Ahhh... free from the weekly pet store bill

[Laooda]

I'm with ya! There was a visible difference with my snakes after we built the rat rack. If I don't produce enough, I purchase from a laboratory breeder who's animals are raised on the same Harland lab mixture that I feed, so my snakes get a constant supply of quality rodents. After about 6-7 mo? of constant intake, (I suck with time frames) IMO they look better than ever. Even with some coming out of winter fasts, or having laid eggs, I'm extremely pleased with their appearance, and the only thing different is that I'm not feeding rats from pet stores that are raised on non-rodent mixes.

[Jenn]

Nice!!! Takes a while to get the balance down. At one point I had way too many rats so I got more snakes. Then I ran out of mice, and boy were they surprised to see me at the pet store again!!! I think I have it now.

[the_Ryno]

Nice, im wanting to breed a few rats/mice, but only have two snakes. Dont the like feeders the stores around me have so ive been feeding frozen, but want to switch to live soon.

[Argentra]

Allow me to voice an opinion here: Stick with Frozen!!

If you ever decided to breed your own feeders, you would be knocking off and freezing the extra. Hence, it's best to have your snakes used to and accepting FT. If you wanted a change you could do pre-killed, but I strongly suggest keeping them on 'dead' prey. It's so much easier.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Allow me to voice an opinion here: Stick with Frozen!!

If you ever decided to breed your own feeders, you would be knocking off and freezing the extra. Hence, it's best to have your snakes used to and accepting FT. If you wanted a change you could do pre-killed, but I strongly suggest keeping them on 'dead' prey. It's so much easier.

Unless you are dealing with ASF's! no thaw time... no worries about them being too big! simply grab one, and feed. if the snake wont take it, move to the next enclosure.

It's just that easy.

[rabernet]

Allow me to voice an opinion here: Stick with Frozen!!

If you ever decided to breed your own feeders, you would be knocking off and freezing the extra. Hence, it's best to have your snakes used to and accepting FT. If you wanted a change you could do pre-killed, but I strongly suggest keeping them on 'dead' prey. It's so much easier.

As far as easier - that's a personal preference. For me, feeding live is so much easier than filling my apartment freezer with frozen prey (which would leave no room for frozen food for the bi-peds in the apartment). I also don't have to spend all day defrosting a bunch of frozen prey.

Live is SOOOO much easier for me, and for me - no risk at all. I don't have a problem with being over on prey - and if I did, I'd either take to the local pet store who would buy them from me - or to the local falconer's club - they'll gladly accept excess rodents!

[muddoc]

Mike,
I would like to take a minute to address a possible issue that I see with your feeding approach. However, first, I would like to congratulate you on becoming self sufficient, as it is always a good feeling.

Now the only problem I see with your current set-up is that you are feeding ASF's solely to your animals. It sounds from your original post that that is all you breed. I also have read that you want to open a pet store. All of these pieces put together, tells me that you will be an exclusive feeder of ASF's. You may want to be careful about feeding ASF's to animals that you intend on selling. Reason being, if the animal gets imprinted on ASF's, and the new owner cannot get ASF's, they may end up with a snake that will not eat. Even though many people on this site, and other die hard hobbyist breeders have ASF's, they are still not that common to the average person.

With all of that said, we do feed ASF's as well in our collection, but they are never offered to an animal that could potentially be put up for sale.

I hope that helped,

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Thanks tim.

My collection is my collection. It is not going anywhere! If I were to open the pet store, the stock would be fed normal rats.

that said, it is important to know that the idea that a snake that eats ASF's will not eat normal rats is not accurate. Sure it is possible, but not likely. I do not know of anyone who was not able to change an ASF eater over to normal rats.

ALL of my snakes take normal rats immediately when offered, despite their love of ASF's.


Mike

[monk90222]

Mike,
I would like to take a minute to address a possible issue that I see with your feeding approach. However, first, I would like to congratulate you on becoming self sufficient, as it is always a good feeling.

Now the only problem I see with your current set-up is that you are feeding ASF's solely to your animals. It sounds from your original post that that is all you breed. I also have read that you want to open a pet store. All of these pieces put together, tells me that you will be an exclusive feeder of ASF's. You may want to be careful about feeding ASF's to animals that you intend on selling. Reason being, if the animal gets imprinted on ASF's, and the new owner cannot get ASF's, they may end up with a snake that will not eat. Even though many people on this site, and other die hard hobbyist breeders have ASF's, they are still not that common to the average person.

With all of that said, we do feed ASF's as well in our collection, but they are never offered to an animal that could potentially be put up for sale.

I hope that helped,

Good points MBM.
BUT...just think...if ASF's aren't available in every pet store, but are available in YOUR store Mike....wouldn't that mean you have cornered the market on ASF's in your area?....and the local customers have to be repeat customers to buy their feeders only from You?....just sayin....

[muddoc]

Mike and Charlie,
Very good points. I did post in another ASF thread, about 4 animals that I have that will not switch. I guess to clarify a bit, these four animals ate rats for the first 8 months that we had them. Then they either stopped eating, or became very sporadic at best. These snakes range from 1.5 to 4 years old. About 6 months ago, I got them to eat ASF's, and have not been able to get them to eat a rat ever since.

note: these are personal breeders of mine (i.e. an 05 Pastel female, an 06 YB female, an 04 Pied female, and an 04 Het Pied female). Needless to say, they have never bred, due to size, and they are very important to my collection.

As I said in the other post, everybody's experience will be slightly different. I am just relaying an occurance that could repeat itself in anyones collection.

Now, with that said, Charlie made a good point. If you sell animals in your store that only eat ASF's, and you are breeding and selling them, then your customers would have ready access to them.

I didn't want to make anyone mad, or offend anyone, I just wanted to put out some food for thought, and possibly some good discussion (which it has.)

Thanks guys,