Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, new here.

I breed for our own snakes, but I sometimes have extras that I don't want to go to waste. In the past, I tried to post to craigslist, but I mostly get people asking to take them all for free- I've had a couple people make more serious sounding replies (one asked for pricing, another asked how I killed them) but they never replied after I answered.

Is Craigs List just not worth it, or did I have bad luck? Should I be posting at petshops instead? Or other places online (must be free; whatever I charge for the feeders, i will be taking a loss)?

As I have never bought feeders, I have no idea how to price them either... Yes, I googled for an idea, but that all turned up big companies that ship nationwide. I'm not interested in shipping, just selling surplus now and then locally; if I had a couple people who wanted to be regular customers, I might breed enough for that. But I'm not looking to get into anything big here with feeders. My main focus is breeding pets.

The other issue of pricing I'm confused about- do people buying feeders care much about, and are willing to spend more for, the way the animals are raised? I know I do, which is why I raise my feeders the way i raise my show/pet rats- so that they have bigger cages, a variety of cage toys, a tabletop playground to visit, a variety of organic foods and treats, etc.... Basically, just like I want humanely raised meat for the dinner table, I want the same for feeding my pets. But I have no idea how that translates into pricing. And let me be clear, I'm not expecting profit- but if I see organic uncaged Chicken sold for the same price as Purdue chicken, I'm going to question if its *really* organic and uncaged; Wouldn't people wonder the same if it was meat for their pets? Or maybe I think too much?

Besides rats, I sometimes also have surplus mice and poultry, and the same questions about those.

Last question: do you charge the same, or differently depending if they are alive or frozen at pick up? I know feeding live is generally unsafe/cruel, but I also understand there are exceptions, such as for wildlife rehab

I raise mostly ASFs but also some white mice and hooded rats.

When I get a surplus I do try to sell on CL. I live in central Nebraska in a town of 50K with a few small towns within 20 miles so its not a big population center. I have had success with this at times and other times little response. We have one petshop in town that sells just weaned mice for $3 and medium rats for $8 so I price mine lower. I have never had anyone buy frozen feeders and I do advertise those also.

I always use pictures of different sizes on my ad and details on what they are fed.

Good Luck

Our local pet shops only sell those frozen "Arctic Mice", which are sold in packages, not singles. And I've never seen chicks sold there.

They do have live rats, but they like to claim their feeder-bred rats (from huge facilities/distributors) are pet bred fancies and charge $15 for them (right next to a sign that says they don't sell cats/dogs because they are against mill breeding, ugh)

So the pet shops don't really give me much insight into pricing humanely raised feeders.

-Al