Upcoming Dropoff in Feeder Demand

exwizard · 11-17-11, 08:52 PM

We got cleaned out of all our rats we had in the van at the last reptile show in Des Moines. We are still running 12.80 breeder rats and 10.27 breeder mice with lots of babies and some of them are weaning at smalls so we're doing well on that end. We also have a wholesale supplier wenever we get depleted and we will have to use them this weekend to take care of the short term. My dilemma is how many and what sizes to get resupplied and yet not have so much that we get overstocked when the demand drops off. I'm interested in hearing other opinions about this and what other people normally do when it it does.

KORBIN5895 · 11-17-11, 10:40 PM

I would go medium rats for sure I just ordered some for a friend and me and had extra room in the box so I ordered other stuff. I put an add on kijiji and in 3 days I have had over 120 medium rats requested. I guess their are a lot of BP in my area.

**millertime89** · 11-18-11, 02:39 AM

small and medium rats seem to be a good choice. Both can feed young adult and adult BPs, and it seems retics are becoming more and more popular (at least its been theorized on two other forums more geared towards retics that I'm on) and mediums will feed them for a while too before making the switch to rabbits. I wish you were closer I would be buying more from you, the last batch I bought didn't survive the trip home frozen. They thawed and got all bloody, haven't taken one out to check if its usable, but my guess is not.

exwizard · 11-18-11, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KORBIN5895

I would go medium rats for sure I just ordered some for a friend and me and had extra room in the box so I ordered other stuff. I put an add on kijiji and in 3 days I have had over 120 medium rats requested. I guess their are a lot of BP in my area.

Yeah mediums work well but the problem is that they dont stay medium for long. Last Spring, we had to freeze a bunch of large to XXXs because nobody wanted them and since our spoace is limited, we had no other option.

Quote:

Originally Posted by millertime89

small and medium rats seem to be a good choice. Both can feed young adult and adult BPs, and it seems retics are becoming more and more popular (at least its been theorized on two other forums more geared towards retics that I'm on) and mediums will feed them for a while too before making the switch to rabbits. I wish you were closer I would be buying more from you, the last batch I bought didn't survive the trip home frozen. They thawed and got all bloody, haven't taken one out to check if its usable, but my guess is not.

We're definitely going to pick up some weaners to smalls, just not sure how many. We have to be very careful so we're not overstocked when the demand does let up.

Im sorry your fuzzies didn't make the trip. We'll try to figure out something else next time.

**millertime89** · 11-18-11, 02:00 PM

no worries, my fault, got pulled over on the way home, spent 30 minutes driving around Omaha, then forgot to move them to the freezer the minute I got home.

exwizard · 11-21-11, 09:19 PM

Ok our situation has become desparate. Our wholesaler had nothing for us last Saturday and we had to ration out everything we had left, weaner and above. Now we are currently out of all those sizes plus we had someone call us and wanted to do business with us that has a large collection of big snakes and a friend with even a larger collection. We need lots of rats of all sizes and now! Anyone in Iowa or the surrounding states that can lead us to a great wholesale rat deal would be greatly appreciated.