Economy of Scale - How many snakes before breeding feeders?

[Samong]

I am in NO hurry at all with this idea, but I have also experienced some really crappy situations with feeders. I've had animals that simply would not take F/T (My now 10 year old ball python took 6 years to switch) and I've also been charged prices for live feeders that were nothing short of highway robbery. I'm hoping when I move that there will be a reputable, nicely priced feeder source near me. I have a "problem child" ball python who needs calories more than anything right now, but I will continue to attempt to switch him to frozen/thawed rats. He'll take mice and rats live just fine. I will also be raising 1.2 baby Baird's ratsnakes and 1.2 beauty snakes this year. The Baird's will likely take frozen thawed, but I don't know about the beauties.

I'm wondering at what scale/point does breeding your own start to make sense?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

If you breed snakes it make sense when you start hatching your first snakes to start breeding your own feeders as well makes like a lot easier.

I started breeding my own feeder when I reached 10 snakes it just made sense because of the convenience and also about the quality.

I still breed my feeder, I bred mice , rats I feed live and F/T.

[ballpythonsrock2]

I have one 1000 + grams female ball and realized breeding mice will be cheaper. I use to buy but at 2.50 a mouse being the cheapest ( for dinky little mice ) and 3.99 for a bit larger mice at Petco. Mice are around 20 grams so 5 mice every week or two is pretty expensive and the female bp's grow quite large. So one female ball python eating live makes breeding mice worth it cost wise. That is once you have all the equiment you need, like enclosure, water bottle, food, chew stuff, and houses, and spinner toy, which I now have. Any tips by pm or forum on breeding mice feeders will be appreciated. Thanks. - Steve

[Darkbird]

Another factor to consider is weather you would want to sell or freeze any overage you end up with. I have a few bps that won't touch frozen, and most don't care, and one who actually feeds better on live, so I usually freeze extras when I get a surplus, and then use them when my breeders aren't doing as well. For some odd reason I can't seem to sell any in my area, but that's always a possibility too.
Really though, there is no hard number to go by for when breeding becomes cheaper. Depends on your situation, and everyone's is different. When cost and/or availability of feeders bocomes worse than the cost and time investment needed to breed your own, I'd say start breeding. I don't factor in much of the startup cost, since a well built rack will last indefinitely and save a huge amount of work. In my case, the first rack transformed my rat breeding from a few tank that were a real issue to keep clean and took a bunch of space relative to the number of days I was producing, to something easy to work with and more efficient in pretty much every way.

[Marrissa]

I actually went against the grain and starting breeding my own feeders at three snakes. I was sold a clown female who I was told ate rats or mice in any form F/t, live, pre killed. In about two months of having her she took one F/T. She started dropping weight so I went to the feed store and paid $2 for a mouse hopper (holy crap) each week. It got to the point where the hoppers were just getting too expensive to keep up with for what she needed and they often ran out before I could get there. So I started breeding rats. Then I got more snakes, the rats expanded, more snakes, more rats. Now I breed rats to aim for improving lines to show standards and feed off the extras. I find breeding my own feeders very rewarding and fun. I have both rats and mice and plan on taking on bunnies soon. I'm up to 15 snakes right now and hopefully hatchlings this summer. I do usually sell feeders most months and make at least a good $20-30 from it (which pays the bills for their upkeep pretty much). Sometimes I just have bad luck though and not enough to spare or something happens to litters or whatever.

Just make sure you realize the expense going into it. And the time to clean. And I second the racks. Love them. I have a 105qt rat rack I build, a cement rack I built, and should be picking up another 7 tub cement rack tomorrow. Sooo much time saved and makes it much easier to clean with racks.

[StillBP]

I have one 1000 + grams female ball and realized breeding mice will be cheaper. I use to buy but at 2.50 a mouse being the cheapest ( for dinky little mice ) and 3.99 for a bit larger mice at Petco. Mice are around 20 grams so 5 mice every week or two is pretty expensive and the female bp's grow quite large. So one female ball python eating live makes breeding mice worth it cost wise. That is once you have all the equiment you need, like enclosure, water bottle, food, chew stuff, and houses, and spinner toy, which I now have. Any tips by pm or forum on breeding mice feeders will be appreciated. Thanks. - Steve

not to get off subject but will she not take rats? 1 rat is alot better and cheaper than 5 mice. I know of some that are simply mouse eaters but have you tried to swich her?

As far as breeding I have around 30 balls and do breed mice and rats however I can not keep up with the demand of my snakes with the rodent operation that I have so I still end up buying around 10-20 rats a week but I have a local pet store who I sell my lesser quality balls and all my normals through who gives me fair sized rats at around $2 bucks each so I am better off than most when I have to buy them

[distaff]

Our "local" pet store is still a long drive away (I rarely drive because of poor eyesight). I have Big Cheese mice in the freezer, but I wanted a back-up - we've had freezer failures before (user error, but still...).

So, I've got three mice now that will be breeders. Hopefully.
Yeah, they take a lot of time and space. I've got them in two large Sterlite bins - at least the little creatures are entertaining.

Any extras produced can be fed off to the chickens.

[cchardwick]

I find that my rats and mice take way more time than my snakes. But I do enjoy breeding them and I'm sure my snakes will love the abundant supply of live food once I'm up and running. Just had a few new baby rats and mice for the first time, still buying 6 mice per week from the local pet store for $1.75 each until my production is up. I could probably go through 20+ feeders per week with my 15 snakes if I switched everyone from frozen thawed to live.

Back to the original question, I think you could breed mice or rats with just one snake. You could put the male and female together until they have babies, then separate to control the breeding. Once you get low on babies put them back together. As long as the babies don't get too big to feed, of course you could always freeze the extra or switch to African soft furs or mice that will never get too big for a ball python.

I've often thought that it would be nice to have someone else locally raise up mice and rats for me, as long as they were willing to sell them really cheap, like 50 cents a mouse or something like that, maybe a dollar for a rat... Would save me a lot of work. I'd almost be willing to set them up with a real nice rack system as part of the deal. Maybe I can go door to door down the neighborhood and ask around LOLOL.

By the way, some people think that breeding mice and rats is too expensive. It basically comes down to the price of food and bedding. If you could get both for free then the mice / rats would be free (not including labor of course). The feed store has really cheap feed, some is less than $10 per 50 pounds. If you had the right connections you may be able to get expired feed from the supermarket and bedding from a sawmill (or something similar for free).