Reptile & Amphibian Forums

there has been a lot of talk here recently on not feeding live. for example, this one person let their hatchling bp go quite a while without food because she didn't want to feed live. i don't see what the problem is with going to the pet store, picking out a 2 dollar mouse and feeding it. i know that snakes can get hurt with live food but i don't see that happening in my own situation.

I feed live all the time...........16 years plus other years worth long ago........only one baby ball hurt of thousands and thousands of feedings........and I feed live gerbils,mice,rats,hamsters,and have done degu now..and they are big enough........

......YES I am there and yes I watch from time to time....I let prey in for awhile then pull it out....if they don't eat right away...they don't get to eat.......

some snakes I have learned do want dead.....so I kill prey(large mouse) now and turn lights out....it is usually eaten.....they ate live before but turned wierd.......

just watch them is all.....

$2 mouse...????????...wow........I could make 500 % more money........
.
.

......
-----
20% isn't bad
lots of snakes love them....and there are more things in the world than balls......
they breed like crazy ...........and............

In Orlando mice are like 2.09 or 2.19 at Petland, 6 for 6 dollars at another place but its like 30 min from my house.
-----
1.0 Spotted Python
1.0 IJ Carpet Python and 0.1 Jungle Carpet
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Macklot's Python
1.0 Variable Kingsnake

I would love to get a buck a mouse.........wow.......I sell wholesale to one guy who retails them at shows,frozen,,,,,,,I also sell to a handful of friends and feel bad selling them for 40 cents each......I'd rather get 50 cents.......

prices now are lower than 15 years ago...I used to get a dollar for 3 pinks ,,now 5 for a buck......

all the bigtime breeders killed mice prices too ,not just the co-dom morphs..........

yet feed went from $8 a bag to $ 13 to $18 a bag.......shavings went from $2.50 to $5.05 ........corn from $4 a hundred pound to $10$.........

life......aaaaaaaaaa..........inflation sucks on us all......

good thing mice don't need to drink gasoline.........
.
.
.
-----
20% isn't bad
lots of snakes love them....and there are more things in the world than balls......
they breed like crazy ...........and............

doesnt matter what size, adult, pinkie, 1.99 please. "You can save 10% if you join our pet club." No thanks, Ill just buy from the same place you did and save 400%. Thanks for the kind offer though.
The past couple of weeks Ive had to use the pet store until I can get to my mouse dealer, and it pains me to pay that much for a pinkie. Seriously. And I pay a dollar for 10 crickets, not that big a deal but they make a movie theater popcorn like killing on those.
Speaking of movie theater popcorn........................nah.

ep
-----
Occupants not paying rent:
1.1. balls
1.1 corns
1 everglades rat
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2.1 cats

i'm new with all this but when you only have one snake like me, 2 bucks a week isn't that bad.

Have you tried a bait shop for your crickets? I get mine 50 for $1.00 at the local bait shop. I breed my own rats. I think it is the only way to go if you have more than 1 or 2 snakes. I feed all of my snakes for about $40.00 per month and only spend about 30 minutes a week taking care of them. If I had to buy all of my rats at the pet store it would cost cost me $150-$200 per month
-----
John Vandegrift

Ive only got one bearded dragon so her crickets are more of a treat than a staple. So I really dont mind spending a whole dollar on her every now and again. I was just talking about the crazy mark up percentage at pet stores. As far as the mice go I have a friend whos parents own a pet store so when they order their mice I can just add on my order and not worry about paying extra. I just havent made it to them recently. I used to have a lot of animals that needed crickets so Id order 1000 for 12 bucks or whatever it was. And yeah, I used to make many a trip to the local bait store. Funny how a cricket for food costs 10 times as much as a cricket for bait. Oh well.

ep
-----
Occupants not paying rent:
1.1. balls
1.1 corns
1 everglades rat
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2.1 cats

200% profit if you sold at $2.00 but then that would mean that you produced that mouse and doesn't include ANY of your overhead what so ever. At 500% you would be selling that mouse for $5.00. UNDERSTAND ?
-----
I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

I use to buy all of my mice and rats from a local herp store i use to work at, i use to pay .35 - .55 for mice depending on size. I added up my costs for the year that i spent on feeder animals (mice rats ect) and at that point decided to breed my own. I was spending 36k a year on food !!! It adds up quickly. Now it costs me about 300-400 a month to pay for food and just own a facility to breed them at. I now only buy a few 100 mice a week and that hold over my babies, once they take a rat pup they never get a mouse again...

Please explain that math to me. I need a laugh.

I don't know about you, but it doesn't cost me that much to produce an idividual mouse, I'd say at most, once the overhead of building the racks is covered probably at most $5 a tub, and that's with Harlan food and bedding. Now if I have 6 mice tubs and 19 rat tubs that's $125 of feed and bedding and that's about what my monthly order from Harlan comes out to. In my mice tubs, I run 1 male to 7 females and on average get 4 litters each month from each tub so that's 24 litters a month from my mice. each litter on average is 8 babies of which 6 make it to adulthood and that equates to 144 mice per month, not alot but most of my snakes eat rats and I do occasionally buy or trade rats for mice. so six tubs that cost me $30 bucks a month to maintain and produce 144 mice, so that breaks down to just under 21 cent per mouse to produce. so at 42 cent it's 100% profit, at 63 cent it's 200% profit, 84 cent it's 300% profit, 1.05 it's 400% profit, and at 1.26 it's 500% profit. If it' costs you a dollar or even 50 cent to produce a mouse, you are doing something terribly wrong.

These numbers should show you how much of a mark-up petstores charge, mark-up = profit and they are making a killing.

One pet store I sell rats to pays 1.83 per large rat and in turn sells them for $6.50. So now I run adds when I have a surplus of rats and sell them for $2.50 at a savings to the customer and a profit to me.
-----
Josh Hutto
J&K Reptiles

2.3 het pied (RDR, alan bosch x 2, BHB x 2)
1.0 Spider Ball python (Ballroom pythons south)
1.0 Vanilla Ball Python (Gulf Coast)
0.1 High Contrast Albino (Gulf Coast)
1.1 het albino (ben siegel, Gulf Coast)
1.2 het citrus ghost(Gulf Coast line)
1.0 citrus ghost (Gulf Coast line)
1.1 graz pastel female
Alot of normal BP females (some not so normal)
2 various corns
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (alan bosch)
1.0 american pit bull terrier
1.1 taco dogs (ankle biters)
1.0 grey cat
0.1 columbian red-tail boa

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

in business doesn't have clue to the wheel of profit and margin of profit / mark up. When you make ANY 100% on anything, you are making what it cost you. Anything after 100 % is supposedly profit but of course its not ! If you breed and produce and sale, you still don't make anything of 300% 400 % or even 500% profit if you are in business and pay taxes and over head that even might surmise as feed and electricity and your time involved. I have defended retail pet stores up-teen times as they DO NOT MAKE EVEN 200 % of profit ! You non-retail people or non- business people just don't have a clue on any business. The only business that even makes that kind of profit and not really of those higher percentiles is Jewelers and precious metals. Try running a business ( okay , pet store ) with over head, insurance, employees and employees taxes, pay role including your own, un-countable and un-seen problems like a water heater going out, death of live stock, sick live stock that has to be treated, breakage, theft ( oh a big freaking problem ! ) , rent, lease, utilities, work mans comp, permits, permits , permits, advertising and advertisements , phone book listing ( it cost us 4,000 a year ), shipping of dry goods and or live stock. This is the main cost but there is still more added on. So AGAIN ! Any of you so called knowledgeable people wanna open a retail store and think you are going to make / see a 500% markup let alone a 200% mark-up ? Go to school........LOL !
-----
I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

under 100% profit. Let me explain : you are working on 25 %, 50 %, 75 % and not the 2 zeros percentile. Made simple : if i bought a bag of Science diet dog food for wholesale at $18 and sold for the suggested retail price ( and we did ) of $26, that is only a 100% over wholesale cost that we recouped and only the next % is under 100% of profit. If we sold the bag of food for $36, that would be a complete 100% over cost profit which again is only showing and not true profit. In peoples mind, the grocery stores makes a killing on groceries but most all grocery stores work at about only 10 % to 20 % markup and make money on VOLUME of sold goods. one more time........if you buy a mouse of cost of $1.00 and sold it for $2.00, you made 100 % profit over cost. If you sold at $3.00 you made 200 % profit over cost, not 300 % profit. If you sold that $1.00 cost you mouse for $1.20, you only made 20 cents profit and only 20 % profit. Got it ? I have owned 1 pet store and ran 2 other ones and owned several other businesses including a breeding reptile business with all the taxes and tax numbers required plus was a buyer for a retail grocery chain. Now ya wanna know why breakfast cereal is so high in price when it takes about a nickel or so to produce ?
-----
I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

Back to the topic at hand: I feed mostly fresh-killed. All of my animals are rescues, and they all refused f/t. I'm slowly trying to get them onto f/t because it's more convenient for me.

I agree that there is no issue with feeding life/stunned, as long as you're there to supervise. The issue with feeding live comes from people who just throw in a rat and walk off. I feed all my snakes in a rubbermaid with a screen lid, in the bathroom with the lights off. It's dark and quiet in there, and I can sit on the edge of the tub and watch them in the dusk.
-----
1.1.2 Python regius
0.0.1 Eunectes notaeus
0.0.1 Lampropeltis spp.
5.0.0 Ambystoma mexicanum
1.3.0 Triturus karelinii
1.3.0 Taricha granulosa
0.3.0 Ambystoma jeffersonianum
0.0.3 Salamandra salamandra
0.0.1 Tylototriton verrucosus
1.0.0 Grammastola cala
1.0.0 Homo sapiens 'Hottie'