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Hamsters as feeders

yojoe05 said:
I'd be worried about feeding gerbils at least if it's live I feel they're more agressive than the average mouse or hamster. I'm still a fan of mice though, I know you're looking for alternatives but when the majority of a community does it one way It speaks volumes for what the best option is.
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Im sorry I have to disagree with you there. I work with mice hamsters and gerbils and I dont think there is anything meaner than hamsters. Gerbils actually arent very aggressive animal I have not been bit even when they are scared. They do however have a much harder bite than mice do I heard it almost up there with rats. But the only thing that makes mice the "best" is that they are readily available and are very easy to breed and are accepted by scocitey as snake food. A lot of people consider hamsters and gerbils as pets and dont like the idea of them as food
 
I havn't read all of this thread yet, but the title... AGREED. Hamsters are evil. I would have NOOOOOO issue about freezing a hamster and feeding it to my snake.

But yeah as far as rasing them... they are VERY likely to eat their babies. And hamsters typically carry alot of body fat.
 
I don't know if anyone mentioned yet, but mice also accept new members into their colony much easier than gerbils or hamsters. I used to raise Gerbils and I know how territorial they can be.
 
Weda737 said:
I don't know if anyone mentioned yet, but mice also accept new members into their colony much easier than gerbils or hamsters. I used to raise Gerbils and I know how territorial they can be.
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Yeah that is true I know what your talkin about. Gerbils dont take to kindly to knew gerbils :flames: But if your only breeding for one snake then you dont really have to worry about adding new ones into the colony. If you have multiple snakes id just do mice
 
You do have a point, but along with everything else, prey imprinting and all that, You'd have to get a whole new compatible pair of one of yours was to die. I'm not saying don't do it, it just seems more troublesome.
 
I was just going with personal experience on hamsters vs gerbils. The gerbils I had when i was younger were far more likely to bite and the bite hurt worse than a hamster. Feeder wise I don't know because I never raised them for this purpose. Fat wise though hamsters are still way to fatty to feed on a regular basis unless you have a corn that has a weight gain problem I think.
 
Gerbils are highly territorial, and can be very aggressive. They can be good pets if they're handled from hopper-stage on, but they're very, very aggressive to each other throughout their lifetime, and both males and females will fight to the death if they feel threatened by the other (if the habitat is too small, food is scarce, if one female has babies and the other doesn't....). They're also very smart and excellent escape artists. They're more like rats in a lot of ways than mice.

As pets, I think they're a better choice than mice or hamsters if you're going to have just one and not co-hab them, because they do learn their person and can become quite tame and easily handled. As a feeder, though, I think they'd be hard to manage.

Gerbils were my first breeding attempt at age 10 or so, when any color but agouti was still rare enough to be easily sellable to local shops and sold at a premium, and I quickly learned that breeding wasn't nearly as easy as biology books made it sound!
 
I had 3 gerbils last fall, all brothers. One day we got home to one gerbil with a bloody mess. We still have the one and I'll never try to cohab them again.

I have been breeding dwarf hamsters since this spring, they produce small litters 3-5 is my usuall. I have only had one litter eaten and it was because I moved the cage to a new area. I don't breed them as a constant sorce of food, I would need 30+ females to keep my snakes fed. I have fed the odd one off here and there. A few of my corns refused to touch them. My ball python will eat them thought.

My mice have been breeding good for me, when I notice my females are getting round I move 2-4 into a 10 gallon tank and cull the litters to 4-6 babies per female. I grow the babies to the size I need a gas. If I have a female have a litter in my main tank I cull that entire litter to prevent the colony from eating them.
 
I have had the WORST damn luck with mice. lol i decided, screw the mice. im buying frozen feeders now.. by the hundreds. I do keep a small colony of rats for my pine snake, boa and burms. rats are easy! but i have seen alot of overly plump corns that are fed rats..
 
I'll admit that I've considered getting rid of the mice and getting rats/gerbils.

Though I'll say that with hamsters, it depends on the individual animal. I always had teddy bear hamsters growing up. My first one only bit me three times in his lifetime, my second never did. The gerbils never bit me either.
 
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