Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok so i have cleared up the food issue and will go with the pinkies, i only herd there was no nutritional value cuz there was no real bone structure and basically all fat. My next question is for the guys that have the large monitors, do you find it more cost effective to go with a supplier like mice direct or rhodent pro, or go with your own breeding projects and pay for the constant bedding changes and rhodent food? To me it almost seems more cost effective to breed your own rats as opposed to buying them.

It's probably cheaper to breed your own.

I buy 100% of my stock, and they are all frozen. I keep strictly reptiles and they keep me busy enough. And rodents stink so much.

Breeding your own rodents is a zillion times less expensive. And you can actually make some money selling excess if you have some.

But they are Work and they do stink. And its something you have to stay with, That is, you cannot miss feeding or watering. But if you keep up with the work, its way better and you have a choice of what size when that size is needed, or alive, or fresh killed, or frozen. And you know what goes into those mice.

Which from the larger suppliers, who get mice from labs, well they have more then you may want to know. Cheers

I had to laugh at Frank's comment a bit. Years ago I was buying frozen rodents from a herp society up north. I was thawing some out and one sort of came apart a bit. I noticed it had a stomach staple in it. I was a bit puzzled for obvious reasons and of course concerned as well about feeding such rodents to my reptiles.
Given the location of the herp society I guess they were getting them from a nearby major university with a medical school (herp society meetings were held on campus during the winter). After wondering what in the hell else they may have been subjecting these rodents to I started raising my own.

I buy all prekilled and frozen. I don't have the time or patience or space to be dealing with rearing up mice. But my mouse breeder is 5 minutes from my house and I've been to the barn facilities where he does it all. Clean, high quality feed, and I get a great price without paying the dreaded shipping fees. I'm lucky, but it's how I do it.

Well now having to fork out $7 every other day for pinkies, im thinking raising my own is the way to go.

Wow, you better produce your own if you cannot find pinkies cheaper then that. Good luck