pet store mice

I've decided to start feeding live mice instead of frozen. It seems to be easier for me. I have two questions...

1) What do you guys pay per adult mouse at a pet store? I've been paying 1.79 a mouse.

2) Is there any possiblity that feeding a mouse from a pet store could make your snake sick? I only buy two at a time...would you recommend raising them under my care for a few days before feeding them off?

Thanks

prices seem to vary unless your buying from a chain store. I personally can't see spending almost $2 for a mouse or the outrageous prices I see rats going for...so I raise my own. As for keeping them "under your own care for a few days"...if the rodents are sick a few days is not going to cure them from alements(sp).

Not to be rude but if your snake is eating pre killed frozen thawed...why do you WANT to change it?? You say its easier for you...but by doing this you put your snake at risk. If you can't bare to kill rodents by hand buy frozen. Reptiles are not kept because they are "easy" pets.

Consider if the store doesn't have the right size mouse some weeks.. nice thing about F/T is you can have a months worth (or more) stashed in your freezer. You don't have to go drive out to the store every week to buy a mouse either.

I raise my own (then kill and freeze them)

I raise my own mice too....but pet stores around here sell mice (both frozen and live) for around $2.00 each. I feed live because I dont have the freezer space to buy bulk frozen rodents and my bps have better feeding responces with live food. By raising my own mice, I cut the cost to below $1 per mouse depending on how many I produce each month. That can be about a $6-10 a week savings, so it works just fine for me.

ha ha....I probably could buy a mini freezer, buy bulk, and save a little cash in the long run....but the mice amuse me :) They are fun critters to watch sometimes.

all of you are talking about breeding you on mice, I know is dificult to buy live because some time I can't find mice or the rigth size some time I need to give them 4 to my female because they are to small, ok the Q here is can you tell me some tips on mice breeding and how can I do some thing sow they will not stink, and can I put all of them together? thx and God bless

i just got back from my local herp store where i paid $2 a piece for some (live) weaned rats. to me that's a pretty insane price, but it's the only place i can get them nearby and right now i have to feed live to a few of my snakes. as far as keeping them a few days before feeding to the snakes--i usually do, not because they might be sick or whatever, but just to get their bellies full of good healthy food.

Wow...$2 a mouse? I pay .79c a weaned rat from a local pet shop, FT. Although I think the bigger places like Petco charge almost six or seven a rat. You have to either find a reptile friendly place, this is why the prices are so high--they don't want them to be food, or you have to buy bulk. I tried breeding them, but they stink. I spent more time cleaning them then I did anything else. Rodent Pro has some good prices too...you can get weanlings for about .55c a piece if you buy enough. :)

I still pre-kill or disable my rodents before I feed, I've not seen any better feeding responce between snakes that will take live vs pre-killed. I do have one female that I sometimes have to feed live to get her to eat but whe she takes p/k the responce is the same.

About the only thing you can do to keep mice from stinking is keep up on cleaning their enclosures. There are some other "tricks" but husbandry is the real key and they will still have some odor.


For in depth details on raising mice I'm sure there are other topics here you can find by using the search tool or Google is a never ending source of info as well. Or just buy frozen bulk.

if you want to breed your own rodents with less smell i would recommend rats. they stink sooo much less than mice. if you keep their cages clean they really don't smell at all.

another thing you can do to keep the smell down is add a little bit of imatation vanilla the kind for cooking or real vanillia for cooking to their water. When I walk into my room I cant even smell my mice and rats