Well,
last year I had quite the big bill when my frozen rats and mice came in. I don't recall how much shipping was, but it was quite high, and thus added quite a bit to those mice and rats that I got sent. So though I had closed down the small amount of mice and rats I had before due to suspected disease in the group. Anyhow, I decided I really had to make a go of this. So I had a friend of mine build me a wooden rack, of one by fours, that is six feet high, with a shelf every foot. I then made wooden frames of one by twos and one by fours that had 1/4 inch hardware wire over the one by two inch wooden frames, which would be the mouse cage lids. And 1/2 inch wire over the one by four inch frames that would be for the rats. These wooden frames fit over the kitty litter pans that I use. I also made V shapes in the wire to set food down into. And the water bottles fit in the same Vs. I'm able to fit four kitty litter pans per shelf, as this rack is 60 inches wide. One half the rack is devoted to mice, the other half is to my rats. I've found my rats do better one one brand of dog food, my mice, the other. I've heard both good and bad about dog food, so make your own decision on that. I keep my male rats in the bottom shelf, and any females that need to be bred with them. When a female rat is getting big from developing babies, she is placed in her own kitty litter pan to have her babies. When she is done weaning her babies, she goes back to the breeding pan. So my rats have it easy, but there is no serious drain on them, and they can last longer as breeders. The weanlings usually get moved to a single grow out pan, or two, to get some size before being fed to my rat eaters. I watch carefully how the babies develop. I pull out any babies that look a bit smaller, or weak. I try not to make the female raise too many babies or it's such a drain on her, I feel it would keep her from rebreeding as fast. Again, personal preference here prevails. It even varies female to female. Some do a great job with large litters. Others, don't seem to bother tending to their babies very well...gee, guess who gets fed off when those babies wean? With mice, it's a little different. I maintain one male to every four to six females. I try to make sure all the babies born are the same age. If one bunch is large fuzzy or hoppers, any pinks that are born are pulled, as I have need of pinks when my hatchling corns get here. Otherwise the pinks don't compete well with older babies, and grow up small or runty in size. I try for raising large healthy mice, just like my rats. The difference is, my mice are kept bred all the time, and have to be watched for when they adults are beginning to wear out. A good policy is to simply keep track of when you started getting babies from a bunch, and just feed them off after six months. I try to keep track of how old a bunch is, but don't bother. I'm always getting weanlings that look great, that I just HAVE to keep back as breeders...thus someone up the line has to be fed off! And as they age, the adults get a rough look to them that tells you it's time to feed them off and make room for some of those great weanlings your seeing. Always try to keep breeders back from heavy producers. And make sure those same heavy producers also have what it takes to raise up babies. What I do, is after some have proven themselves a couple months, I wait till a female in that bunch, that I know is a great producer, has her babies, and raise up just her babies in that box, sometimes even reducing the number of babies. And those babies get set aside as soon as they are weaned, right into another breeding box. With the breeding boxes, it's a good idea to raise up more females than you plan to keep for breeding, cause funny how there's always one or two that just don't seem to keep good weight, don't ever breed, or are poor producers. This way if you get such females, you can cull, but since you had extra females in the box, you aren't wasting a box on a reduced number of females producing. Now, having water bottles, means you've got a LOT of work to make sure they don't run out of water. Cause if they run out of water or food, mice cannibalize very easily! I find myself refilling water bottles every two days to make sure they don't run out. You can always maintain two water bottles for each cage to make water chores more spaced out.
Cleaning, rodents stink! there's no way around that! But I do find having an air purifier helps, and I clean every five days! So I go through three bales of pine shavings a month. That's 15 dollars expense right there. The rats go through a bag about once a month. That's another 15 a month for costs. The mice slaughter a bag every three weeks I'm noticing! But their bags are only about ten dollars each. So that's about 170 dollars a year to keep the mice fed. All total, it's 530 dollars. Not including what I suppose I spend on the water bill for them. But I can't say I've noticed an increase on what they are charging me for water. So I won't bother. So that's what it costs me to serve my snakes with fresh killed well fed healthy rodents. So far, this group of rodents are feeding my collection, and even putting some in my freezer during times my production isn't high enough...which hasn't happened yet...yet...
I have sixty two snakes in my possesion at this time. I get baby snakes every year, but I always buy some pinks to make up for what I don't have for pinks. To feed all sixty two snakes, not all of them are adults, and not all are hibernated every year! Of that sixty two, 20 are or soon will be dedicated rat feeders.
Let's treat them as breeders, which most will be soon enough. And say for three months out of the year they are hibernating. Add on two weeks for getting ready for hibernating, a week to warm up out of hibernation. Let's say, two weeks during breeding season they just don't eat. Hormones! Then a couple missed meals due to whatever, shedding, fasting...whatever... That means each snake eats approximately, 33 times a year. Let's make it 35, just in case whatever doesn't happen, cause pits are pigs! And sometimes those girls WANT extra! So I'll need 700 frozen rats each year. I still have 42 others who eat mice. That's 1470 mice that I'll need each year. Taking some prices from RodentPro, who I recommend, it would cost me for rats alone, using the small rats, at .59 cents each, it would be 413 dollars. The mice, 45 cents each, only cause I'm buying so many! This also applied with the rats. That would come out to be 661.50. For a grand total of 1074.50 Shipping via pick up at Greyhound station 300.00
Total 1374.50
So...if it cost me a total of 530.00
a difference of 844.50 Now, I assume shipping would be different for diff distances shipped to. so...you'll have to go figure your own stuff out, RodentPro has a great site to do all that figuring out on.
Hmmm...is it worth it? I think that even though I show a savings, I have to ask myself, is it worth all the chores rodents cost you? It's almost a daily thing I'm in there, filling up water bowls, filling up food, then the cleaning every five days, which takes about two hours if I've got to set stuff up, or cull babies, ect, ect. Then the smelling up the house! ugh! do you really want that? And what about dealing with poor producers, or cannibalizing mothers, or how about being bitten? Thanks to my high strung mice, when you go to clean the overstock bins...they are always jumping out, and getting away, so now you've got loose rodents!! Now, for me, that's not a problem, I'm always able to catch them up fast. And I have three live mouse catchers...called cats...that are waiting outside the rodent room door for any rodent foolish enough to think he's making it to freedom... And...do you like rodents at all? Do you want to spend more time tending to rodent chores than you'll ever spend with your snakes each week? And how bad are you really on your finances? Are you able to save up every year ahead of time to buy frozen rodents, so that you can just pay it off, or how about using your tax return money to buy your yearly frozen rodents. And you have that much freezer space right? Cause you'll only want to have one shipping cost a year, or it'll really cost you dearly! And gosh, what about freezer burn by the time you use up those rodents, so maybe ordering every six months would be better? To each his own there. And, aren't gas prices suppose to go up this summer? So I can't imagine shipping costs not rising with gas costs!
So let's put ourselves in MY shoes for a moment, I live paycheck to paycheck with the low pay job that I have. My tax return is already dedicated to house projects that NEED to be done to keep it from falling apart. No way my wife is going to let me spend that money on my snake hobby! She loves me, but that only goes so far fellas! LOL! But she IS very tolerant of my hobby, in letting me have my animals, plus raising my rodents. And I actually love raising rodents! Can you believe that? I think a guy has to, in order to put up with them! I enjoy the different colors that come up. Though funny, I actually love albino mice, so I keep about half of my mice as albinos. So for me, it's certainly worth raising my own rodents. For you, it might not be. You have to ask yourself if you can sacrifice the time to actually do it. Cause buying frozen rather than raising your own, saves you all this time that you can be doing other things that you enjoy! So that's my LOOONG winded answer. Guess I had enough time to type this out, as my daughter is actually taking a LONG nap...gee, nice of her! Think I'll go read a book now...something I never seem to have time to do! But then watch she'll wake up the moment I get to page two...waaaaahhhh....LOL!
Russell Keys
Keys Reptiles
