Buying F/T vs. breeding your own?

[Jabberwocky Dragons]

The point of adding it as a PRO is because I know what my rats eat. No chance they've been fed dog food with red dye in it. That piece of mind is very important IMO. I've also ordered F/T from online places when my colonies didn't quite do the job, but when I received them I noticed a big difference between my rats and theirs. The rats I've bought are packaged poory, have bloody noses and purple feet. Now that my colonies have grown substantially, I sell my excess rats to other snake breeders as well and I can tell you, none of mine look that way.

So would you say there's a difference in the quality of the rats you sell to others versus the ones you keep for yourself? My point was that you can get just as high quality rats f/t by buying from a trusted breeder as from breeding them yourself so that's not necessarily an advantage for breeding yourself over buying f/t.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I should have added that I started breeding my own feeders when I reached 10 snakes which was a great move since a few month late I started hatching my first animals as well (having love when you breed snake is essential)

[DooLittle]

Here are my reasons-

Pro's to my own breeders-
I know where they have been and what they are eating
More space in my freezer for people food
Convenience (this one is huge)

Cons-
More work cleaning
Male rats smell (asf's, not as bad)

As far as time spent with feeders, it probably works out to the same as time spent messing with thawing rats.

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[rabernet]

I got out of breeding my own, but I have a source now who delivers live once a week and takes anything not eaten back with him. He's currently only producing just for my collection and his.

I know and trust him, and much of his collection came from me. It's nice when we can trade snakes for rat credit.

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[jcoylesr76]

it is a toss for me. i like rats personally, however i do have allergies to them. but will deal with it when needed. i mainly order F/T's, but will breed for hatchlings if i got the time and space to do so until i get them switched to F/T's. after that, i do not have any local hook ups for anything thing smaller than adult mice, and small/medium rats, and $5 for an adult mouse is crazy!!!!!.

[JulieInNJ]

I too am 50/50 on breeding vs. buying.

Pros of breeding:
MUCH less waste for those picky eaters - you can throw the uneaten live ones back in their tank.
No defrosting.
No split rats during feedings.
Some of our snakes ONLY eat live (as much as I hate it), so it's convenient to have them on hand and not have to store-hop to find the right sizes.


Cons of breeding:
We're finding that it's actually costing us a bit more to breed. It's getting harder and harder to find rodent block/food and bedding in bulk where we live.
There's a lot of time and energy into breeding - cleaning, feeding, watering, etc. - that I don't spend defrosting.
Personally, I have a hard time raising animals without getting attached.

At this point, we're still trying to figure out the best route for us.

[aldebono]

My own account:

We have around 15 snakes now. We probably had around 10 or 12 when my WEEKLY feed bill for buying live rodents was $50. That's $200 a month, $2,400 per year. 30 minute round trip to the store, an hour and a half "shooting the breeze" with the shop owners. This is when I made the jump to breeding my own.

Now, I am going to round it up generously, I am spending $50 a month, $600 a year. Initial cost for my 6 bin rack was about $150 if I remember correctly. I try to keep my breeding to a 1.3 or 1.4 so I only have to clean about once every 5 days and that takes 30 minutes. Daily care of feeding 1x a day and waters every other day, takes less than 10 minutes.

You are going to be spending a fair amount of time with your rats on a day to day basis. This is why you don't necessarily need to be in love with your rats, but at least like them. If you are on the disliking end already, be sure to get good stock that are not aggressive and that don't run and scream when you pick them up. Nice rats are a lot more pleasant to deal with than the skittish ones.

[Redneck_Crow]

I raise rats for my 6 ball pythons.

Cons: They can stink, they do take a lot of work if you don't want them to stink, and they don't breed exactly as many as you need so you can end up with surplus or not have enough on any given week. I've set things up so that I err on the side of too many.

Pros: I don't save any money, but I know that my snakes are getting fed good clean rodents that are getting plenty of clean feed and water plus extras like fresh fruit and vegetable scraps. I always end up with too many so I get to help out a friend who runs a small reptile rescue with my surplus.

[Mike41793]

For those of you who do breed your own which of the two tend to smell better; rats or asf's?

Also when you clean out the rats bins what exactly do you do? Is it like cleaning out my bp tubs or not as involved as far as all the disinfecting?

sorry to have the thread, but i feel like these 2 questions go along with it pretty well

[DooLittle]

For those of you who do breed your own which of the two tend to smell better; rats or asf's?

Also when you clean out the rats bins what exactly do you do? Is it like cleaning out my bp tubs or not as involved as far as all the disinfecting?

sorry to have the thread, but i feel like these 2 questions go along with it pretty well

Asf's smell a lot less. They are easier to clean also, because the typically pick a corner and that is the toilet. Spot clean every few days, complete clean roughly every two weeks, sooner if needed.

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