A question about feeders

[Psyche]

Ok i wasnt sure where this was suppose to go and i'm sorry if general wasnt it. Anyway i know some people just breed their own feeders and i wanted to know if its hard and how you get started and stuff. I'm not saying i'm going to go do it for sure but its something ive considered. One of the biggest questions i have about it is how do you keep the number of mice/rats you have under control, assuming you can at all

[theapexgerman]

I at one point was looking into breeding mice/rats but there's no need to I get any size mouse for 25 cents and any size rat for 50 cents each so its not worth it for me and the smell of all of the rodents would stink so I would invest in some good odor killer stuff

[Psyche]

yea i shouldve figured haha i've had pet rats before and it does kinda smell up the place a little (had forgotten until just now) x.x i actually JUST found the only person in my area who breeds feeders today! i'm really happy about that because now i dont have to spend $11 for 4 mice for my BP ^_^

[theapexgerman]

Now if you had like 20 some snakes I would go into the breeding but even still I rather pay than to deal with a lot of rats my girl would kill me if I started breeding mice and rats lol but coongrats on finding a breeder that has good price

[Rogue628]

I have 10 and with so many variations in their food sources (small adult mice, large adult mice, small rats, medium rats, large rats, and chicks and a few rabbit pinks for variation), I don't find it feasible to breed my own at this point. I spent about $200 for bulk feeders the last time and that will keep most of my animals fed for 3 months, a few a little longer.

Maybe if most at about the same thing it may be different. But then, I don't have room for breeding nor the time.

And not all of mine are on f/t. My rainbow still won't switch so she eats live and when my royals refuse f/t, I always run the next day to a mom and pop store nearby and pick up live...then they eat lol

Maybe once I get moved and settled I could start thinking about breeding.....

[theapexgerman]

Guess I'm lucky all my eat live witch is fine for me and the person lives a few minutes away so makes me even more happy

[Psyche]

ive only fed my bp f/t (shes a voracious eater) im afraid to try live with her

[theapexgerman]

Ill switch my durmil to f/t when they get a lot older cause a big rat could do dammage but for now I'm not worried bout a mouse harming my snakes plus a lot cooler. To watch them stalk the prey my durmil will be hiding under his repti bark and all I will see a out line under the repti bark moving and bamm he hits his small rat pretty hard

[Psyche]

that does sound interesting to watch, but my bp eats adult mice and compared to her size idk id rather not risk it

[theapexgerman]

Yea feeding live is a risky thing its always better to feed f/t but that's not me I guess I'm kinda evile in that way but in my years of feeding live nothing ever happen to any of my snakes I did do a freshly kill mouse to my durmil he was still getting use to his home and it took a few feeding of him bein alone in his csge with the lights off but now he eats like a champ

[Rogue628]

The big thing with feeding live is to watch to make sure no harm comes to your animal. Naturally the bigger the prey the more likely the animal is to get a little scratch or something, but it's really not a big issue as long as you supervise. You'll know within the first few minutes if your animal is going to accept what you offered or not. If they don't want it, you just take it out. Most snakes are very quick at striking and wrapping their prey. It's very seldom that the prey will do enough damage to cause bleeding or other harm...at least I never experienced it and I used to feed nothing but live when I first kept snakes back in the late 90's.

Like I said, I still feed mine live if they won't take f/t. I refuse to let an animal go without just because they don't want what I offer. They're awesome to watch when feeding live. Some of mine like to sneak up on their food while others seem to get overly excited and launch themselves at it, sometimes hitting the other side of their tubs when they strike. My two favorites to watch eat are Eric's rainbow and my king :D

[Psyche]

well i'm glad to know that you can try live if the snake goes off eating, i wouldnt have considered it honestly.

[Gungirl]

If your snake takes f/t now don't offer live. If you give it live it might start to refuse F/t then you have to deal with live all the time along with the risk of bites and what not.

[theapexgerman]

The big thing with feeding live is to watch to make sure no harm comes to your animal. Naturally the bigger the prey the more likely the animal is to get a little scratch or something, but it's really not a big issue as long as you supervise. You'll know within the first few minutes if your animal is going to accept what you offered or not. If they don't want it, you just take it out. Most snakes are very quick at striking and wrapping their prey. It's very seldom that the prey will do enough damage to cause bleeding or other harm...at least I never experienced it and I used to feed nothing but live when I first kept snakes back in the late 90's.

Like I said, I still feed mine live if they won't take f/t. I refuse to let an animal go without just because they don't want what I offer. They're awesome to watch when feeding live. Some of mine like to sneak up on their food while others seem to get overly excited and launch themselves at it, sometimes hitting the other side of their tubs when they strike. My two favorites to watch eat are Eric's rainbow and my king :D
What he said sums it up

[Rogue628]

If your snake takes f/t now don't offer live. If you give it live it might start to refuse F/t then you have to deal with live all the time along with the risk of bites and what not.

True. I only offer live when they won't eat f/t. Those that I feed live to when they refuse f/t, will eat f/t later.

My others only eat f/t, with the exception of the rainbow and she only will take live. I try offering her f/t each feeding but she always refuses so I go to the pet store the next day and get live for her (and food for my other royals that refuse to eat the f/t, which is like every other week). Come to think of it, the only ones that refuse f/t every so often are my royals. All my other animals eat every time food is offered, even during shed.

[Rogue628]

What he said sums it up

She :p

lol :D

[theapexgerman]

My coral snake will eat live,f/t and just bout anything even when he's sheeding I still don't know if its a he or a she tho no one won't probe it for me and I'm sure not going to do it my self and take a chance of getting bit I've been bittin by sidewinder and it hurt me a lot I could just imagine what a coral would do but he's a tame snake never try to bite tho I still use a hook

[theapexgerman]

She :p

lol :D
My bad she said my mistake sorry =D

[Psyche]

If your snake takes f/t now don't offer live. If you give it live it might start to refuse F/t then you have to deal with live all the time along with the risk of bites and what not.

oh i hadnt considered that either! well never mind then. To be completely honest with you guys i dont think i'll have an issue with her eating, she's a pig! lol

[theapexgerman]

I'm glad you got a good eater on your hands snakes with good eating are happy snakes

[Psyche]

yea i think i got rather lucky haha she's really calm and i havent had any issues with her balling up or biting or anything. I think she actually likes it when i hold her

[infernalis]

I breed rats, for my smaller snakes, I just feed pinkie rats instead of mice, and my python gets junior size rats.

Any that make it to adulthood I sell off.

[Psyche]

I breed rats, for my smaller snakes, I just feed pinkie rats instead of mice, and my python gets junior size rats.

Any that make it to adulthood I sell off.

How hard/costly would you say breeding is? i know theres a lot to factor in and stuff such as enclosures and bedding and such.

[red ink]

One thing I do know about FT prey, whether I'm feeding them to small snakes with small prey size or large snakes with large prey size.... None of the FT food items has ever fought, bitten or scratched any of my snakes. FTs also don't require food or water or cleaning all they need is a dedicated spot in the freezer.

[infernalis]

How hard/costly would you say breeding is? i know theres a lot to factor in and stuff such as enclosures and bedding and such.

I keep my two colonies in old fish tanks, One is cracked, I used boat patch cement, it's ugly but it works.

I got the aquariums for free.

For feed, I mix bags of hamster food with generic corn flakes, generic bran flakes, and cheese crackers so the feed is really quite cheap, I think I spend about $5 a week on rat food.

Dried out dinner rolls are free, they like them too.

Pine bedding is like $3 a bag at wall mart, I mix that with shredded office documents.
(if you ask people who own a business, shredded paper is free)

[theapexgerman]

I would have to buy another freezer if I keep rats or mice in our freezer Jessica has a rule no rodents around any of the food even if there in zip lock baggys I would go over to f/t before I would start breeding roddents

[Psyche]

I keep my two colonies in old fish tanks, One is cracked, I used boat patch cement, it's ugly but it works.

I got the aquariums for free.

For feed, I mix bags of hamster food with generic corn flakes, generic bran flakes, and cheese crackers so the feed is really quite cheap, I think I spend about $5 a week on rat food.

Dried out dinner rolls are free, they like them too.

Pine bedding is like $3 a bag at wall mart, I mix that with shredded office documents.
(if you ask people who own a business, shredded paper is free)

Wow thats not that bad o.o i was expecting... way more expenses haha

[KORBIN5895]

My current mouse colony has cost me around $60 since October. That is including a thermostat and red flood light. Right now I have between 80-100 mice.

[theapexgerman]

How bad does all of the rodents smell and what do you use for a odor killer

[KORBIN5895]

They smell terrible. I don't worry though because they live in my shed.

[theapexgerman]

Lol I kind thought they smell bad every time I go over to my breeders place he has in a shed to you can smell them bad I nearly gag every time I go in there and he uses lysol to keep the smell the down but that only helps a little

[Psyche]

this may or may not be an odd question but do they ever like... idk eat each other? i ask because when i was little i had 3 mice and they all killed each other o.o my mom had told me at the time it was a territorial thing

[theapexgerman]

Rodents will eat just bout anything lol so I would say if they was hungry enough they would eat each other atleast I would think so

[Psyche]

D: i hope mine didnt do it for food.. i was really young at the time and as far as i remember i kept them fed.. poor things :(

[theapexgerman]

I'm not for sure tho just takeing a guess but would make since cause they eat just bout anything lol

[Psyche]

it may have been what happened. ive vowed to never own mice as pets again though because of it haha it was pretty gross x.x

[theapexgerman]

My mother keeps a few gerbels as pet I always tease her and say I think I may bring over my sanke for a little snack she says if I ever do ill be sorry I always wanted to test her on that

[Psyche]

lol so mean! i dont think ive ever seen a gerbel o.o

[theapexgerman]

Reminds me of a big mouse but doesn't stink as bad and pretty good pets as I here

[Psyche]

i always picture something like a hamster when i hear gerbel lol

[KORBIN5895]

Yes mice will eat each other. Mice also tend to eat their young.

[Jenn_06]

i breed rats and the only time i seen them eat each other is when a sick rat dies and i did not get it out of the tub on time all that will be left is fur, but i like breeding them, i just got a litter last night from a first time mom.

The smell is not that bad if you clean them, i have my rat rack in my snake room and i clean out the tubs once a week, and you cant really tell i have rats in there.

[jarich]

Mice are horrible vile little creatures, but rats are very social and intelligent. If you breed, definitely go for the rats. Mice smell incredibly bad, will kill each others babies and are dirty. Rats dont smell nearly as bad, are very clean, and will actually take care of each others offspring. Controlling their breeding is easy, just keep the male away from the females when you have what you need. Feeding them is pretty cheap and simple. The only problem is that they are such cool animals that you might find yourself getting attached to them. I had one female that I kept for a long time and felt really bad when I had to feed her.

[theapexgerman]

Wow I thought it was the other way around mice smarter than a rat but having a girlfriend well never allowed me to have a mice/rat breeding she would kill me in fact

[exwizard]

Wow how did I miss this thread?! Where do I start? First off, we got into breeding to make sure we had enough to feed our snakes without depending on other peoples supply. The idea was to have enough for them and sell off the excess. Over a period of time, however, we built up a clientele and our names/numbers are still getting passed around. Word of mouth is an awesome thing. Right now our supply is being outstripped by the high demand so thats always a challenge.

We keep several 50 lb bags of rat chow we get from Kent Feed. That only costs us less than $13.00 per bag and we generally go through a bag per week for the North Colony (which consists of over 200 rats and over 100 mice. The South Colony has over 140 rats and it goes through about half of what we do. The cool thing about this rat chow is that you can spread it along to top of the tubs and it doesnt go bad so theres no waste.

Rats are better to breed and raise than mice are just because they are more social and less cannibalistic than mice. With our mice, we have to keep 10 breeding groups as separate colonies to prevent fighting while our female rats get rotated in and out of the 8 breeding tubs depending on pregnancy status so they know early on that they are all part of a larger colony.

If you keep multiple snakes, you might want to consider breeding rats and/or mice to make sure your snakes are well fed. Otherwise you are subject to other breeders shortages and they do happen a lot.

Also the smell can be controlled by regular weekly or twice a week tub or tank cleaning plus the use of a product called Kennel Fresh which actually cuts ammonia in half.

[exwizard]

The only problem is that they are such cool animals that you might find yourself getting attached to them. I had one female that I kept for a long time and felt really bad when I had to feed her.

We dont have this problem because even though we handle all our rats and keep them tame as pets, they are not pets. They are livestock in our little rodent ranch and as such their primary purpose is snake food. Keeping them pet tame makes it safer for the snakes during feeding time anyway.

[Psyche]

Wow how did I miss this thread?! Where do I start? First off, we got into breeding to make sure we had enough to feed our snakes without depending on other peoples supply. The idea was to have enough for them and sell off the excess. Over a period of time, however, we built up a clientele and our names/numbers are still getting passed around. Word of mouth is an awesome thing. Right now our supply is being outstripped by the high demand so thats always a challenge.

We keep several 50 lb bags of rat chow we get from Kent Feed. That only costs us less than $13.00 per bag and we generally go through a bag per week for the North Colony (which consists of over 200 rats and over 100 mice. The South Colony has over 140 rats and it goes through about half of what we do. The cool thing about this rat chow is that you can spread it along to top of the tubs and it doesnt go bad so theres no waste.

Rats are better to breed and raise than mice are just because they are more social and less cannibalistic than mice. With our mice, we have to keep 10 breeding groups as separate colonies to prevent fighting while our female rats get rotated in and out of the 8 breeding tubs depending on pregnancy status so they know early on that they are all part of a larger colony.

If you keep multiple snakes, you might want to consider breeding rats and/or mice to make sure your snakes are well fed. Otherwise you are subject to other breeders shortages and they do happen a lot.

Also the smell can be controlled by regular weekly or twice a week tub or tank cleaning plus the use of a product called Kennel Fresh which actually cuts ammonia in half.

if i did get into breeding my own feeders i wouldnt want to breed mice, but how do you keep up with so many animals?? id feel overwhelmed