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questions about feeder mice.

starsevol said:
It is just my opinion that someone who would take a warm living thing out of its nest and throw it in a freezer to die a painful death is a sadistic monster...
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I raise all of my own feeder rodents and I do said practice of freezing pinks (and fuzzies in fact). Am I a sadistic monster? Well, so be it. I raise mice for one reason and one reason alone. Do I get pleasure from killing mice...certainly not. In fact, I finally built my co2 chamber because doing cervical dislocations on nearly a 100 mice a week was starting to get to me (not to mention, it was far more time consuming).

Do I get pleasure from raising my own stock? Knowing what goes into my feeders? Knowing they are clean and healthy at the time of processing? Saving myself a ton of money and even making a couple bucks on the side? You bet, I sure do!

In all honesty, pinks and fuzzies perish rather quickly in the deep freezer, which on average is quite a bit colder (25-30 degrees) than your standard refrigerator/freezer.

Really this is a moot point to begin with. Do you feed your snakes f/t rodents? The end result is the same, no matter how you look at it. Mice are going to die so your snakes will thrive, even if you're feeding live. The difference lies in whether you do the deed yourself or you pay someone else to do it for you. Life is cruel and so far to date my snakes have frowned upon tofu and soy.

When you start raising your own prey items and begin culling 100's or even 1000's a week, we'll talk.

Matt~

When you finally get that snake, get ahold of me. I'll hook you up cheaper than anyone else, guaranteed. No shipping charge, since you're local and I'll even do the killing for ya!

Q
 
Well said, Q.

I raise my own and I also directly freeze pinks/fuzzies. Its the fastest way for anyone. Baby mice are built to be smother resistant. Cervically dislocating them can be messy, as can flicking them on the head...just due to their small size and thin skin.

I'll probably take some flack for this, but ah well. I've done some unprofessional testing at home. Pinks last less than a minute in my freezer and fuzzies typically less than 2 mins. I wanted to find out for my own peace of mind and nerdy curiosity.

I'm not doing 100's per week like Quigs, so older mice are always cervically dislocated before being fed to my snakes. So no need for a CO2 chamber right now.

I don't feed f/t to my snakes, so any mice that are frozen are destined for friends' snakes. So most of the mice I raise for my own use are instantly killed before being fed off.

I don't take carnal delight in doing it, but I do take delight in knowing that my snakes eat food I deem healthy by knowing what goes into them for cheaper. Most of those f/t pinks and fuzzies you buy are more than likely directly frozen as well, due to time constraints of the f/t companies.

Call me what you will, even if that's a 'sadistic monster'. I don't think any less of you for your opinion, even if my own practices make you think less of me. Think about how your own food dies, that's enough to make most animal-loving people vegetarians. I raise my own chickens for meat/eggs, so they meet their ends at my hands as well. Maybe growing up having a realistic view of life and death of food animals makes the difference. Who's to say. :shrugs:


Edited in a few mins later:

To answer the question at hand, unless you enjoy raising the mice it'd be overkill for one snake, imho. =)
 
Billybobob where did I say anything about breaking necks?
I never did...

Taceas I am glad you conducted those tests...makes me feel better too. I had pictured it to be alot longer than that.

The truth is, if my snakefood did not come pre-dead, I would not own snakes. As much as I love them. I know that I am avoiding "reality" but some parts of reality I would rather avoid. Makes me too sad.
 
starsevol said:
Billybobob where did I say anything about breaking necks?
I never did....
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Sorry got your post mixed up with Baba-Lou's i was wrong one again sorry.

:-offtopic By the way i really liked the advice you gave in the roomate thread.
 
Hey thanks Billybobob :)

I am extremely opinionated and sometimes have trouble playing nice (as you can tell lol) but once in a blue moon I manage to make some sense :D


I think one of my problems is that in my many years, I have had ALL kinds of pets, including rodents of varying species. So I tend to be empathatic towards just about any living thing. But if its already dead, I can deal.

:-offtopic LOL I just used spellcheck for the first time! Billybobob do you know your name is spelled wrong? :sidestep:
 
starsevol :-offtopic LOL I just used spellcheck for the first time! Billybobob do you know your name is spelled wrong? :sidestep:[/QUOTE said:
:-offtopic Wow your right. to think all this time I have been spelling my own handle wrong. :shrugs: From now on i will spell it right.


Beelzebub :grin01:
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I, personally, for my own peace of mind, keep pinks in a charged CO2 chamber for up to a half-hour before putting them in the freezer. Granted, they STILL may not be dead, but at least I've made an effort towards killing or deeply anesthetizing them before freezing them.

On a moral level, I feel that people, as the "superior" species, owe our animals a painless death and a comfortable life, no matter WHAT their bodies will be used for after death.
 
I have had pinkies become hypothermic and die within 10 minutes, the time it took to get home, just because they were in the same bag as the frozen feeders. This was not intentional. I'd be willing to bet that pinkies succumb to hypothermia very readily.
 
Quick Question from a noob...

-Just how DO you break the necks of pinkies?
-Is it recommended to cut a pinky in half, to feed to a hatchling?
-Do you recommend just buying the pinkies, if you only have 1 snake?
-Where do you buy pre-killed pinkies?
-How much do they cost, roughly?

Thanks guys :)
 
zapthycat said:
-Just how DO you break the necks of pinkies?
-Is it recommended to cut a pinky in half, to feed to a hatchling?
-Do you recommend just buying the pinkies, if you only have 1 snake?
-Where do you buy pre-killed pinkies?
-How much do they cost, roughly?
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Breaking the necks of pinkies can get messy so i don't recomend it. For all your other questions you should do a search you will be abel to find answers to all of them with a search.
 
I might like to say one thing not offensive or anything. But it is totally possible to break the necks of pinks, and altough I am prefecting it myself. I'm hoping to find an efficient way of doing so for those who do not wish to go out and buy Co2 Chambers for pinks. I guess on the matters of the breaking the necks of pinks. I'll start a thread when I fully perfect it myself (even though in my mind it is not fully possible to master or perfect it fully, but near enough its effective.)
 
Good luck. There have been many many pioneers before you came along and what's written above is very standard procedure.

Q
 
Quigs, as I see it. It is surely worth it. We have enough "fueds if you will to make me want to pioneer this here possibility that it is possibly to break the necks of pinks without the big mess. My real question is......How are these people breaking hte necks? And what are they using? I don't mean anyof that to sound offensive. But sometimes it makes me think. :sidestep: :p
 
Yes it is possible to break the necks of pinkies without poping the heads off or riping the skin but if you have about 50 or so to do toward the end i tend to not be as careful and end up with a big mess. Even if you are only doing a couple it is still easy enough to pop the head off with one simple slip. Most people who breed there own mice for their snakes don't have the time to handle all of their pinkies individually.
 
Well, like I said. I'll start a thread when I perfect it. And I'll tell you all how to do it :p
 
Baba-Lou said:
Quigs, as I see it. It is surely worth it.
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As I see it, it would surely be worth it to have you come here and try to keep up with the pinkie production. When you have 50 - 100 mouths to feed, you may just change your tune. Of course, that's purely speculation on my behalf.

Q
 
Breaking pink necks? Please. A tiny flick to the brain case is generally all that's needed to render them sufficiently dead. Breaking necks sounds terribly messy.

They have very thin skin, and even the slightest thing tears it. I've seen mothers tear them by dragging them around the cage after a cage cleaning. You'd be spending all night getting just the right place so as not to pop their head off.

Zap,

1. Breaking pink necks is inaccurate and a total waste of time. A small flick to the head, and they're stunned and/or dead.

2. Most hatchlings can take a whole pink with no problem. Most of the hatchlings you'll buy can easily feed on a medium to large pink by the time you buy them. Only extremely tiny hatchlings sometimes require hours old pinks. The only time you have to worry about cutting a frozen pink in half is if the snake has had regurge issues and you have to start them back out on something smaller, and open so they digest it easier.

3. If you only have one snake, buying pre-frozen pinks or live pinks from a store or local rodent person is your best bet. A pair of mice would easily out produce your need for that many food items. Generally you can buy pinks relatively inexpensively, and once they get to fuzzies you can buy in bulk from a variety of frozen rodent suppliers who send you their product through the mail/UPS/Fedex. By that time you'll surely have more snakes to make an order worth your while of different sized mice. ;)

4. Big Cheese Rodents, American Rodent, Cajun Mice, or Rodent Pro. All of the above can service your needs.

5. Petstores tend to be more expensive per item, I've even heard of pinks costing nearly a $1/each. But I'd have to say that is the exception. Locally they're around .40-.70 cents. When I sell my surplus, I charge .25 cents per pink-fuzzy. Just look and ask around and see what the average cost will be.

6. Bulk orders are just that, larger quantities for cheaper $. The minimum orders may end up being too many mice for one snake. That's where having more than one snake helps. If you enjoy rodents, have a pair and raise and freeze your own rodents. Or use them fresh, like I do. Pinks through fuzzies are fed stunned, anything above that is killed before feeding to my snakes. Pinks-fuzzies can't do much damage, feeding live mice with teeth to your snake can be dangerous.

They don't stay on pinks long, so buying 100 pinks for a single snake is a waste of money, in my honest opinion. Thats why I'm saying it might be easier to suck up the petstore prices until its worth your while to order in bulk on fuzzies on up.

You might check out Zach (Shep151) on the forum. I heard he was offering "Starter Packs" of frozen rodents. A small number of varying sizes of pinks through fuzzies for a moderate price. That way you're not wasting your money on 100 pinks or fuzzies that you'll never need if one snake is all you want.

Hope that helps. =)
 
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