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how many snakes ?

darth-hayzer

darth-hayzer

New member
Hi all !
I was just wondering if you wanted to breed mice for your snakes , how many snakes would you need to make it worth while ?
 
I personally have never done the math. How much does it cost to feed and take care of mice opposed to feeding a snake?

I know that I thought I would try when my girls got tired of their pet mice so I got a boy to go with the 2 little girl mice but after 6 months and no one getting pregnant one of the girls ate the face off of the boy. I am sure I was doing something wrong but at that point I didn't care, it was to much work for me.

I order my mice online and what it costs me to feed one snake, buying food at my local mom and pop shop, I can feed all 10 for the same price even with the cost of shipping.
 
It would probably take about a million for it to be worth it for me!!! I'm already tied down by animals- a mouse colony would make it even mor
 
The number would vary. You also have to think about so many variables like time and money. For me the choice was easy. 1/4 tank of gas and 3 hours to travel then paying 26 for feeders per week from the pet shop. Or order 50-100 mice and pay 50 a month. - raise my own for about 20 a month and then I took on a few friends and so on. Now it pays for itself. I just invest about 20 mins a day and 1 hour on the weekend for maintenance. Which I like doing. Also make sure you can handle euthanizing your mice. I started when I got 5 snakes. Now I have 26 snakes. 18 mice colonies 8 rat and 3 asf colonies.
 
Well, there's no clear cut answer. It is a lot of work and unless you have an outside shed or barn or something it's not practical. The smell can be too much even if you clean them every week. After day 5 mine are very ripe, lol. Frozen mice can be a great alternative if you have freezer space. Right now I have them in a utility closet next to the laundry room. I sealed the door all around and I have an extractor that pulls the air up and out of the roof top. If I clean them once a week I can bare it but my wife goes nuts if she smells it leaking into the laundry room. I like the freedom of having pinkies on hand and every size on up, but I may eventually get a small freezer and buy frozen. Especially if my snake collection keeps growing as it is, lol. Balancing the output and consumpton can be tricky but it's better to produce too much then not enough. You can always sell some off to petshops or even on craigslist. Keep in mind that unless you have them in an airconditioned room, the mice will almost stop breeding completely when the summer temps get too high.
 
Technically, if you wanted to breed your own mice to feed a large number of snakes, buying frozen would be more practical since you can buy them in bulk.

But I would say 6+ snakes would constitute buying in bulk/breeding your own.
 
I could never keep live mice in the house, they freak me out. It would take about 10 snakes and a mouse barn in order for me to consider. I'd rather get an extra freezer and order mine anyway. I have no problem killing rodents (or spiders.)
 
I tried breeding mice, but the females ate the males face off
in both attempts.
It is much easier, cheaper and more convenient to buy frozen.
With the number I feed now, it would take too many live mice to
keep up anyway.
 
3-6$ a month for 1m/2f after start up (food,bedding,water)
my local pet store sells weanlings for $2.05. after they up'd the price i decided to start a colony. i had an old 10g fish tank laying around and a large bag of aspen i had been using for my corn.
if it costs you less then $6 to feed your snake a month id buy frozen, any more id start a colony, start small, 1 female will feed your snake just fine, 2 if you want to store frozens.
depending on the # of snakes you may want better quality mice. personally I started out with feeder mice i get an average 5+ healthy babys/litter which is fine because they breed on average 1s a month.
Just my experience so far, hope this helped
 
my local shop charges 55p per pinky so for me its simple, i would breed my own mice and rats weather i had 1 snake or 100.....
 
Nitelion94 said:
With my petstore prices I would say 1 lol
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baitman said:
my local shop charges 55p per pinky so for me its simple, i would breed my own mice and rats weather i had 1 snake or 100.....
Click to expand...

I don't get that. I have one snake, she eats 2 adult mice a month at a pretty high price of $2.40 each. Even when she was eating three each month (and four until I put her on a diet) that was less than $10 each month to save me the hassle of raising mice.
I do have one advantage, my local pet shop is just a few blocks from my house. I just stop in and get a fresh mousey when it's feeding time. No storing mice in the freezer, no thawing, no cleaning a mouse cage. Even if it was farther away I would still just buy a mouse on feeding day.
 
each to their i guess, its also the knowing what goes into the rodents aswell, i guess i just think why should i pay someone else to do what i could do myself....
 
baitman said:
i guess i just think why should i pay someone else to do what i could do myself....
Click to expand...

My thinking exactly. I know that the mice that I feed my snake are killed quickly, not suffocated.
You're right about knowing what's in them. That's something I've always thought about, but I still wouldn't want to raise mice. It's bad enough that I have to kill a cute little mouse that I only had for a few minutes. I might end up with too many pets if I raised them.
 
I have 3 snakes. I am still buying pinks for one, and hoppers for the other two. I spend about $12 a month on frozen from my local Herp Shop.

I really don't think i could do better on price after I bought food and bedding for the mice i would breed.
 
I have 6 snakes, 3 on adults, one on weanlings, 2 on peach fuzzies. They all eat once a week. I have 5 pairs of mice breeding and a grow out tank for the ones I do not want to breed. I pull the males I do not like when they start getting randy. I clear out the whole holding tank when I have more than 10 mice in it. :shrugs: works for me :)
 
for the price of everything and the hassle of cleaning extra cages, I think just finding a breeder of mice/rats nearby or going to the store is better.
I'm fortunate because there is a wholesale breeder not far, and she does free deliveries every Saturday. I just have to meet her by the highway which isn't far.

P.s. Her prices are like half the price of the local pet store i used to work at (and shop). Now I only get lighting/accessories from them.
 
Sorry if this has already been said (didn't have time to read the whole thing), I've done it both ways but for me it all comes down to this:

Can you buy them in bulk, or are you paying pet store prices? You'll always lose if you're paying someone 10 times what they're worth.

How much do you value your time? You can probably pay someone $8 / hr to breed mice. If your time is worth more than that, it's probably better to purchase them (bulk pricing of course.)

So, if your time is valuable or you have very little of it, I recommend buying them from someone who can do it cheaper than you, ONLY IF YOU GET BULK PRICING.

Lastly, how much would you enjoy breeding them? I actually like doing it, but decided it wasn't worth my time.
 
LOL, dead frozen mice vary in value from person to person. Those with snakes they can be a pricey commodity. Those who hate them think them worthless. Those with an infestation think having them dead is a great value.

As to how much do I think my time is worth? It takes me 20 minutes twice a day to take care of my mice and that includes any cleaning. Processing time depends on how many need done that day. The part that makes it easiest is when I am stocking up on pinks, I clear out all but the 4 biggest in each litter and it cuts down on any issues. I am revamping how I do things though. My new way will make it a lot easier. Though not many here would think so. It mimics the show breeder's methods of raising mice and a lot of feeder breeders would see it as a waste of effort, time, space, money etc. I enjoy the mice though so its worth it to me.
 
I had 4 ten gals with 1 male and 3-4 females in each when I was in my teens. With just having half a dozen or so baby snakes around the mice would not keep up with a 5 day feeding schedule for just the baby snakes. Not including trying to raise some up to hoppers or adult sizes for my older snakes. Then the odor as stated is terrible. The only thing that is nice about breeding mice on a small scale is in the summer when eggs are pipping. You always have those problem babies that just refuse frozen for the first few months. Its nice to then have live baby mice on hand. But to do it all year long it just not worth it to me. Especially at the price you can get bulk frozen mice now a days shipped directly to you.
 
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