Dude, dont bother with the raising of feeders- unless you have a number of animals, its just not really worth it.



Find a good wholesaler online and work out monthly/bimonthly shipments.



I payed about $250 for 450 adult mice and 50 baby chicks; which if you do the math would be ALOT more than $250.



They have people that do live cricket shipments as well, anywhere from 500-10,000; and they are indefinitely cheaper than buying/breeding your own feeders.



Then again, I personally value my time highly and my time is worth money- therefore I personally would rather simply pay a set amount (cheaper than petstores by far) to get a large number of frozen feeders; rather than spending my time going about the motions of taking care of said feeders in the living stage.



If you ARE going to try breeding something though, a few suggestions....



1. Mice stink; dont plan on farming mice unless you have someplace that isnt going to mind a constant stench (and Im talking STENCH, these lil bastards SMELL TERRIBLE)



2. Rats dont stink as much. If you MUST try raising feeders, go with rats. Weanlings are about the same size as adult mice (though they are nutritionally less valueable) and in time adult mice will be on the menu for your monitor.



3. Crickets are a waste of time. Dont bother raising crickets for a monitor- youll need thousands for it to be any use. Instead...



4. Roaches kick ass. Monitors LOVE roaches, and roaches are quite abit easier to maintain than crickets. The only real fear with roaches is escape; and they sell a substance that you can use to make your containers/cages escape proof for roaches.



5. Time IS money. Understand that you have to maintain a feeder population for it to be worthwhile; and that requires time. There is only so much time in the day, and it goes fast.... however, depending on your situation, money may well be in greater supply than time. Purchasing pre-killed, F/T feeders is a far easier way of doing things than attempting to contain, maintain and succeed in breeding your own feeders.





I say these things as someone who was in the same postion you are- my money is limited, as is my time; but $250 for a 3 months supply of food REALLY isnt that bad.



Understand that, no matter how you go about it, its going to be expensive to feed a growing monitor- thats just the way it is.



If you cant reliably provide for said animal, get it to someone who can.



If you can reliably provide for it, do it, and do it well- dont waste time and funds on half-assed projects that you arent SURE are going to work out for the positive.





Now, dont get me wrong, trying new things is how innovation occurs; but in this case, I dont think you are going to innovate the techniques of raising feeders and you will almost undoubtably spend alot of time/funds on gathering, containing and maintaining live feeder populations- remember, you have to FEED the feeders, not to mention house them, contain them, clean up after them, seperate them in time (as many male mammals will eat their young), etc.



Its basically a matter of time vs money... which do you have more of?

[ Show Entire Thread ]