Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone. I'm just wondering how much you guys spend on food on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. I was just curious. I've wanted to get a Burm but i'm gonna wait until i have the facilities to keep it and know that i can afford it. I just want to know for future references so i can get an idea. Thanks.

Trey

I pay about $48 every 5-7 days, but when i only had one burm i payed $8 every 5-7 days.

$15 every 2 weeks to feed my 8' burm two jumbo rats. I haven't tried feeding her rabbits because she seems quite pleased with the amount of rats she gets.

Overall my feeding bill is about 200 every three months. THat's to feed every snake, I order online frozen food.

But when I haven't bought online for a while, I buy from local pet storse... Rabbits around here are expensive, 15 every two weeks for my biggest (9ft or so). My little girl (3ft) gets three jumbo mice as week, about 2 bucks a piece.

Ordering frozen food online is soo much cheaper, not to mention easier than running to the store each week.
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Randilyn -;,-
Desolate Gray: Reptiles

If you have the means to breed your own rats and or rabbits then it doesn't have to cost you hardly anything. I have my own rat, mouse and rabbit breeding operations on a large scale to sustain a perticularly large colony of boids and other reptiles, but this works equally well on any level. I once calculated that it costs approximately 20 to 30 cents per rat to raise them to jumbo. The rabbits are even cheaper, believe it or not, when it comes to pound-for-pound. But my rats and rabbits actually don't cost me ANYTHING at all, they actually make me money. Simply because I always shoot for producing twice what I need for the snakes and then I sell my "overage" to fellow breeders/friends in the business for a buck per rat and 3 bucks per rabbit. These prices, while very low, are still about 5x what it cost me to produce them. So in short this generates enough capital to cover all overhead (food & shavings) and still put several hundred into my pocket each month. It's a win-win situation for all involved. If you or anyone else wants any tips on breeding rats or rabbits I am more than happy to help out.

>>Hey everyone. I'm just wondering how much you guys spend on food on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. I was just curious. I've wanted to get a Burm but i'm gonna wait until i have the facilities to keep it and know that i can afford it. I just want to know for future references so i can get an idea. Thanks.
>>
>> Trey
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

Hey Brian any advice on breeding rabbits. I have 3 cages that are 8 ft long by 2 deep. They are divided into 4 sections. I also have some water valves from Lixit that attaches to PVC pipe. I have heard to only feed them one small can of food per day. Any other advice or suggestions.Thanks.

Hey Tom,.. absolutely. That sounds like a good start. With 12 cages you can run 10 females to 2 unrelated males. I would say 11 females to one male, but down the line you will need to replace your females and will need unrelated offspring to pair up to avoid inbreeding. So divide the 10 females into two groups. One group for each male. I color coordinate them so as to make it easier to keep track of. (Example: Male A. breeds with 5 dark colored females, Male B. breeds with light colored females) Okay,.. when you get your males, get species that are larger breeds of rabbits. This way, regardless of what breed the females are you will end up with large rabbits. (always a priority for python people). Of course you would put one rabbit to a cage. That cup a day thing you heard is nonsense. Contact Morton Jones.com and buy some rabbit feeder trays/baskets. They sell them really cheap. Only 3.50 each and shipping is usually about 6 bucks only. And I have never used the pvc type water valves you mentioned here. If you have any doubt as to how they work or if they require some form of pressure regulator then consider getting gravity flow water valves from Morton Jones also. These things work like an absolute charm. I have several dozen females and several males on this system. It took me about an hour to hook up the rubber tubing and they clip right on standard wire. I have them all attached to one 30 gallon water drum that I might have to refil once a week. I never have any problems with this system and it's all gravity flow so there is no uncertainty with pressure, etc. I also use this identical system and identical products with well over a thousand rats and several hundred mice. The valves are only 2.15 each and will last you 20 years easy.
For nesting boxes, if you want to save a lot of money just buy some cheap plywood and cut it into a bunch of 6" by 12" and 6" by 18" pieces and slap together some open topped nesting boxes. All they have to be is practical. Those overpriced fancy sheetmetal boxes are totally unnecessary. Besides, it's good to have some wood for the bunnies to wear their ever growing teeth on. You might have to make new ones once a year at best.
For diet give them the standard alphalpha rabbit pellet. If you want to make them especially healthy you can spend a few extra bucks and buy them carrots and other vegies in bulk and give them that every couple days or so. It's not necessary though.
For breeding, place the female into the male's cage and sit back and watch the show. You'll know when the mating is successful as the male spasms and lunges and falls over grunting loudly. (I think they are part human, lol) The gestation period is roughly 30 days. We use duct tape and a black marker to keep track of when they are due, as well as a calander. About 2 or 3 days prior to when they are due place a box inside their cage. On their due dates check them frequently as sometimes the mother will have them on the wire. If you catch it in time you can get them in the box and nothing will be lost. If the mother is neglectful or crappy you can adopt her babies over to another mother with comparably aged babies. Give the bad mom another chance and breed her again in about 3 weeks, but if she is neglectful a second time then just feed her off and replace her with a new female. Sometimes females are just plain BAD mothers and they will never be good moms. But I always give mine a second chance just on the off chance that the first failure was due to being a first time mother. When you have your good mothers and successful litters you can rebreed the female when the babies are about 2 to 3 weeks old, or at weanling size/age.
Lastly, I would suggest that you always bring up a few female offspring each month just in case you need to replace a breeder female at any time, or need to expand your production. With 10 females, if you breed them well and most litters are successful you should be able to produce about 40 rabbits per month. Some months will be better than others. One other very good idea is to "stagger" your females so that they don't all produce at the same time and then you have a long dry spell with no offspring. Breed two or three the first week, then two or three the secong week, and so on. This way you should get a couple of litters per week and are never swamped with a sudden huge number of babies. Get your rabbit food at a feed store, not pet store. Feed store prices are usually about 7 to 10 dollars per 50 pound bag.
If you have any questions I would be more than happy to answer them.

>>Hey Brian any advice on breeding rabbits. I have 3 cages that are 8 ft long by 2 deep. They are divided into 4 sections. I also have some water valves from Lixit that attaches to PVC pipe. I have heard to only feed them one small can of food per day. Any other advice or suggestions.Thanks.
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

I have
0.1 normal burm
0.2 albino burms
1.2 balls
0.0.1 scrub
another albino burm and a tiger retic on the way.
I get still born pigs for free.I plan on breeding rabbits soon. I bought 100 mice at a local reptile show for 50 dollars. I currently have 9 females pregnant. My feeding is not that expensive. I have heard of people spending 10 to 15 thousand a year on feeding snakes.

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT GETTING A TIGER RETIC I CAN NOT STAND IT!!