Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've dropped a lot of money at Big Cheese Rodents lately (great company to do business with/great products) so I started wondering this. To those of you who produce your own rats/mice, at what point is it time/finacially beneficial to produce your feeders (how big of a collection, how many rats you go through, how much money you spend). Thanks a lot.

I have a modest collection that runs around 50-60 animals give or take. I spend about $100/month on f.t. - I buy in bulk it really lessens the cost. A few years ago I got the bright idea to try to take a cut out of my f.t. bill buy raising a few rats of my own. The cost of raising a small 6 drawer rack of rats ran me about $20 a month - this was in no way enough for me to completely feed my snakes - just enough to subsidize - I would easily have had to double to feed my snakes. I was spending more time caring for the rats than I did for the snakes and came to the realization that I really really hate rats (and mice).

Some people like rodents, don't mind the time - find that the money saved is worth it. For me - I'd rather defrost and serve than spend hours cleaning dirty rat bins, hunting down escapees and fishing drown rats out of their tubs cause they were too stupid not to shove aspen up into their nozzles. Not to mention prekilling them.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

I raise my own so I know the quality of them also my snakes won't eat f/t

Check out this link....it answers about everything on this issue:
Put a pencil to it!!!

If you aren't already breeding your own rats and mice, and have more than a small snake collection, you will be glad you started to breed them. Here's why:

1. Cost. You can raise rats for a fraction of the cost of purchasing-even if you buy online in bulk. This is important for a large collection.

2.Convenience. We all know how "finicky" balls can be at times. Yet these are usuually the times you really want to get that female to gain some weight for breeding (or that new hatchling to take a first meal). What you need is nice, young, fresh, LIVE rat. You can go out and spend $8.00 at the nearest chain store (and lie about not using it for a feeder ), or you can go out to the garage and get it from your colony!

3. Control. You know where your rats came from, what they were fed, how they were cared for and killed (i.e. humanely), etc.

As a breeder, I wouldn't be without my rodent colony, as annoyingly smelly and time-consuming as it can be at times.
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Brad Chambers

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

I agree with brad !
I only have 30 balls but the convenience of fresh live rats makes a huge difference. You will spend much more time with the rats!!!! I feed both FT and live , fussy feeders get live or fresh killed. Its a no brainer ,,,,,,Rodent cubes $14.00 , live feeders $3.00 each. One nice thing is being able to put babies rats back in tubs if there not eaten instead of waste!

Think about how much you make at your job an hour, and then how many hours you are going to put into raising rats to save $X.xx.

Then determine if you want to deal with the smell?

Is it worth it?

Might be better off putting in a fraction of those hours at work and use the extra money to help with your costs.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

To me the smell is the big problem. I breed about half of my rat supply and find it worth it for the money saved, but I was happier in the summer when I could keep them in the garage.

I'm steadily expanding my African Soft-Furred Rat population in hope of doing away with the regular rats completely. They breed as a colony and don't have a strong smell. The only problem I've had with ASFRs is that the young can slip out of any cage so I have to use aquariums.

I despise the SMELL!! I have tried to raise rats and mice. I don't need many mice- just pinkies for one snake- so i had a trio of breeding mice... then the dog dumped the tank and killed my breeders- so i fed the mice to a ball and quit.

The rats- smell smell smell. You could put me in a cow pile and i'd be happier than smelling rat urine...

I have a guy that lives near me that started a rat colony to feed his 5 snakes, and in a matter of 6 months of poor planning- ended up with over 200 rats... so guess whos now getting them for 1$ each? ME!

I would by far rather call him up and say- hey i need 10 or 15 rats- i'll come by tomarrow-- than smell the stupid things.

I have 5 right now that are live that weren't eaten and they got put on the front porch last nite- they STINK.

beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

I breed some of my own rats. I use quat plus tb to clean the tubs weekly, and have no issue with smell. In my opinion, if you use enough pine, and keep the tubs clean, you should not run into an issue.

"Think about how much you make at your job an hour, and then how many hours you are going to put into raising rats to save $X.xx."

My wife seems to think ALL my paycheck belongs to her so it doesn't matter how much I make, feeder money has to come from the snakes, and some of that she thinks is hers too, lol.

I've got to find a way to raise rodents again (looking at AFS for the smell) as I've got very interesting females who will not likely go this year due to want of an extra $20-30 of purchased rats. It doesn't make sense on paper but if you have a wife like mine you might understand why it is.

I have a collection of about 100 adult ball pythons and boas. A few years ago I got an idea how I could keep the cost of feeding my snakes to a minimum. It was costing me about $450 per month.

I feed 99.9 % rats to all my snakes, but a few years ago I got this idea of raising mice and selling them to a local pet shop. So I went around to this particular pet shop and offered him a deal he could not refuse. I told him I would sell him any size mouse for $.40 each. He was paying $.65 each at the time. So obviously he jumped on the deal. Now I sell him about 600 to 800 mice per month. I keep all of the rats for my own snakes and use the proceeds from selling the mice to pay for rodent food and bedding and pocket the rest.

It only takes me one hour per week to clean the 25 mouse cages. I figured out after costs I'm still getting paid about $50.00 per hour for raising mice.

So now not only am I feeding my snakes for free, I'm actually making a little pocket money.

Good luck

Brian

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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

I started early last year tring to breed rats and it was slow going at first. But once I got them going my colony has grown to about 96 breeder females and 8-10 males. I spent 250.00 a month on frozen now I spend 85.00 a month to raise my rats. I have 49 snakes in my collection and I feed alot. The time spent is well worth my time and I personally enjoy working with them. Plus I can't beat the quality.

Jeff

A couple of reasons I want to get back into breeding my own rodents (like when I was single) include:

Parasites - I'd spend a big chunk of change on Droncit to clear out tape worms and test again to find I had them again. My vet (who literally wrote the book on reptile parasites) told me that tape worms almost have to come from feeders and can't be passed from snake to snake so I know I was being re-infected by my rodent supply. I get the idea this isn't that uncommon and most people just live with having to regularly treat for parasites in their snake colonies (or have never checked for them). I'd really like to start with a nice Harlan SPF rodent colony in new cages/facility and see if it wouldn't be possible to get rid of reptile parasites once and for all.

Taxes - My rodent supplier who used to give receipts went out of business. Now unless I purchase retail rodents (twice the price or more) I have no way to deduct feeder rodent expense from snake sales (not that I have any great snake sale related tax liability yet but every bit helps). Given that I could for sure get receipts for rodent food and bedding my after tax savings will be even more than the difference in price between purchasing rodents and raising my own. I’ll effectively be buying rodent supplies with pre-tax dollars vs. buying wholesale rodents with post tax dollars

The big rubs are the time, space, and smell to raise your own rodents. If I can find a way around those the benefits will be more than just the considerable justification of hoping to stop taking 4 years to raise females up on my current rodent budget..

Randy, honestly I havn't had fecals done on any of my captive breed BP's. The only one I had checked was a captive hatched Granite Borneo last summer. He came back negative. How often do you check for internal parasites? I havn't thought much about it with the CBB balls. My good eaters averaged about 100 gram weight gain per month this past year. The only ons that din't were the picky feeders. And the tax issue is agreat point. Even thought I was getting invoices from Rodent Pro. By filing as a hobby bussiness last year we were able to right off 100% of our tax liabilty. So even though the snakes aren't adding to my income YET, its good to get in the habbit of saving those receipts.

Jeff

I checked and treated two years in a row. I'm due for it again but I'm waiting to hopefully set up a clean rodent colony first as now I'm suspicious that some rodent colonies infect captive bred snakes. I did hear from Harlan that they have ASF rats but didn’t get a reply when I asked if they where SPF or how to buy them.

So Randy, are you just checking randomly for parasites or do they exhibit any signs. And what is the average cost to check and treat each snake.

Jeff

Just checking randomly. I've heard of someone who would very carefully monitor the ratio of food intake to weight gain as a measure of when to treat for parasites but I'd need a better scale to go to that detail.

I think my vet charges somewhere in the $20's per sample. His book actually tells about getting a microscope and how to check yourself so that is also an option.

I am building my racks now to raise rats. I got in on a pretty sweet deal. I am going to breed het for hairless rats and the local pet shop owner is going to pay me $2 worth of supplies and bedding for each hairless I produce and give to him. He is a supplier for PetCo and PetsMart. I will basically be able to feed my snakes for free once I get up and going. He is also giving my adults to start my colony and I will pay for them with the first rats I produce.

Plus. I have a new "invention" that I made for rat breeding. I made my racks for $200. That included materials, tubs, and watering system. No wood, no plastic, no saws, just stuff I found at the hardware store. The only tools I needed to put it together were a hammer and wire cutters and a tape measure.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

can you post pics of your $200 racks?

I can't advertise here but be on the lookout for the next greatest thing. I am gearing it towards us small guys to be able to breed rats more affordably.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

no one said anything about buying or advertising............all i asked was to see what your $200 racks look like. nothing more nothing less

I am going to sell it on kingsnake.com. I am making sure the prototype is going to work before I show it.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.