Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ive tried googling, but im looking for anyone that has done a cost analysis on rodent production. Basically i live in finland, and there is limited frozen foods available, and what is available is at a price (well you wouldnt want to know, ie mice pinkies at the same price as Rodent Pros XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL rats) My collection of snakes had recently grown quite significantly, and im looking to the fact that i may have to start producing my own rodents, if this is so, i might decide to produce rodents for other people. Is there something on the net somewhere, that will help me work out the costs etc involved with starting my own colony? of course i will have to change prices to get the rate here, but i just want to get an idea?
cheers
dave

Hey Dave, Thought you could hide out here?

Not that I know of but I have crunched the numbers and it makes sense for me to produce my own at normal rodent pro prices so is probably a no brainer for you.

Big initial cost is the housing, racks are best but living in an apartment, where would you keep them? That space you use for the snake room would not hold many. After the initial cost is some stock, (best to get at least some varied stock) and of course food and bedding. Many do fine with feeding dog food, have to avoid red dye and verify nutrition, others can make suggestions here.

Once you are producing rodents for yourself, the only thing stopping you from producing more are laws (city/country) and space!! Of course you'd need a market and/or an outlet to sell them. Actually I've heard it over and over again, the rodent "business" is much more profitable than producing snakes.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

If you live in an apartment, the smell of raising rodents is likely to be a problem. Even if you change the tubs frequently, it's gonna smell bad. Rodents just smell, period. Another consideration is that if your snakes are constantly smelling rodents, they're gonna get snappy. I've had some mouse tubs in my house, and not only does it reek, but some of my kings have gotten more aggressive when I open their tub or tank. I had a speckled king try to eat my finger, and one of my eastern kings was striking at me recently.

try asf's. they dont have very much smell at all. I keep mine in the house..just keep the rats and mice outside.

It isn't really possible to give round figures on the cost of producing your own feeders. There are too many variables involved.

How big of a colony? Just mice only or rats and mice or rats? Cost of wood, tubs, bedding and food in your area?

If I recall correctly you have larger snakes such as the rainbow boas. Unless you have snakes that consistently need smaller than rat pink sizes, I would suggest just breeding rats. They don't smell as much as mice. Male mice have a strong musk in their urine so you will always smell that musk, even if you just cleaned all the cages an hour ago.

Male rats don't have that smell.

Depending on how big your colonies are, how small your tubs and how frequently you change the cages, will determine the overall level of smell.

I only have a small 1:2 rat colony which keeps my 9 snakes fed but these are adult snakes which I only feed every 10-20 days. Non adult snakes I feed once a week. I don't remember the size of your colony so a 1:3 colony may be what you need or multiples of 2:1 or 1:3. (thats one male to two or three females.)

I don't use racks for my rats for obvious reasons (one cage rack isn't very useful) but I like to give them lots of space so I use the large Rubbermaid Roughneck tubs which has plenty of room for three to four large adult rats and several litters of babies. I also find it isn't necessary to clean the cage as often. When babies have their eyes open the smell does tend to build up faster so I change about once a week.

As you plan to sell excess find out how many you are likely to sell, if you only have a few friends, then I would not produce more than a few colonies more than what you need for your own snakes and build from there.
-----
PHLdyPayne

Thanks for all the replies, has given me something to think about. Did have another question. I have a mate who lets just say has a little bit of horticulture going on at home for personal use he uses a line of carbon dioxide filter to get rid of the smell, could this work the same way for a rodent colony smell?
-----
Dave

2.2 Normal BRBs
2.1 Anery BRB
4.4 66% poss het anery BRB
2.5 66% poss het new european line hypo
1.1 het hypo BRB

In the mail from the states
1.1 something special BRB

aims to work out what all my 66% hets really are, and then go from there. Sky the limit, well maybe