Finding local rat breeder?

any suggestions on the best way to find a local rat breeder? Im having a feeling my girl is gunna be picky on switching to f/t and I really dont want to have to buy a rat for 8 bucks from the local pet store. Im looking for a rat breeder in the Houston area. Thanks

Local Shows is the way I find out who is out there.

sadly, there are very few reptile shows in texas. ill try to goto the next one tho. thanks! any other ideas??

speak of the devil and he will show up this weekend. Apparently theres an expo this fri-sat-sunday. thanks for the advice!!!

They only list frozen on their site, give em a call and see if they will sell live:

http://www.houstonherp.com/RodentPrices.htm

haha sent them an email right before signing back on here! thanks! my parents live really close to the houstonheprs so maybe i'll have an excuse to go visit them, haha. this may be easier than I expected

Try Craigslist, I posted a add and I pay very little money to feed my snakes..
I hope this helps..

do you disclose the fact that the rats are for snake food or find a way around it?

Have you thought about breeding your own rats? They dont take up that much space. Just need 1 tub for the breeders and 1 tub to grow them out.

Glad you found someone! It took me a few years to find anyone that could keep up with my demand (about 50 snakes). I found a few since then. One through an ad on Fauna to someone local, another through a reptile show, and it turns out that he also supplies the local pet stores, and then a third through a referral from another breeder in my area.

Before that, I begged my local pet store to tell me who he got his feeders from (because I would buy him out and still need more) and he refused to tell me. I finally met his supplier at a pet store. It was sort of mean, but sweet to mention to him that I'd met his supplier the previous weekend! LOL

Besides which, that pet store owner refused to cut me any breaks on volume purchases, even though he was already marking them up well over 100% of what he paid for them (I know his wholesale pricing now).

I do breed my own (that same pet store owner tried to talk me out of that too! LOL) and use local suppliers to supplement my production when I don't produce enough to feed my crew.

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Originally Posted by PweEzy

do you disclose the fact that the rats are for snake food or find a way around it?

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I did disclose the fact that they were for food. I recieve a good response from a few people. Now I pay,1.00 for any size rat.

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Originally Posted by bobbittle

They only list frozen on their site, give em a call and see if they will sell live:

http://www.houstonherp.com/RodentPrices.htm

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I actually buy my frozen rodents from Mike of Houston Herp (I go to school in Tomball, so just pop by his place on the way home...but he also ships/delivers)! Not sure if he has live, but he's a good guy with lots of connections in the herp community...if he doesn't have them, I'm sure he'll be able to direct you to someone who does!

Yea Ive been speaking with Mike. He doesn't have any live so ima get some frozen from him and just await his reply on if he has a live source to refer me to. If only this little girl would just eat a dang f/t rat. Tried twice and she wasnt having it at all. Even tried the whole rub the frozen on the live to try to get the scent....nothing. But once I dropped the live in there, it took her less than 5 seconds to have it all wrapped up. Im just really not looking forward to paying 8 bucks a week to feed that girl. Hopefully Mike will have someone to send me to or else hopefully this reptile expo this weekend will provide me with a source. Keep yalls fingers crossed for me.

As far as breeding my own. I just moved into my buddies new house with him, and I dont think he would be very thrilled about me having rats breeding in the house...if all else fails I may try to convince him, but dont they smell pretty bad??

We will see...