im really not looking to breed anything as im still only a beginner. i just dont have that level of interest. also what would i do with all those snakes? what if no one bought them? then i'd end up being like the hoarders on the news with too many animals to care for properly...no way man, not me.

[Will0W783]

Lol. Yeah, breeding reptiles is not for everyone. The idea is that if you breed, you sell the offspring to help pay for the care of the adults. It's time-consuming, and there is always the risk of losing a female to egg-binding or other pregnancy complications. I intend to breed on a small scale- maybe 2-3 clutches of my favorite species a year. Nothing ridiculous, just something to help fund the hobby.

[shaunyboy]

my plan exactly willow,i hope to produce enough of my favorite snake to keep a few hold backs.if i could then sell the rest and make my hobby break even i'd be chuffed to bits.i'm not looking to make a profit but it would be really good if my hobby supported itself financially.
cheers shaun

[infernalis]

Watch out it turns into an obsession real quick ;)

Baby snakes are addicting.

[Will0W783]

I'm not a snake addict. I can quite whenever I want. Really, I can.....

[infernalis]

were going to be swarmed with baby garters again this year.

[Aaron_S]

Back to the original topic...

Could you list how you're getting $62 a month for a single snake? I'm sure there's a way I or some of us could lower that. Biggest chunk would be buying frozen RATS (not mice) from a supplier like rodentpro.com You could buy 2 months worth at a time. Really, that's only about 8 rats at a time to buy. Fairly cost effective.

[mommanessy247]

well the mice alone are $7.99 ea x's 5 for the month thats $39.95.(1 mouse p/ week.)
then theres the cost of food & bedding for them which is another $17.98.
total-$57.93 & that does not include tax which is why this got rounded up.
now for rats...they're $11.99 ea x's 5 for the month thats $59.95. (again 1 rat p/ week)
same food & bedding for them-$17.98. total-$77.98 not including tax.
i did all this math via calculator so theres no chance for mistakes, since i suck at math.

[shaunyboy]

is that mice that were meant to be sold as pets per chance ? its just that seems an awfull lot for a single mouse. small rats over here are roughly £1 thats $1.47.even jumbo rats are only £1.80 = $2.64.pet rats out a pet store are way more expensive.it might be your getting quoted prices on pet rats rather than feeder rats ? might be worth asking the folk aaron suggested to see if they can do it cheaper as they are a food supplier.
cheers shaun

[mommanessy247]

i think the mice/rats are in fact meant as pets...thats all the stores website is showing. who knows, when i get there to buy the mice, there just might be feeder mice there. i'll definitely be looking for feeder mice, but if there are none then i'll have to go with the others...see, here in south/north carolina theres really only the major pet store chains scattered far and few in between. we're not gonna drive more then an hour 1 way for feeder mice.

[marvelfreak]

Check new papers or do a web search for pet stores or breeder in your area. With a little work you should be able to find someone in your area with much cheaper prices. I pay $3.00 for large feeder rats at my pet store and that's on the high side. There a couple stores that are even cheaper, but i won't give them my business.

[Will0W783]

WOW, that is ridiculously expensive for mice! Even the pet stores around me that sell them as pets only charge like $3 for a mouse, and the place I go to charges $1.99 for adult mice. You really will save yourself a LOT of money and stress if you start ordering online or going to shows. Where are you located? I can direct you to a few local shows most likely, or you can google "(your state's name) reptile shows" and get a listing of ones that are near you.

[mykee]

Holy ****!
Firstly, pet store "pet" rats and mice are genetically inferior animals when compared to breeder-quality rats and mice. From the food they eat, to the conditions they live in.
Secondly, paying any more than $1 for a live mouse is bordering on reeeee-tawded. Buy your junk from a breeder and you'll end up spending 1/10th (yes, that's one thenth) the cost.
Thirdly, for one snake, breeding mice (which happen to smell like piss and popcorn) or rats is ridiculous. Whether you have one rat in your house, or breeding colonies in the hundreds, your house will never smell the same again. Trust me.
I breed enough rats at my facility to feed my 100+ adult ball pythons and even cleaning every 3-4 days, the smell is atrocious. No ammonia (big pet peeve) but poop and Mazuri smell.

Just for reference sake; breeding my own rats, feeding them, watering them, bedding them, culling them etc. I spend roughly $2.65 a month feeding each of my adult balls.

[mommanessy247]

those are petsmart's prices...i found feeder mice at petco for $2.99 ea. (way better) & will only cost me $14.95 p/ month to feed the snake instead of the $39.95 i mentioned earlier.
small feeder rats there also are $5.49 instead of the $11.99 for the ones at petsmart.
i made a few phone calls this morning lol.

[Lankyrob]

We pay 49p per pinky here - not sure about larger mice as havent had to buy any yet but the prices you are quoting do seem mighty high!!

[mommanessy247]

**NOTICE** onlinepetdepot.com has pet food & supplies in bulk for really cheap!!!

[Aaron_S]

Again if you're looking into buying FROZEN (and you should) you could save even more.

[mykee]

What Aaron said X2.
To add, assuming you've done some research into baby ball pythons; you should only have to be concerned about live mice for maybe two or three feedings, then live rats for a high total of six feedings, and finally frozen rats for the rest of the snakes life in you play your cards right.
No more than $1.50 a week for 35+ years.
Congratulations.

P.S. Aaron: how's the book?
Cool stuff, but almost completely outdated already.
Great info I found though.

[Aaron_S]

Also, if you skip on breeding your own then you'll cut out all that cost and time as well! You should ask the breeder of the snake if they can switch it to F/T and rats before you purchase it. They probably can, and will at least switch it to rats.

Mykee, it's pretty interesting. I read through it once but I'll go through it again. The morph part is outdated but still very cool.

[Chu'Wuti]

Mommanessy, if you don't even have the snake yet, get one that's already trained to eat F/T. Even if it isn't, some BPs are easy to switch over, while others take a little work but can be switched over. Once you've switched the snake over to F/T prey animals, as Mykee and Aaron have pointed out, it is MUCH less expensive than feeding live animals. I have two BPs and a Honduran Milk Snake, and the food bill for all three of them is FAR less than what you've calculated for the one snake you're planning to get.

[WakoNako]

Petsmart sells frozen mice at 6 for $10. Its a little high, but it'll last until I can get to a show and order bulk without worrying about shipping.

[spankygaaarge]

We only have Spanky (Dumeril's Boa), when we got him he was eating 2 frozen mice a week, but then i got my dragon "charlotte" for Xmas an since shes been in the house Spanky wont even go near frozen mice......... live mice cost us about $30 a month, Charlotte costs more to feed per month.......... we only buy mice when we need them, we would never even dream of breeding them, just having them in the house for an hour an you can smell them............... STINKY

[infernalis]

But you miss out on the photo sessions...

http://www.ssnakess.info/critters/images/rats.jpg

http://www.ssnakess.info/critters/images/mice.jpg

http://www.ssnakess.info/critters/images/mousepup.jpg

http://www.ssnakess.info/critters/images/3micecool.jpg

[Will0W783]

I've been meaning to ask you Spanky, how did you come up with your snake's name, "Spanky Gaaarge"?

[spankygaaarge]

well.......... it started off as george, but my partner pronounces it Gaarge, and i've just always called him spanky............ it took us a month to come up with a name, we called him "Snake" for a while cause we couldn't think of anything............

[Will0W783]

Ooohhh ok..I get it now. Cool! thanks for explaining..lol.

[spankygaaarge]

no wakkas mate :D