Neal

For ft feeders, I'll list several and my thoughts on them and I'll start with what I have experience with.

Big Cheese Rodents - This place is my go to place as they're based out of Texas(next door state). I've spent thousands of dollars with him and placed many orders. The quality of the feeders are great and the customer service is top notch. One of the best things is the way they package their feeders. They are all vacuum sealed and they use trays to put the feeders on to keep them nice and neat. I think the only exception to this rule is mouse pinkies/fuzzies/hoppers and rat pinkies/fuzzies. They're clean and with being packaged neatly, that just shows that they want to stand out as a company. Here is a picture of what their packaging looks like:



Perfect Prey - Previously known as Loxahatchee Rodents and are based out of Florida. IIRC I want to say they changed their name as they didn't want it to be the same as the reptile part. They also vacuum seal like BCR does which speaks volumes. I've never personally ordered from them but my friend has and I saw him unbox first hand and I can say that if I wasn't able to place an order with BCR, then PP would be my go to. So depending on where you're from you may have a quicker delivery from one or the other. Also shipping may be cheaper depending on location.

American Rodent Supply - I was tempted to order from this place to see how they are quality wise, but when I asked my first question I changed my mind as they don't vacuum seal. Not that it's a huge deal, but I just prefer to do business with a company that goes that extra step. They were very friendly and answered some questions I had, and their prices aren't bad at all and in some cases even beat the above two.

Rodent Pro - This was the first ever place I ordered from until I got switched to BCR. I've never had a problem with their customer service, however I don't like the quality of their feeders and the couple of orders I placed with them they ran small. So, because of my previous experience with them I would never order from them again. They don't vacuum seal, or at least they didn't when I used them.

So with feeders overall, it varies if you're looking for quality, or price. I prefer quality and with BCR & PP, that's what you get. At the time of doing this blog entry, PP mice are cheaper than BCR, up until somewhere around Adult, but when you start dealing with rats, the prices go back in BCRs favor. The one thing I think most people are complaining about is that BCR was recently out of stock on most rats. Well when you have quality and most people prefer you, you get more business and because of that sometimes things are hard to keep in stock.

Breeders

When you're looking to purchase a snake, I'll give you my three buying points that I consider:

1.) Reputation
2.) Customer Service
3.) Animal Quality

I always, and I mean always look up reviews for a potential purchase from a breeder, or even a company. If I'm at a reptile show, I still use my phone to google and do some digging. Nobody is perfect and sure some transactions may go South, but I look to see if the situation was resolved as well.

As far as customer service, I like to talk over voice, instead of texting/email. This gives me a feel for what type of person I'm doing business. If the person can't bother to talk to me on the phone, that makes me wonder why and then I start to wonder, well what if I have an issue? I'll pass on that note. If you can't take a few minutes to talk to me, especially if I'm serious about purchasing an animal, then I can't be bothered to give you my business.

Now with animal quality, that's pretty self explanatory.