Lots of snake = lots of food!

I was wondering, those of you who have lots of BPs, since you have to feed them all, and that means a lot of rats/mice, do you breed your own? or do you order in stock loads?

We haven't reached double digits on snakes yet, but as our numbers grew we decided to start breeding our own rodents. Much more cost effective and convenient .

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I used to breed my own and supplemented my supply by buying as well. Now, I've moved to a different city, and I have a guy who breeds for himself and for me only. I'm still on rat credit with him right now (he wanted some snakes and I wanted rats - so he got the snakes on rat credit). It's actually perfect for me - he comes to my place once a week, we feed all the kiddos, sit outside and gossip for about 30 minutes, go back in and pull whatever wasn't eaten, and he takes them home. I don't have to concern myself with keeping any uneaten rats.

We have an rat breeder that has us as his primary, must supply client. He knows he will get $300 to $400 from us every month. We keep him up on what we are going to need every week and we get supplied first. Hoppers for hatchlings were challenging this year as he didn't carry those. We also have a holding rack in an outbuilding for those rodents that don't get eaten every week.

I breed rats, buy rats and buy f/t. If my rat production drops off and I don't have enough, I have a reliable source to buy live. I work on switching over all of our baby snakes for sale to f/t, so I also have a large freezer full of f/t. I think once you get up to a half dozen or so snakes, it makes much more sense to either breed your own rats or just go with f/t. Buying live is fine, but can be expensive. My production dropped off because I didn't do a good job of rotating breeders and I've been having to buy while my rat colony rebuilds and expands. Those $100+ a week rat bills add up quickly.

Id like to breed my own but cant due to my living situation now. So for now i feed f/t

I just hit 21 snakes. I have 3 that will only eat live so I breed for those 3 then any that don't get fed off get put to sleep and frozen and I also buy f/t for the others.

We just hit 18 snakes in our collection (all in a 6 month span....we have a problem) and we are trying to switch over to F/T for everyone. Due to space and living arrangements, a rat breeding operation just isn't feasible right now so we buy all. We have been striking up relationship with local shops to do a volume deal and looking at online frozen rats in bulk (but I have heard scary stories about these....any feedback is appreciated). Overall, it is very expensive to feed the little guys but well worth it in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Wes

I just hit 21 snakes. I have 3 that will only eat live so I breed for those 3 then any that don't get fed off get put to sleep and frozen and I also buy f/t for the others.

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I like this idea a lot, as I have 2-3 snakes that refuse F/T and only eat live. What number of breeder rats do you keep and how many did you start with? Is there a certain kind? Any feedback is appreciated! How do you put them to sleep before freezing?

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Originally Posted by Joshua Jasper

I like this idea a lot, as I have 2-3 snakes that refuse F/T and only eat live. What number of breeder rats do you keep and how many did you start with? Is there a certain kind? Any feedback is appreciated! How do you put them to sleep before freezing?

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I have 2 male and 2 female breeders, you could probably get away with one male but I just wanted to make sure that if one wasn't doing the job that I had a back up. I don't really think it matters what kind. I got my rats from petsmart and they have been great breeders and pretty good pets as well. I put the rats to sleep in a 32qt steralite tub. I take a small 5qt tub and drilled holes in the top, get some dry ice from the grocery store, put a few small pieces in the 5qt tub with some water and put it in the 32qt with the rats. Wait about 5 minutes and they are gone. throw them in a freezer bag and you are good to go.

One of my females usually has 13-15 babies and the other 11-13 babies. I keep all the babies alive until they are too big for me to feel comfortable feeding them live then whatever is left I freeze. I usually have 2-3 out of each litter that I put to sleep.

Edit: I also buy about 200 f/t rats every 6 months online and have always been satisfied with my purchases. Been doing this for about a year and a half now.

I breed my own, I can't imagine not having access to food anytime I need especially with hatchlings.

I tend to be a control freak so it is yet another aspect of breeding snake that I want to control.