Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My question is how do you guys all manage to come up with enough food for lets say 200 snakes and their babies?? cant be cheap to buy over and over again, but breeding food can only come so often. Right?
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1.0 of Me
0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

Brian,
...I try to never have 200 snakes here. Usually I have around half that many though sometimes as many as 150. I raise rats for my snakes. I have 15 breeder males and around 50 females. They produce more than half of the rodents for my snakes. If you keep rodents in trays in racks with overhead food and water they are not very much work and do not take up too much space. I also buy frozen rodents and have to buy some live mice when I have baby snakes to feed.
Jeff

>>My question is how do you guys all manage to come up with enough food for lets say 200 snakes and their babies?? cant be cheap to buy over and over again, but breeding food can only come so often. Right?
>>-----
>>1.0 of Me
>>0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
>>1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
>>?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
>>0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
>>TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
>>NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

how many adult rainbows do you actually own jeff? And do you work with any other boids?
Also was interested, in you saying that you need to buy more live mice when have more babies. Im currenlty working out a rodent colony, and have thought it would have been the opposite, ie the only time i will need to buy rodents, will be for adult size rats, as it maybe more cost effective then raising that many.
Cheers
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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

Dave,
...I have around forty adult Rainbow Boas. I also have a couple dozen subadults. My only other snakes are Surinam Redtails. Rats produce best from 4 to 8 months of age. I retire them at 7 or 8 months and feed them to the Surinams and biggest Rainbow Boas. I do not raise mice. My rodents are kept in the garge and the temperature fluctuates too much there for mice to reliably reproduce. Most of my baby Rainbow Boas eat live pinky rats but a few of them refuse them and take live mice instead. Some will take dead prey but IMO it is best to get them eating regularly and try to switch them to dead prey later. If your rat colony is large enough there are always plenty of extra pinkies to thin out of the big litters and lots of big adults ready to be retired.
Jeff

>>how many adult rainbows do you actually own jeff? And do you work with any other boids?
>>Also was interested, in you saying that you need to buy more live mice when have more babies. Im currenlty working out a rodent colony, and have thought it would have been the opposite, ie the only time i will need to buy rodents, will be for adult size rats, as it maybe more cost effective then raising that many.
>>Cheers
>>-----
>>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

how can you tell how old the mouse is? is the 4-8 months usually a large? medium? jumbo?
Thanks!
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1.0 of Me
0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

oh that makes sense, so you feed the adults with the rats you breed, and buy mice for the babies?
what all do you need to make sure your rats breed? and what kind of housing etc do you use for them??
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1.0 of Me
0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

I have three seperate tub/rack setups for my rodents. Two "storebought" metal racks with cat litter pans. Those work great for mice and rat litters on up to rat weanlings. I also have a third rack with 8 large mortar tubs I built for raising up rats to larger sizes.

Between them I'm producing 200 - 300 rodents a week. Many of which are consumed by the babies. I also supplement with live rodents from a local rodent breeder. Mostly mouse hoppers for the babies.
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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

oh wow thats a loT!! now how many snakes do you have to feed? and also how long is the gestation period of a rat or mouse?
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1.0 of Me
0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

I have in excess of 100 snakes not including all the babies. Lotsa mouths to feed!!!

The real problem comes at baby season, all of a sudden there are many more mouths to feed. Hard to predict and control the ramp up of baby production.

Rodent gestation is a little over three weeks.
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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

i dont want to even think about how much they would cost to feed if you didnt breed them haha. have you typically been able to sell all of your babies usually? or do you get leftovers? and what do you do when that happens?
-----
1.0 of Me
0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

I've always sold out or mostly sold out before the next years crop so not been an issue. Those few yearlings always go fast at shows.
-----
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 i were to list my babies on here before trying to whole sale them out what would you recommend that i list them at?
last year i just whole saled them all for 75 each but id rather get a little more out of them, or atleast out of a few
-----
1.0 of Me
0.1 girlfriend man is she a pretty one
1.3 Brazilian rainbow Boas
?.? Baby Brazilian rainbow boas
0.1 Australian blue Heeler puppy 1 year old.
TOO.MANY hours of school and work a week
NOT.ENOUGH money in the bank

Well, you can't sell on the forums, have to get a classified account and post up actual ads. You can browse the "boa other" ads to see current prices. You can easily sell for more than the wholesale value but you will have to ship around the country and as a not so well known entity, may be harder to get the higher prices.
-----
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