Anyone buy frozen feeders from petco?

[Kristy]

Ocasionally I have to buy them from Petco cause the small local store runs out.

I HATE it, I refuse to buy them anymore. I don't know if this is normal when you order frozen feeders cause I never have. At petco Almost EVERY feeder I get is covered in urine. They smell so horrible and I refuse to feed them to houdini. I would rather have him miss a meal than feed him that. He won't eat them if they are wet at all.

I guess maybe the owner of the local shop spoils us, she breeds her own, her frozen feeders are all so clean and well, healthly looking for being dead I guess.

I hate it, breeding my own is out because I only have one snake. I would like to order some frozen rats, but I wanted to know if I should expect them to be nasty and covered in urine? Or if this is just another down fall of the corporate pet world?

[Sausage]

I've gotten pinkies for my corn there in the past, but 3 bucks for like 2 little pinkies is way too much. They haven't had urine or anything on them, that I've seen anyway. My experience with buying frozen rats from feeder dealers is that they're all pretty clean.

[BallPythonsRule]

I buy frozen mice ocassionaly from them, they're in good shape...

[Kristy]

Maybe its just the one here. I don't think I would mind it so much if it was just a little bit, but these things are saturated. Almost like they gas them, and leave them to sit in their own waste then toss them in the bad.

Price is ou of control, its 5.99 for a small rat here. I don't mind ordering them online and paying shipping if I am going to get nice clean feeders.

I have had petco rats blow up on me, I have had them come out rotten like they were thawed and frozen several times. Or with body parts missing.

[chz]

Ocasionally I have to buy them from Petco cause the small local store runs out.

I HATE it, I refuse to buy them anymore. I don't know if this is normal when you order frozen feeders cause I never have. At petco Almost EVERY feeder I get is covered in urine. They smell so horrible and I refuse to feed them to houdini. I would rather have him miss a meal than feed him that. He won't eat them if they are wet at all.

Kristy, I also buy frozen feeders from Petco simply because I refuse to buy my mice from the mom n pop shop by my house. Their snakes are kept in terrible conditions and also have mites.

EVERY frozen feeder i've bought from Petco is also covered in urine. It's disgusting, especially when thawing them out. The smell is terrible. I'm switching back to live mice for this reason alone. Their live feeders are a little cleaner (not by much, but they're not soaked to the bone in piss).

I'm surprised at the responses to this thread. Do different Petco's get their feeder mice from local suppliers? That would be the only way i could understand the variation in frozen feeders.

[chz]

In one of Kevin McCurley's books he talks about prekilling your own mice by hitting their head (similar to hitting a fish head on a rock after being caught). I think this is the best bet if you can stomach it.. just buy a bunch of clean live feeders and kill/freeze them.

[Argentra]

Best way to get frozen feeders is to order online. Yes, the minimum I've seen is 50, and average is 100, but they last months if kept well packed and are always clean and spoilage-free when ordered from a reputable supplier. I believe there is a sticky somewhere in the Feeder forums that lists the good suppliers.

Since I only have one snake that eats FT, I get mine from Petsmart. They're $10 for 4 medium adult mice, but I get them reduced as overstock. I'm doing this until I can get my 1.2 mice to breed for me. Nagini eats live, so I get her weekly mouse at the reptile store after school.

[tweets_4611]

I haven't ever bought any frozen feeders from PetCo, but I have bought live from there. Unless it was a last resort, I wouldn't buy anything other than perhaps bedding from them again. From my experiances there, almost all of their live feeders have an RI, or at least most of them do on a normal basis, so I can only imagine, if they don't take care of the live animals, how they would take care of the frozen dead ones. *ick* If you have a place to store them, ordering them online would probably be a better bet. That way PetCo doesn't get any more of your money for those filthy feeders....

[2kdime]

I euthanize my own rats. I gas em and freeze em to MY standards. Kept clean and what not.

You know what?? At a local show we just had rodent pro was there and I had a chance to go through they're supply. After seeing them ill never buy from them. Sure they have good prices. But all they're rats were just yellow. It was gross.

I'm asusming that's because of the urine. It just doesn't look sanitary. Just my experience.

[Kristy]

I know the petco here gets them from Gourmet Rodent. Don't know anything about that company.

I have tried buying them live and pre killing them, I don't like doing it. I think I have too much respect for the feeders to kill them myself.

Houdini was on live for a long time but they never have the size I need at the local shop. Petco won't sell live animals as feeders if you go in there enough and they catch on they won't sell them to you. Plus their animals are always sick.

This store has major ups and downs, they will be immaculate for months then its like they crash as far as the animal care goes. It sucks too because the employees and managers all know me, they really do care about the animals. I have had long talks with them about corporate, and how they have kind of banned together with other Petco stores around the North West to get somethings changed. I feel sorry for them, I have seen one of the girls in tears over the crested gecko incident. She was saying how she felt so helpless for them, all because of their ridiculous policies she couldn't do what was right.

I do have a good size freezer out in my garage so I definitely have a place to store bulk amounts of feeders. I think I will just go ahead and order some.