Poll- source of your mice/rats/rabbits/birds/etc.

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Originally Posted by AzureN1ght

I've gathered from rat breeders' posts on this site that rats smell MUCH less than mice do. If your snakes will eat rats, it might be worth it to try breeding them instead of mice :)

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x2

My rats can go at least a week without having tubs cleaned but rats needed it every few days.

I feed frozen thawed for 3 reasons. Number one, I'm a wuss, and I couldn't feed live to my snakes. Number two, I heard to many horror stories about snakes getting hurt by live feeders. Number three, I only have two snakes that eat vastly different sized foods. Dax the BP, eats medium rats, while little Toby the 8 month old cornsnake, eats pinkies. Breeding them myself makes no sense for that few, and buying them live and keeping them until needed makes more work for me, plus the pinkies would grow and get bigger than I could use, so frozen thawed makes more sense for me.

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Originally Posted by Mina

I feed frozen thawed for 3 reasons. Number three, I only have two snakes that eat vastly different sized foods. Dax the BP, eats medium rats, while little Toby the 8 month old cornsnake, eats pinkies. Breeding them myself makes no sense for that few, and buying them live and keeping them until needed makes more work for me, plus the pinkies would grow and get bigger than I could use, so frozen thawed makes more sense for me.

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Absolutely true. If you don't own snakes that eat feeders of all sizes, then along the way of breeding them, you may find that some have outgrown the preferable size range. In that case, frozen items will be more realistic as they remain the size necessary.

I wouldn't feed live because most of the balls I own (plan on producing and future purchases) ae morphs that I keep because of their good appearance and hate to see them get hurt. Frozen is cheaper live live in my area. $10 for one large rat at petco. I hate having to fight mother rats for their pinks. I got bit by rat and would rather be bit by a snake any day of the week.

I buy live and feed live rats. I'm going to start breeding them soon though, since I'm looking into getting a 3rd snake in the future, and the feeding bill between them and all of my other herps are getting somewhat high.

I get frozen and feed thawed. I am very lucky that my dad works in a lab so he can get free rats and mice. We have a huge black trash bag full of rats in our freezer. It's probably about 30lbs. FREEE!!:D

shoot I ain't scurred to say!

I buy live and I feed live.

Nothing wrong with it at all. :D

I am also starting to breed my own if all goes well.

:rockon:

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Originally Posted by slither9192

I get frozen and feed thawed. I am very lucky that my dad works in a lab so he can get free rats and mice. We have a huge black trash bag full of rats in our freezer. It's probably about 30lbs. FREEE!!:D

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Be careful!! Depending on what the lab uses the rodents for, they may not be safe for your reptiles/herps!!!! There are A LOT of chemicals and such that are tested on the furries, that would kill the snake b/c of their slower metabolism. (Among other reasons!)

I buy frozen rats for 11 balls and 3 boas. I prefer to buy from The Mouse Factory with The Big Cheese being a second choice.

I buy live mice for 2 ball pythons right now and hope to get them switched over in the coming months :P

I currently do a bit of this and a bit of that. I breed my own mice and am soon to start breeding rats since I have three adult BPs now. I feed PK to my BPs and FT to the corns since they'll take anything as long as it's rodent. :) I hope to switch everyone to rats and eventually FT to take full advantage of rat breeding.

Whenever I don't have the right size feeders, which can be often with the variety of snake sizes I have, I buy from my local reptile store. :)