Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So what's the best way to get mice? I like the idea of feeding frozen, but I only have the 10 hatchlings at the moment, so I'll only need a small quantity. Shipping is crazy for frozen. Would I be better off just to buy locally? I plan to sell most of the hatchlings and only keep one or two, so I really don't need a lot of mice.

kind of sounds like you answered your own question.

If you can get good prices for frozen mice locally, go for it. But petstore can sell mice at 2-5 times more than what you can buy online. Shipping is an issue, mostly due to packaging to keep frozen mice frozen, and of course rising gas prices.
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The best way to go is to find a mouse breeder in your area who sells them as feeders. Thus, you can pick them up yourself and not have to worry about freezing.

10 hatchling ball pythons can eat 10 mice per 5-7 days, 50 frozen mice would only last a month, give or take so that does seem rather small amount to mail order. Most online feeder suppliers will be happy to give you a price quote for your order, including shipping (just send them an email and include your address, or at least your zip, or call). Check around your area for what prices you can get locally. Compare prices. You may find it is cheaper to buy from the local pet store...or you may find it much cheaper to order online and pay the shipping.

Another way to reduce shipping costs (and individual cost of each mouse) is combine orders for rodents with all your snake/monitor keeping buddies. If your order of 50 mice turns out to be 500 mice...shipping probably won't be much different but split 3 ways it will be much less. ANd most places charge less per mouse if more numbers are ordered at once (could be something like $.50 per mouse for orders of 1-99 and $.40 per mouse for orders of 100-499 etc)
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PHLdyPayne

I know the shipping may seem to be a big part of buying frozen online, but when you spread it out over the price per mouse I think you will see that its its still very cost effective. As an example I went to the Rodent Pro site and got the cost of 2 different size orders for weaned mice. the first is 100 mice at a total with shipping of $75.44. Or .75 cents per mouse. The second was for 200 weaned mice at a total of $115.63 including shipping. That breaks down to a cost of .58 cents per mouse. My local pet store sells them for a $1.22 including tax and a local breeder sells them for .50 cents when they are available for an average price of .86 cents. Plus I don't have to uthenize them nor do I have to spend time or gas driving to pick them up. They come straight to my door and into the freezer. Just something to think about.

Jeff

I like to feed live my balls are happier I believe , they have never went off feed, frozen is very expensive to ship you are right thats money that would be wasted that I could buy live feeders with, plus I have plenty of places where I can purchase live feeders very cheap, you should just deal with buying locally and save your money, plus to me its a pain to try to get balls to feed on f/t I always end up throwing away f/t feeders because my snakes want eat them, I spoil them and in return they spoil me, thats the way it goes.

I just ordered some rats on-line from www.aikenfeederfood.com and they have free shipping if it can be delivered DHL ground.

If you are in Va.,I know someone who produces a load of rats and mice.If you are close enough to him or one of his clients he will deliver. Jeff

Nope, I'm in Alabama. I'll have to do some looking and see if I can find someone around here that breeds them.