Ahhh... free from the weekly pet store bill

It is official. Last night for the first time ever, I fed all 10 of my snakes children from my own ASF colony. Yep, every single one was produced here in my house, by my breeders... and I have 60 more babies growing up... and all my breeder females are prego.

I purchased 10 ASF's about 2 months ago... for 50 bucks. Now, I am set FOREVER!!!

I tell ya, when you are hard core into snakes... There is NOTHING better then feeding rodents that you produced, to the highest standards. Soon I will be over-run.

Ah yes, soon I will be forced to get more snakes!!!

victory dance.. :taz:

I have gotten that feeling from my meal worm farm to feed my geckos. If a person's snake collection was big enough that would be the only way to fly. I'm tempted to do just that but it is another whole level of commitment.

:banana:Awsome I am going to get some very soon I can't wait to be free of the pet store feed bill

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Originally Posted by mcavana

I tell ya, when you are hard core into snakes... There is NOTHING better then feeding rodents that you produced, to the highest standards.

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This is one of the most insightful quotes ever on bp.net. :cool: I could not agree more!!

Justin

Oh I know what you mean. There have been times, back when my mice were producing well, when I didn't have to touch the store for weeks...and that was a great feeling. :) Now, I'm going to slowly switch over to rats so I can have a frozen backup supply and be truly free from the store. :D I hope.

I've been free from the pet stores for about 2 weeks now...Great feeling :)

i know the feeling i am going on 2 months without going to the pet shop. raising my own has been very rewarding and has saved me a lot of money. the quality of my feeders is a lot better. if you dont think it is worth breeding rats for one or two snakes simple solution get more snakes i did.:snake::snake::snake:


http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/e...rt/female1.jpg

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Originally Posted by mcavana

I purchased 10 ASF's about 2 months ago... for 50 bucks. Now, I am set FOREVER!!!

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LOL!!!!!!!!!:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I tell ya, not having to spend two hours( driving) once a week going to get feeders is a blessing! The best part is YOU control the size and you do not have to worry about not buying enough:)

Congrats! I loved when we finally became self-sufficient on feeders. It's so nice to have that quality control over the prey and to be able to customize feeding size to each snake's needs. The time spent on our rodent colony is a lot but very worth it in the end I think.

I'm with ya! There was a visible difference with my snakes after we built the rat rack. If I don't produce enough, I purchase from a laboratory breeder who's animals are raised on the same Harland lab mixture that I feed, so my snakes get a constant supply of quality rodents. After about 6-7 mo? of constant intake, (I suck with time frames) IMO they look better than ever. Even with some coming out of winter fasts, or having laid eggs, I'm extremely pleased with their appearance, and the only thing different is that I'm not feeding rats from pet stores that are raised on non-rodent mixes.

Nice!!! Takes a while to get the balance down. At one point I had way too many rats so I got more snakes. Then I ran out of mice, and boy were they surprised to see me at the pet store again!!! I think I have it now.

Nice, im wanting to breed a few rats/mice, but only have two snakes. Dont the like feeders the stores around me have so ive been feeding frozen, but want to switch to live soon.

Allow me to voice an opinion here: Stick with Frozen!!

If you ever decided to breed your own feeders, you would be knocking off and freezing the extra. Hence, it's best to have your snakes used to and accepting FT. If you wanted a change you could do pre-killed, but I strongly suggest keeping them on 'dead' prey. It's so much easier.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

Allow me to voice an opinion here: Stick with Frozen!!

If you ever decided to breed your own feeders, you would be knocking off and freezing the extra. Hence, it's best to have your snakes used to and accepting FT. If you wanted a change you could do pre-killed, but I strongly suggest keeping them on 'dead' prey. It's so much easier.

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Unless you are dealing with ASF's! no thaw time... no worries about them being too big! simply grab one, and feed. if the snake wont take it, move to the next enclosure.

It's just that easy.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

Allow me to voice an opinion here: Stick with Frozen!!

If you ever decided to breed your own feeders, you would be knocking off and freezing the extra. Hence, it's best to have your snakes used to and accepting FT. If you wanted a change you could do pre-killed, but I strongly suggest keeping them on 'dead' prey. It's so much easier.

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As far as easier - that's a personal preference. For me, feeding live is so much easier than filling my apartment freezer with frozen prey (which would leave no room for frozen food for the bi-peds in the apartment). I also don't have to spend all day defrosting a bunch of frozen prey.

Live is SOOOO much easier for me, and for me - no risk at all. I don't have a problem with being over on prey - and if I did, I'd either take to the local pet store who would buy them from me - or to the local falconer's club - they'll gladly accept excess rodents!

Mike,
I would like to take a minute to address a possible issue that I see with your feeding approach. However, first, I would like to congratulate you on becoming self sufficient, as it is always a good feeling.

Now the only problem I see with your current set-up is that you are feeding ASF's solely to your animals. It sounds from your original post that that is all you breed. I also have read that you want to open a pet store. All of these pieces put together, tells me that you will be an exclusive feeder of ASF's. You may want to be careful about feeding ASF's to animals that you intend on selling. Reason being, if the animal gets imprinted on ASF's, and the new owner cannot get ASF's, they may end up with a snake that will not eat. Even though many people on this site, and other die hard hobbyist breeders have ASF's, they are still not that common to the average person.

With all of that said, we do feed ASF's as well in our collection, but they are never offered to an animal that could potentially be put up for sale.

I hope that helped,

Thanks tim.

My collection is my collection. It is not going anywhere! If I were to open the pet store, the stock would be fed normal rats.

that said, it is important to know that the idea that a snake that eats ASF's will not eat normal rats is not accurate. Sure it is possible, but not likely. I do not know of anyone who was not able to change an ASF eater over to normal rats.

ALL of my snakes take normal rats immediately when offered, despite their love of ASF's.


Mike

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Originally Posted by muddoc

Mike,
I would like to take a minute to address a possible issue that I see with your feeding approach. However, first, I would like to congratulate you on becoming self sufficient, as it is always a good feeling.

Now the only problem I see with your current set-up is that you are feeding ASF's solely to your animals. It sounds from your original post that that is all you breed. I also have read that you want to open a pet store. All of these pieces put together, tells me that you will be an exclusive feeder of ASF's. You may want to be careful about feeding ASF's to animals that you intend on selling. Reason being, if the animal gets imprinted on ASF's, and the new owner cannot get ASF's, they may end up with a snake that will not eat. Even though many people on this site, and other die hard hobbyist breeders have ASF's, they are still not that common to the average person.

With all of that said, we do feed ASF's as well in our collection, but they are never offered to an animal that could potentially be put up for sale.

I hope that helped,

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Good points MBM.
BUT...just think...if ASF's aren't available in every pet store, but are available in YOUR store Mike....wouldn't that mean you have cornered the market on ASF's in your area?....and the local customers have to be repeat customers to buy their feeders only from You?....just sayin....

Mike and Charlie,
Very good points. I did post in another ASF thread, about 4 animals that I have that will not switch. I guess to clarify a bit, these four animals ate rats for the first 8 months that we had them. Then they either stopped eating, or became very sporadic at best. These snakes range from 1.5 to 4 years old. About 6 months ago, I got them to eat ASF's, and have not been able to get them to eat a rat ever since.

note: these are personal breeders of mine (i.e. an 05 Pastel female, an 06 YB female, an 04 Pied female, and an 04 Het Pied female). Needless to say, they have never bred, due to size, and they are very important to my collection.

As I said in the other post, everybody's experience will be slightly different. I am just relaying an occurance that could repeat itself in anyones collection.

Now, with that said, Charlie made a good point. If you sell animals in your store that only eat ASF's, and you are breeding and selling them, then your customers would have ready access to them.

I didn't want to make anyone mad, or offend anyone, I just wanted to put out some food for thought, and possibly some good discussion (which it has.)

Thanks guys,

:) fed off 22 devil dogs tonight! Lets see... if I had purchased them from the pet shop, that would have been $131.78!!!! (at $5.99 each) And just think... I was disapointed I was not able to feed more off!!!!

:taz:

Are these really as "non-smelly" as advertised?

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Originally Posted by TooManyToys

Are these really as "non-smelly" as advertised?

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In a word... absolutely.

I have bred mice and I have bred rats. I did very well with both but I hated them both.... for the same reason I hated my dog when we had one, and my cats when we had some.... I can not stand some animal smells. Dog smell, cat litter smell, rat smell, mouse smell. They are all absolutely revolting to me. Must be my long history of allergies... or something with my programming. They just make me sick.

ASF's don't bother me at all. I change the substrate every 3 weeks just because it starts to look nasty. The Equine Fresh pine pellets I use turn completely to dust... and the ground gets covered with black poop pellets.... But still, even then, there is little to no smell.

I would say it's a different smell. It reminds me of some strang old scent. Not odorless, but different than rats or mice. Not over powering, but it is definitely an odor all right lol.

I'm working on it...40 baby rats on the ground and growing...mice are moosing along...but it'll take a while to be able to cull jumbo rats. =P

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I would say it's a different smell. It reminds me of some strang old scent. Not odorless, but different than rats or mice. Not over powering, but it is definitely an odor all right lol.

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So, not something you would want to keep in your snake room.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I would say it's a different smell. It reminds me of some strang old scent. Not odorless, but different than rats or mice. Not over powering, but it is definitely an odor all right lol.

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For me if their enclosure gets dirty it smells like the dark, wet areas of an old forest...sort of musty, sort of mushroomy if that makes any sense at all. It's not a bad smell and not at all like the strong urine smell a dirty rat cage would get. It definitely means though that you need to be tending that enclosure. They are very clean little critters but like any animal isn't not nice to leave them to live atop their own old feces and urine.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

For me if their enclosure gets dirty it smells like the dark, wet areas of an old forest...sort of musty, sort of mushroomy if that makes any sense at all.

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That's the best description I've heard so far. I haven't been sitting around smelling their cage trying to peg it down, but that is definitely a very good description of the smell.

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So, not something you would want to keep in your snake room.

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I've kept all of my rats at one point or another in the snake room. No real difference.

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Originally Posted by monk90222

Good points MBM.
BUT...just think...if ASF's aren't available in every pet store, but are available in YOUR store Mike....wouldn't that mean you have cornered the market on ASF's in your area?....and the local customers have to be repeat customers to buy their feeders only from You?....just sayin....

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And ASFs don't stink nearly as bad! We've had a lot of success with 1:3 pairings and they're almost as good as gerbils when it comes to the smelliness. I keep telling my hub that we're in the wrong business, as he can sure crank out the babies! We've been supplementing a local pet store with mice and rats in exchange for goods. It's a sweet deal, and a future outlet for the normals to get a chance at good homes. It's just been nice to adopt a WC in a pet store who won't eat, bring her home, put her in a nice hide box, and she whacks the ASF.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

For me if their enclosure gets dirty it smells like the dark, wet areas of an old forest...sort of musty, sort of mushroomy if that makes any sense at all. It's not a bad smell and not at all like the strong urine smell a dirty rat cage would get. It definitely means though that you need to be tending that enclosure. own olThey are very clean little critters but like any animal isn't not nice to leave them to livd feces and urinee atop their .

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joanna brings up a good point,are we changing the ASFR's bedding for our noses or there best interest ? it seems like some people see how long they can go between bedding changes as if whoever gets the most days wins.

if the smell isn't offensive to us that doesn't mean it is good for the young to breath ,espically in the "pee corners".

my polycarb cages have about the same footprint as a 10 gal. tank,which house 1.4 - 1.3 groups,i'm changeing the bedding every 6-9 days.

any thoughts?

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Originally Posted by twh

joanna brings up a good point,are we changing the ASFR's bedding for our noses or there best interest ? it seems like some people see how long they can go between bedding changes as if whoever gets the most days wins.

if the smell isn't offensive to us that doesn't mean it is good for the young to breath ,espically in the "pee corners".

my polycarb cages have about the same footprint as a 10 gal. tank,which house 1.4 - 1.3 groups,i'm changeing the bedding every 6-9 days.

any thoughts?

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I don't change more often then 14 days. In fact I try to go as close to 3 weeks as possible. A perfectly clean cage looks better to us / but try comparing a clean cage to a natural rat infested enviroment!