Arg! No live feeders around

[Jay_Bunny]

The petstore that supplies our feeders is shutting down next Sunday. We've been trying to find places that sell live feeders as our ball pythons only eat live right now. They mentioned a new petstore right down the street from them but I know that petstore and I told them I didn't like to shop there. They even agreed that they don't like the new petstore. When I went there, the woman was sitting at the check out counter reading a magazine. I went to look at the puppies and NOT A SINGLE PUPPY had water. They all had empty bowls and one cage that had puppies in it didn't even have a water dish. So I officially refuse to shop there. The only other petstore I can think of is about 20 min from my house but since I'm going to hopefully be moving soon, it could become further.

I'm starting to wonder if breeding my own mice would be better. I don't want to because I know it costs money to keep up with the needs of the mice and not to mention they smell pretty bad from what I've heard. I have four snakes. One eats mouse fuzzies, two eat hoppers, and one eats small mice.

Any suggestions?

[SarahMB]

Well, if you stick with feeding mice, then eventually all of your snakes will be eating 3-5 adults per week. Getting a head start on breeding now would be to your advantage, in my opinion.

[Jay_Bunny]

The only problem is at the moment both my fiance and I live with our families. I live with my grandparents and my fiance lives with her mother. My grandmother has said no more animals even if they are not meant as a pet. My fiance's mother also says no more pets. We could breed feeders when we move in together but that is most likely going to happen this winter or spring.

[SarahMB]

Well, I'm not sure what anyone can tell you to do, in that situation. You said you are thinking about breeding, I said go for it, and you now say you can't?

I also think you are feeding too small a prey item to your snakes, for the record

[Jay_Bunny]

I don't see why you think I'm feeding too small of prey items to my snakes. Spencer (king) just moved up to fuzzies and even then they leave a rather nice lump in him. The ball pythons are still very small and are on hoppers. A hopper leaves a lump in both of them and thats what the man we bought them from said they were on. And as for Zim, she just moved up to small mice but the petstore has been out of those as well and I've had to resort to the frozen hoppers in my freezer. She will be getting two of those this next feeding. So I really don't see how you think that the prey is too small for ANY of my snakes. If I do have to resort to smaller prey, I feed more of it to compensate.

[SarahMB]

Oooooh, ok. Well I know nothing about kings, so I can't say anything about that. I do have a hard time picturing any ball other than a hatchling on hoppers. My youngest is a few weeks old and takes large juveniles.

[SatanicIntention]

I have Ball babies that were born on the 24th of July, as well as some that were hatched on the 15th? of August and they are taking small/medium adult mice now. They weren't interested in the hoppers whatsoever, but slammed those small/medium adults across the tub. It's so funny seeing this 65-70g baby wrap completely around a mouse. Such strong little boogers. I did have two that were hold-outs on fuzzies/small hoppers, but after about 3-4 weeks, they finally took a small adult mouse last Thursday.

Since fuzzies and hoppers are still mostly cartilage rather than bone, the snakes aren't getting much in the way of calcium or even meat from them. Just not much of a substantial meal. You'll see alot better growth and possibly better feeding responses.

[Jay_Bunny]

Xefaud is about 60 something grams. We haven't weighed him this week but he'll take a large hopper. We tried feeding Sadis a small mouse and she wouldn't touch it. Almost seemed afraid of it. Every time it came near her she'd back away.

We did, however, check out the petstore thats a bit far from us. Off the Ark. They specialize in exotic pets and let me tell you. I was like a kid in a candy store. Our only problem is that we have a potential apartment on the other side of town so that would be almost a 45 min drive. But we are putting in applications for the apartment on Tuesday so I'm crossing my fingers.

[wolfy-hound]

What I had to do was to call all live rat(mice in your case) breeders in my area, using kingsnake classifieds to locate any in florida or georgia. If they were too far away(three hours or more) I would ask them if they knew someone closer to me. Usually that gave me another person to call. Eventually(two days and over 25 calls/emails) I found a GREAT guy who delivers the live rats to my workplace. It's happens that it's on his route, and he's a nice guy!
So that's my advice, if you want live mice, start calling anyone even near you, the same state. And ask, be SUPER nice, and absolutely polite no matter what, and hopefully you'll locate a nearby source.
Wolfy