I hope this does not offend anyone. If it does offend you, then please realize that yes, people do keep snakes and snakes have to eat too.
Ok, so here is my problem. The petstore that I buy my frozen feeders from might be shutting down in the fall. The owner is selling the store and if no one buys the store then its shutting down. The only other place I could get my feeders from is a big petstore chain like Petsmart. At the moment, I pay about $1.45 per mouse and for every five I buy, I get a 6th free. So, I'm paying about $7.60 in total for 6 mice, maybe add a dollar because $1.45 was the price for fuzzies and I'm now on hoppers. At petsmart, 6 mice is around $10 not including tax. So you can see my problem. Its $2 more expensive, and the mice are coming from a big chain petstore, so I can't see where the mice are raised and cared for. That's why I like the smaller petstore. I can actually see the breeders and see how they are being kept (and they are well cared for at the small petstore).
I have one snake, soon to be two, and when I move in with my fiance, we will have a total of three snakes, all eating different sized mice. By December, I figure we will have a total of 4 snakes. With this petstore going out of business our supply of feeders might have to get more expensive since we'll have to switch do a different store.
Four snakes will consume four mice a week. Thats about 16 per month. At a small petstore that is around $25 a month. Buying from Petsmart would bring the total up to over $30. $5 is a big difference, especially when I plan on getting more snakes in the future. And I also don't like getting mice from petstores where I can't see the conditions the mice were kept in. For all I know these mice were kept in horrible conditions. Who knows.
So my question is, do you think it would be easier to just breed them myself or buy in bulk over the internet. The only problem with buying in bulk over the internet is I'd have to buy a seperate freezer just for mice.
Ok, so here is my problem. The petstore that I buy my frozen feeders from might be shutting down in the fall. The owner is selling the store and if no one buys the store then its shutting down. The only other place I could get my feeders from is a big petstore chain like Petsmart. At the moment, I pay about $1.45 per mouse and for every five I buy, I get a 6th free. So, I'm paying about $7.60 in total for 6 mice, maybe add a dollar because $1.45 was the price for fuzzies and I'm now on hoppers. At petsmart, 6 mice is around $10 not including tax. So you can see my problem. Its $2 more expensive, and the mice are coming from a big chain petstore, so I can't see where the mice are raised and cared for. That's why I like the smaller petstore. I can actually see the breeders and see how they are being kept (and they are well cared for at the small petstore).
I have one snake, soon to be two, and when I move in with my fiance, we will have a total of three snakes, all eating different sized mice. By December, I figure we will have a total of 4 snakes. With this petstore going out of business our supply of feeders might have to get more expensive since we'll have to switch do a different store.
Four snakes will consume four mice a week. Thats about 16 per month. At a small petstore that is around $25 a month. Buying from Petsmart would bring the total up to over $30. $5 is a big difference, especially when I plan on getting more snakes in the future. And I also don't like getting mice from petstores where I can't see the conditions the mice were kept in. For all I know these mice were kept in horrible conditions. Who knows.
So my question is, do you think it would be easier to just breed them myself or buy in bulk over the internet. The only problem with buying in bulk over the internet is I'd have to buy a seperate freezer just for mice.