Do you feed live but don't raise your own mice/rats?

Mods, I'm posting this thread here as the sections on mice and rats seem to be mostly about breeding them, if I'm wrong feel free to move this thread there.

So my thoughts have been recently centered around feeding live vs. f/t. I know the pro's and con's of each but it seems now that I'm up to 7 snakes in my care (with a possible 8th coming in the ensuing weeks/months) that thawing, heating then feeding is a royal pain in the &%$#. It also seems to be more expensive, though I know if I ordered in bulk from Perfect Prey or Rodent Pro it would be much cheaper. So my thought has been to keep a two week supply of live feeder mice/rats in some tubs in my garage. I would just make the hour drive over to see Frank at Cold Blooded Novelties and pick up enough feeders for the upcoming two weeks each time.

Does anyone else do this? If so how is it working out? Are there any major things I'm not thinking about when it comes to housing feeder mice? I would of course provide water, food, substrate, and would house hoppers/smalls separately from the medium and larger mice/rats.

I really don't want to build a rack just for breeding mice so this idea seems to be the best compromise. Plus I would no longer have bags of frozen mice taking up a shelf in my freezer.

I think f/t is the way to go. That being said I have one that will refuse anything but live :tears:

Hoppers will not survive without their mother for two weeks, anything that is not weaned (usually 3 to 4 weeks of age will not.

Additionally rats grow very fast and in as little as two weeks they could outgrow the ideal size you need.

I bought 6 live crawlers enough for 2 feedings by the time i was ready to use the second set they had grown to big to be fed and have now become pets lol. The kids decided they like the pets so now have 6 rats i figure can have a breeding colony and build a kill box being my snakes eat f/t or sell live feeders to ppl i know.

I feed live and started out buying my feeders. Problem I found was 1)quality of feeders 2) not always having rats for sale 3) not having the appropriate sized feeders, so I started producing my own. If you are going to keep a 2 week supply you should just build you a 4-5 tub rack and produce your own. Just my thoughts.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Hoppers will not survive without their mother for two weeks, anything that is not weaned (usually 3 to 4 weeks of age will not.

Additionally rats grow very fast and in as little as two weeks they could outgrow the ideal size you need.

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Thanks to everyone so far for chiming in.

Deborah, this is just the kind of thing I didn't know. Hopefully these couple of smaller girls I recently picked up will be onto small mice and I won't have to worry about the hoppers anymore.

Fortunately my local rat breeder/supplier isn't far away. At the moment I've got 17 adult(ish) BP's, six of which are live-only eaters, while the others will take f/t. If one decides not to eat each week the live feeder just goes to a snake that normally gets f/t. I rotate through the weeks which one gets the live feeder so they don't decide not to take f/t any more.

If for some reason there's still a live left over after all 17 have been offered a meal, which I've had happen during male winter fasting and synchronized shedding, I have boas that would take a small rat as an hors d'ouevre.

All of mine get fed live and I haven't had any problems yet.

I do feed mine in seperate containers. I don't do it because I think they'll get cage aggressive, but because first, I get better control during feeding just in case something happens. Also, if you feed live, you know that the feeders defecate a whole lot if your snake doesn't kill it right away so I don't want my snakes slithering all over that.

In regards to the leftover feeders, I'm lucky enough to live two minutes away from the reptile store where I get my feeders. So if one of mine doesn't eat, I just return them.

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I'm feeding my BP live and no problems till today
The shop i get my mice from isn't far away, so i only buy one at the time
but they really stink if left in their "box" for a couple of hours >.<

I was buying from a store for two that were live only eaters. But recently I've decided to start a couple colonies and breed them in the garage. I used to do mice when they were smaller so I think I can handle it. Now if only I can find a male rat local.... No local rat breeders here unless I wanna make a trip to the cities...

If they eat f/t I wouldn't feed live. I go to a local breeder and get enough of a good size to last.me a little. And he kills them on site via co2 and I take them home and freeze them.

Thanks everyone, I'm really leaning towards staying the f/t route but the two hatchlings I have are starting to concern me. I'm going to see if I can get a few hoppers Saturday when I go over to Reptile Passions in Charlotte. Does anyone happen to know if there are any mice breeders here in the Raleigh Durham area of NC?

I was buying live each week. I didn't want to house live rodents really. If I'm housing them, I might as well be breeding them and not buying each week.

The first thing I thought of was the fact that mice and rats grow extremely fast, so like buying a large supply of crickets, you'd have to buy smaller ones to use two weeks later. Then it was that at a certain size, you need to have the nursing mom.

I'd get everyone on the same schedule and buy the live rodents once a week and feed them all off within a day or two, so you don't have to house them all the time.

A lot of people have made some good points against buying your own feeders and housing them for 2-weeks. All are great suggestions and I too suggest that if you're willing to house them, you might as well have a tub or two (or a rack) for your rodents and breed your own.

It sounds like you're wanting to keep doing F/T but you want to buy from a more local source. I would suggest finding a FB group that will have a list of breeders in your area or put up an ad on Craigslist looking for a steady supply of live feeders. You never know, there may be someone breeding feeders for his/her own snakes and has some extra you can buy.

There have been great points and advice given.


My 2 pennies:
I once bought live from a pet store. My snakes eat live and were all on a 2 week feeding schedule. So I would buy every 2 weeks and be left with few or no leftovers. If there were any leftovers, they were put in a 20L with some food and water until the following week or held until next feeding.

Price for 8 snakes: $150/mo.

Now I breed my own ASFs for 12 of 13 snakes at a cost of $75/mo. Cost is food and bedding for the rodents. The lone snake not on ASFs is not mine and is on f/t hoppers.

You WILL save at least half the money raising your own, but you do have to figure in the time and effort put into cleaning, feeding and watering(and dealing with possible escapees grrr!).

If you don't mind taking care of rodents, it's a great money savings. If you despise cleaning rodent cages, it can be worth buying.