ASF for sale in Louisiana?

I recently started gearing up to breed ball pythons and decided to raise ASF rats as feeders to lower the food cost. I gave no thought to their potential availability at first,assuming that they would be readily available. I have looked all over,finding noone in Louisiana that has or sells ASf rats.

My first question obviously is does anyone know of a source in the state to obtain them from? This also makes me wonder if its legal to breed them in this state.

If anyone has any info on this I would greatly appreciate it.

As far as I could find, there isn't anything in LA preventing legal ownership or breeding of them.

There are some suggestions here how to find a breeder https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...s-in-Louisiana

Depending where in LA you are located, it may be worth to check neighboring states.

Right on,appreciated.

I used morph markets breeder location tool and went through a ton of breeders that either didnt carry them, had to forfeit due to incoming legislature, or were just out of business. I actually was open to driving a few hours away to get some and could not find anyone within a 5 hour drive.

Whats insane is their availability given how many people recommend them, unless I just stumbled onto the minority of people who deal with them..the one thing I never expected. Ill get some eventually,but in the meantime just searching the best I can.

Idk if my rat person will ship but she has asf rats in chicago. Her store name is cef pets. I use to feed my bp as rats but honestly they take longer to grow and don't grow as big as your standard rat

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Originally Posted by Santiago6621

Idk if my rat person will ship but she has asf rats in chicago. Her store name is cef pets. I use to feed my bp as rats but honestly they take longer to grow and don't grow as big as your standard rat

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Live ASF can’t legally cross state lines. Frozen I believe is okay


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Originally Posted by jmcrook

ASF can’t legally cross state lines


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I did not know that.

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I raise ASF an rats. For the time an money rats out perform ASF all day long. ASF grow slow, very slow like a rat will be at 100g while the ASF is at 25g or less.

You can buy a prego rat to start with from an old school pet shop that keeps the males an females together.

If you come up to MD, I'll give you a ASF starter colony (1m/3F). I still keep ASF but the rats are taking over.

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by 303_enfield

If you come up to MD, I'll give you a ASF starter colony (1m/3F)

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OP is in Louisiana. Crossing state lines with live ASF is a Lacey Act violation punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and/or 1yr imprisonment. Suggesting such actions is also a violation of the TOS of these forums


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Originally Posted by jmcrook

OP is in Louisiana. Crossing state lines with live ASF is a Lacey Act violation punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and/or 1yr imprisonment. Suggesting such actions is also a violation of the TOS of these forums


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They added ASF to Lacey? :O No wonder they are near impossible to find. Wasn't the big snake ban most recent ruling sufficient enough to decide they cannot prohibit interstate trade, only international trade with Lacey? CITES would be very different, and I know for a fact they can ban interstate travel for CITES.

You cannot ship live mammals via USPS/UPS/FEDEX though. You would need to use something like Delta Dash, which afaik is still suspended because of covid.

Either way, I would strongly reconsider breeding and feeding them if they made it on Lacey. If your colony gets wiped out for any reason, then you have however many BPs only wanting to eat something near impossible to find. Breed rats and gas/freeze them at the appropriate size.

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Originally Posted by Santiago6621

Idk if my rat person will ship but she has asf rats in chicago. Her store name is cef pets. I use to feed my bp as rats but honestly they take longer to grow and don't grow as big as your standard rat

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Yea the grow out period is definitely longer, so thats the major drawback. What made me want to chase em down was the fact that starting out the breeding Ill be using a spare room in my house. ASF smell is way less to deal with than normal rats which for me is a major plus. I can deal with slower grow through smarter planning and colony control. They also eat and drink less aggressively than normal rats which could lend to a cheaper food bill.

As for the size comparisons,regular rats do have that in their favor. However, the protein transfer is much higher with asf,making it nonessential to rely on bodily size for feeders since theyre more nutritious. Add in that the ASF is the natural prey for BP and will more likely encourage reliable feeding, and for me it was definitely the way I wanted to lean.

So once you get your colony numbers established and planned youre breeding rats that stink less, mess less, eat/drink less while being better food all around and reduce the chance for going off feed. Ill have to do some restructuring if I cant find em, but man I hope I do.

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Originally Posted by BlackBayouReptiles

Yea the grow out period is definitely longer, so thats the major drawback. What made me want to chase em down was the fact that starting out the breeding Ill be using a spare room in my house. ASF smell is way less to deal with than normal rats which for me is a major plus. I can deal with slower grow through smarter planning and colony control. They also eat and drink less aggressively than normal rats which could lend to a cheaper food bill.

As for the size comparisons,regular rats do have that in their favor. However, the protein transfer is much higher with asf,making it nonessential to rely on bodily size for feeders since theyre more nutritious. Add in that the ASF is the natural prey for BP and will more likely encourage reliable feeding, and for me it was definitely the way I wanted to lean.

So once you get your colony numbers established and planned youre breeding rats that stink less, mess less, eat/drink less while being better food all around and reduce the chance for going off feed. Ill have to do some restructuring if I cant find em, but man I hope I do.

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I use to feed a few of my bp asf and it seemed feeding response was the same as rats with my other bp

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Just in case you end up finding them, I figured I'd give you a few tips I learned through trial and error. I can't own them here in CA, but when I lived in Denver I bred them for years.

They breed much better in groups of 1.3-5 vs 1.1-2, and swapping out males like you can with mice/rats doesn't usually work, you want to keep the males in with his females at all times. When your males or females are getting older and close to needing replaced, you should just grow up a babies produced by that colony with them the whole time. 1.1 would almost always cannibalize young, perhaps because they were failing to thrive because not enough moms to feed the babies on the right cycle. Given this very different way they breed and raise young, you need to plan how you house them differently and carefully plan ahead to get the right numbers because it's not so easy to just not provide a male to knock up the females if you have too many and put him back later.

Best of luck finding them.

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Originally Posted by nikkubus

Just in case you end up finding them, I figured I'd give you a few tips I learned through trial and error. I can't own them here in CA, but when I lived in Denver I bred them for years.

They breed much better in groups of 1.3-5 vs 1.1-2, and swapping out males like you can with mice/rats doesn't usually work, you want to keep the males in with his females at all times. When your males or females are getting older and close to needing replaced, you should just grow up a babies produced by that colony with them the whole time. 1.1 would almost always cannibalize young, perhaps because they were failing to thrive because not enough moms to feed the babies on the right cycle. Given this very different way they breed and raise young, you need to plan how you house them differently and carefully plan ahead to get the right numbers because it's not so easy to just not provide a male to knock up the females if you have too many and put him back later.

Best of luck finding them.

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Gotcha,much appreciated. Anything at this phase helps,particularly coming from a direct experience perspective. Even if Im forced to go with normals for the time being, Ill just be glad to get up and going overall. It was roughly a year ago that I started exploring the idea of breeding BP, did the research, and saved up for the equipment. I just got my snake rack in from ARS last week, incubator arrived today and rat rack is on order so at this point Im just anxious to get rolling. At 43 years old, I didnt think Id get this excited for anything but Im like a kid in a candy store right now.

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Originally Posted by BlackBayouReptiles

Gotcha,much appreciated. Anything at this phase helps,particularly coming from a direct experience perspective. Even if Im forced to go with normals for the time being, Ill just be glad to get up and going overall. It was roughly a year ago that I started exploring the idea of breeding BP, did the research, and saved up for the equipment. I just got my snake rack in from ARS last week, incubator arrived today and rat rack is on order so at this point Im just anxious to get rolling. At 43 years old, I didnt think Id get this excited for anything but Im like a kid in a candy store right now.

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It's so exciting after a long time planning to finally get things rolling for sure. Starting out with ARS from the beginning is going to make things really nice!

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Originally Posted by nikkubus

They added ASF to Lacey? :O No wonder they are near impossible to find. Wasn't the big snake ban most recent ruling sufficient enough to decide they cannot prohibit interstate trade, only international trade with Lacey? CITES would be very different, and I know for a fact they can ban interstate travel for CITES.

You cannot ship live mammals via USPS/UPS/FEDEX though. You would need to use something like Delta Dash, which afaik is still suspended because of covid.

Either way, I would strongly reconsider breeding and feeding them if they made it on Lacey. If your colony gets wiped out for any reason, then you have however many BPs only wanting to eat something near impossible to find. Breed rats and gas/freeze them at the appropriate size.

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Lacey Act has no control over interstate travel or trade. You think Snake people would remember all the work they did an the court cases.

USARK vs Jewell (Zinke) Court Ruling

"The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling in 2017 in
favor of the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers (USARK), lifting
restrictions on interstate commerce of injurious species listed
under the Lacey Act. The ruling restricts USFWS from regulating
interstate transport of any injurious species. USFWS, however,
will continue to have authority to regulate international transport
of injurious species into the U.S. as well as between the
jurisdictions expressly named in the shipment clause of the Lacey
Act (the contiguous U.S., District of Columbia, Hawaii, and
Puerto Rico). The final ruling took effect on May 31, 2017."

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Originally Posted by 303_enfield

Lacey Act has no control over interstate travel or trade. You think Snake people would remember all the work they did an the court cases.

USARK vs Jewell (Zinke) Court Ruling

"The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling in 2017 in
favor of the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers (USARK), lifting
restrictions on interstate commerce of injurious species listed
under the Lacey Act. The ruling restricts USFWS from regulating
interstate transport of any injurious species. USFWS, however,
will continue to have authority to regulate international transport
of injurious species into the U.S. as well as between the
jurisdictions expressly named in the shipment clause of the Lacey
Act (the contiguous U.S., District of Columbia, Hawaii, and
Puerto Rico). The final ruling took effect on May 31, 2017."

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That's what I thought. Thank you for confirming!

https://media4.giphy.com/media/QLXPK5HFpzCjS/giphy.gif


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I'm in the Baton Rouge area, and just wanted to say that I would buy feeders from you (if you had extra) but I prefer to feed F/T, and idk if you'd be setting up a gas chamber etc. I only have three snakes, so its hard for me to order in bulk and I dont like supporting Petco/etc. very much.

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Originally Posted by Deanna

I'm in the Baton Rouge area, and just wanted to say that I would buy feeders from you (if you had extra) but I prefer to feed F/T, and idk if you'd be setting up a gas chamber etc. I only have three snakes, so its hard for me to order in bulk and I dont like supporting Petco/etc. very much.

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Hey Deanna,
Thanks,much appreciated. Yes I will be setting up the gas works and at some point could sell F/T. Im only starting out with 3 BP myself so its inevitable that I will begin to have extra on hand that I already planned on freezing for later use. Im also located just outside of Baton Rouge, so it would be very convenient as well it sounds. Im with you on the chain stores,Id rather support local business.

Ill keep you posted, but just being realistic its going to be a bit. Once I have the ASF onsite ( i actually found a source) it takes roughly 3 months to grow them out and so forth. Im not sure what size your snakes are and thus what they would require.

Anyway,thanks again,glad to hear and nice to meet you.