Picky about feeders?

I went to a "super" pet store to get some feeders today, and they said that they wouldn't have more until friday. Friday doesn't work for me or my BP because TODAY is feeding day. I'm trying to stick to a schedule so he'll be easier to feed.

So I went to a "mom & pop" type pet store that I'm not too crazy about. If you are into fish, they have an awesome selection and a great setup for them. If you like anything other than fish this store will make you angry > :mad:. All of the reptiles seem dehydrated, and some of the small animals seem a little overcrowded. I bought 3 feeders from this place, and am regretting it a little bit.

So, after all of that, the question is:
How picky does a responsible snake keeper need to be when buying feeders? What things should I look for when buying feeders? I have VERY limited experience with feeding live, and everything that goes with it, so any advice/knowledge would be greatly appreciated!

I am very picky about my feeders. The quility of feeders will relate to the quility of your snakes.

I am all about quality..That's why I love raising my own feeders.

When I bought all the time from a certain pet store I switched feeding day on the stores delivery day. They would aways have them ready for when I walked in.

Rats: look for clear eyes (no reddish or brownish goop around the eyes.) A nice rounded shape without the rat being overly fat or underweight skinny. A female with a pear-shape might be pregnant.. this might make her too large around for your snake. Also, make sure that the rats are not missing patches of fur or having scabs on the skin. Whole, clean tails. Active and robust "feeder" rats, which are not regularly handled, are generally afraid when someone reaches for them; a rat that just cowers or is breating very heavy and rapidly is probably ill.

Well, at least I feel good about the feeders I bought today. :rolleyes:

After these 3 are gone I will be going to my local Petco to get feeders. They cost about $.50 more per feeder, but I will feel a lot better about them. My local Petco does a really good job with their small animals.

Is this what most of you live feeders out there do? Or is there some secret society of fantastic feeder breeders that nobody has told me about. ;)

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A female with a pear-shape might be pregnant.. This might make her too large around for your snake.

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I'm talking about mice, but I'm sure this still applys. I may have a possible candidate. One of the three is looking a little bit round. I guess it could just be chubby, but if it is preggo, is that a problem with feeding other than size-wize?

Petco is expensive, but there "feeder" mice and rats are actualy pets (well, its more of a "we don't call them feeders") so when you go into petco for snake food, you are actualy getting something ment to be a pet.

Actualy I would not mind picking up a couple rats from petco every so often as they do look clean. If I was to start breeding rats, I would likly start with petco for the parents (would need to go to different ones to get males and females).

If you see a prego rat or mouse, grab it and get another for your animal... wait till the female pops and let her raise the babies a bit and when they are weaned, just feed them off

Since I bought three today it bought me a little time to see if this one is actually prego or not. I'll watch it for the next couple of weeks and hopefully save some money if she does end up giving birth!

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How picky does a responsible snake keeper need to be when buying feeders?

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Very picky which is why I breed my own!

If the animal, looks unhealthy, dehydrated, skinny, his covered with feces, sneeze a lot etc I would not buy it!

Another grat advantage to buying f/t in bulk.
Seriously an option you should consider - switching to f/t if your snake will play ball.
May be easier said than done but it makes supply worries vanish.

I, too, am quite picky about the quality of my feeder mice...which is why I also breed my own. Whenever I have to supplement or get a size I don't have (the trouble with having 3 on adults, one on lg hoppers and two on pinkies), I just head to the Reptile store where I got my breeders since they always let me pick them myself. :)

I go to a local place and buy frozen hoppers

I'm extremely picky about our feeder rats, that's one of the reasons why we breed them ourselves. Back when we did have to buy from a pet store we had special permission to go into the back where they bred the rats and mice and handpick what we wanted each week.

Luckily adult mice are the perfect size for my BP right now, so I don't have to be picky about finding the right size. Every pet store has 100 mice that are the right size.

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Another grat advantage to buying f/t in bulk.
Seriously an option you should consider - switching to f/t if your snake will play ball.
May be easier said than done but it makes supply worries vanish.

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We started out with F/T, but after a month of no success and a BP that was getting pretty thin in the skin, we decided to try live just to get some food in him. When it went as smooth as silk I decided to get an established feeding schedule with live prey. I do plan on switching to F/T after awhile though.

We are pretty picky. We had a spell where it seemed like nobody had any feeders worth feeding. We ended up having to get fancy mice and rats. They were pretty expensive, but looked a lot healthier than the lab mice and rats available. After that we decided we have to get our own rat colony going. Now we are in the process of doing that. We had one mouse that we kept instead of feeding off cause she looked pregnant and she had a small litter of pups which we are letting her raise up. Since she was a good mom we will probably keep the female offspring to start building a mouse colony. We also had one rat give birth and another that looks like she should explode soon. Now we can look foward to taking total control over the quality of feeders we are feeding.

I'd love to have my own colony, but with only one snake I can't say that it makes a lot of sense for me. Upon further investigation I decided that my possible prego was just not quite as long as the other two, and this gave the illusion of being more round. So because it was the smallest of the three, it was eaten tonight. :)