What do you pay for live feeders?

Just looking to get a comparison.

I pay $1.68 for an adult mouse from the pet shop; they specialize in exotic reptiles and have a great supplier for feeders. All the the mice always are alert are very healthy.

I'm wondering what you all pay. I know going f/t is MUCH cheaper, but my bp has been taking live (stunned) mice VERY enthusiastically and I don't want to lose out on a good thing going.

Feeding stunned mice can be very dangerous. Many snakes will not constrict their prey and just swallow it without making sure its dead yet. If the prey itme decides to wake up during the feeding, you can imagine the disaster that would follow. If your snake will eat "stunned" prey, chances are it will eat dead prey as well. :)

Just exactly how do you stun prey? I mean other than beat it on top of the head with a blunt object that is. Stupic question, I know.

Actually, the best way to kill a feeder rodent is to place the mouse/rat into a sock or pillow case and bash the rodent against a wall or another hard surface. Brutal but quick and easy.

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Originally Posted by DavidBeard

Feeding stunned mice can be very dangerous. Many snakes will not constrict their prey and just swallow it without making sure its dead yet. If the prey itme decides to wake up during the feeding, you can imagine the disaster that would follow. If your snake will eat "stunned" prey, chances are it will eat dead prey as well. :)

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Yeah let me elaborate on that, you've misunderstood. I basically just take the mouse by the tail and whip them on the end of a desk or countertop. It breaks their neck instantly, very quick. The mouse is left kind of twitching; at the point, Amber strikes it and constricts it, so it is definitly totally dead before being swallowed.

I saw that thread about the bp that was attacked by a rodent, that picture broke my heart. I stun the mice every time now.

David...does that ever get messy? I'd be really afraid of either not doing it hard enough and therefore be terribly cruel to the critter...or doing it too hard and have splattered mouse/rat brains to deal with. :?

You basically just have to go for it, being "merciful" and not using as much muscle is actually more cruel. Just do it in one quick snap and the mouse won't even know what hit it.

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Originally Posted by JLC

David...does that ever get messy? I'd be really afraid of either not doing it hard enough and therefore be terribly cruel to the critter...or doing it too hard and have splattered mouse/rat brains to deal with. :?

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Yah I'd like to know to please. I would hate to hurt any living animal but It wouldnt be a problem if I know that a mouse would hurt my snake. I've been feeding live so far strictly supervised of course, But once I get to larger food items like a Rat I would defenitely like to, gulp, stun the hec out of it before offering it to my baby.

Someone ought to be able to work out a device for doing this, humanely and quickly killing prey items without a mess. Maybe a mouse-a-pult in a closed box or something.

Alright well this thread is hijacked, lol. How much do you all pay for live feeders?

$1.19 or $1.99 live mice, depending on which store. But I mostly feed f/t.

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Originally Posted by JLC

David...does that ever get messy? I'd be really afraid of either not doing it hard enough and therefore be terribly cruel to the critter...or doing it too hard and have splattered mouse/rat brains to deal with. :?

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I have not had to kill any live rodents for a long time, as all of my snakes eat f/t. But, it does take some skill to bash the rodent hard to enough to kill it yet not so hard as to bust the thing open, lol.

BTW-live feeders can be bought where I live for anywhere from .89(pinkies) to $10 (rabbits).

i pay about $1.27 at petco with a pals card, thats for adult mice, rats are 2 or 3 dollars i think.

1.27 at Petco :)

sorry for hijacking thread :P

I live in a rural area and get totally robbed when it comes to purchasing rats. juevies are like 4.5 bucks and adults are 6.50! Needless to say that just wont due, so I buy a pregnant female as close to giving birth as possible. This way I get up to 15 or so rats for the price of one. I currently have two females(each gave one litter),and one male (surviving from first litter for stud) and some 3 week olds running around in a huge cage (see album). May need to get one more pregnant rat....cant tell if mine are pregnant yet as they dont really start to show untill the later half of the pregnancy. Don't really mind breeding them, I have the space and it's kind of neat watching thier antics. But I would pretty much go broke buying from my local pet store every week at these prices!lol

I pay anywhere from 75 cents to three dollers all depends. Petland and world pets is three dollers and reptile show I can get them for 75 cents.

excellent, there we go! Its ok though if you see something questionable and more info is shared, then we're all better off!

I have a card where I buy 5 and the 6th one if free. So that comes out to 1.68 x 5 = 8.40 / 6 = 1.40. Looks like I'm paying a few cents more but thats really the only place around here that sells live feeders, not mention to the shop is literally 1 mile from my place...

Sorry for the highjack!
I pay $1.00 for baby mice. Not sure how much the adults are. Hopefully I can get back to my frozen stock soon!

Here is my supplier's price list. This is fairly typical, the pet stores double the price. Of course, unless you need to buy a lot it might not be worth either you or the supplier's time to meet as opposed to picking up the exact same rodents at the pet store per your convenience.

Rat Prices
Pinkie $0.75
Fuzzy $0.75
Small $1.25
Medium $1.75
Large $2.25
Jumbo $2.75
Surrogate Mother $2.75

Mouse Prices
Pinkie $0.65
Fuzzy $0.65
Hoppers $0.65
Weaned $0.70
Adults $0.70

1.75$ for adult mice and like 6$ dollers for rats then they got like these really big rats that are 8$ at my only local pet store.Oh and rabits which are pets :twisted: are like 12$ i think.

something like 1.40 for adult mice. and i think its $1 for an adult rat too...not sure.

as for the smacking them againts the wall to kill them. that works GREAT for mice. not so good for rats. not so good at all. itll take a concrete patio or driveway to kill an adult rat. trust me...

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Originally Posted by Mike

itll take a concrete patio or driveway to kill an adult rat. trust me...

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What would the neighbors say??? LOL!

ROFLMAO!! ya, im probably the crazy neighbor...

"why does he come outside and smack that pillow case against the ground every staurday?"

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Originally Posted by Mike

"why does he come outside and smack that pillow case against the ground every staurday?"

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Therapy.....

mice are 2.99 rats are 4.99 -its the only pet store in town(for now theres a new one going in close to my house that looks like it will be open soon)

Mice....$1.99 each if you dont have a conatiner to carry them in and they have to provide it, or $1.69 each if you do. Rat's.....$3.99/3.69 same rules apply.

Hiiiiii David :D

I kill the mice David's way. Into a sock they go and BAM. I close all the doors because mom doesn't like hearing it. LOL.
Anyway, feeders are free for me. Ahh...so nice to work for the petstore.

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Originally Posted by Hebidoshi

Hiiiiii David :D

I kill the mice David's way. Into a sock they go and BAM. I close all the doors because mom doesn't like hearing it. LOL.
Anyway, feeders are free for me. Ahh...so nice to work for the petstore.

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Glad to see you make it over, Hannah! :D

Free feeders would rock.....I spend about $3-500 a year on feeders.

I saw one website that had plans on how to build a CO-2 vchamber for "humanely" killing rodents. I gesus that's how most of the frozen-rodent suppliers do it; I guess it would be tiime-consuming to whack thirty dozen rats in the head before shipping. :)
To answer the original question... my local shop charges $3 for feeder rats. But I use f/t because you know that they have NO parasites.

As I was driving down the road yesterday, it occurred to me that someone around here could keep a burm or something pretty well fed just by picking up still-warm roadkill and freezing it for a month before feeding to kill parasites. "What'll it be today, Fluffy? Opossum or raccoon?"

There is a member of another forum who regularly feeds roadkill to his snakes. I think his retic is what normally gets it. I don't think I would ever take the chance of parasites.

I think I know who you're talking about. I wouldn't do that either...seems way too risky to me....although if one were patient enough to deep-freeze them for a month or two, first, it MIGHT be ok. I don't think I've ever heard him say he freezes them thouigh.

Ew hell no. Plenty of large deer get chonked to the side of the roads here but even if I had a huge and hungry AfRock I'd not feed it blowfly meat. Hell I'd even go so far as to go out and hunt one down if i needed to and I am not much the hunting type. Just way too many unknowns in that equation.

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

I saw one website that had plans on how to build a CO-2 vchamber for "humanely" killing rodents. I gesus that's how most of the frozen-rodent suppliers do it; I guess it would be tiime-consuming to whack thirty dozen rats in the head before shipping. :)
To answer the original question... my local shop charges $3 for feeder rats. But I use f/t because you know that they have NO parasites.

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You are correct, this is how most if not all of the major rodent dealers kill their products. I only buy from RodentPro and I know this is how they do it.

Well, I was specifically referring to fresh-killed roadkill and to freezing it for a period of weeks before use. When I lived in Athens there was a guy profiled in the local paper who was a well-known local eccentric who ate roadkill himself. He had a route he regularly patrolled for fresh opossums and such and would take them home and cook 'em up to eat. I certainly wouldn't take the risk of feeding something that had been there for hours or days and couldn't see doing it without freezing it for at least a week first, but I doubt the risk is much higher from roadkill than it is feeding dead imported ball pythons to a king cobra. The parasite probability is probably near 100% either way.

I pay $1.99 from Petland and $1.50 at Petco. Both are live pray. My snake don't seem to be taking dead at all. Think the shops woke it's instinks lol.