first online order!!

:dancer:I just placed my first online order with Mice Direct...getting 1200 mice for $214 which includes shipping. That is about .18 per mouse where I was paying my "special discounted rate" at my pet store of .75 per mouse!! And that was my bulk rate there! At another store, they were charging me $1.25 per mouse even when I bought a lot at once. I am so excited but nervous since this will be my first experience with this multitude of mice at once plus with dry ice! Move over pork chops the mice are moving in!:laugh01:

Oh wow, you were getting burnt bad! Ordering in bulk from a place like mice direct, rodent pro, etc is SOOOO much better! You have nothing to be worried about. Jason likes to "play" with the dry ice. He'll get a big water jug or soda container and fill it half full of water, then put dry ice in it, shake it, throw it, and run like hell! It makes a HUGE BOOM!! Don't let your husband read this or he'll be wanting to try it out lol

Heck that dry ice trick sounds like something I might do lol

When we first got our babies we were paying .50 cents for PINKIES! Thank goodness we made a joint order with my friend and breeder Nancy. We also probably wouldn't have as many corns as we do now if I hadn't done it lol. 1/3 of my (little) freezer is mice, were thinking about getting one of those top opening mini freezers this summer. Not being able to freeze much food stinks.

Yea, we have a freezer like that Kelsie that will be just for mice!

Congrats, dont ya feel great when you can save some cash like that. I purchased a foodsaver and started ordering bulk as well. It's was a big production for me when they came in. The first time I broke down all the bags into like lots of 25 and then resealed. It took a very very long time. I don't think my son or boyfriend were pleased that I hogged up the kitchen all that time to seal mice up. The last shipment I kept most of the bags at larger sizes and when it comes to needing that bag I will break it down if needed. Same amount of work, well actually a little more but at least it wasn't done in one time frame. Anyway congrats

PS, isn't also nice to know that you can tell people here that you ordered mice in bulk and you get positive reponses, I could only imagine telling non-snakey peeps that and the responses you might get

Yea, that is our next investment..a food saver system. I know they have those cheaper, hand-held type ones. Does anyone have any experience with them?

I have the cheap one and it works great. I put the mice in bags, divided into about 25 for adult mice, more for smaller mice. I write on the bags what size is in there. Sometimes I separate the mice by weight- like I'll have three sizes of fuzzies. Then I vacuum speal the bags and put them in boxes like Tupperware (Fresher Longer, that you can't buy any more, I don't think). I put pinks and fuzzies in a small box, rat pinks and fuzzies in another small box, hoppers through jumbos, and chicks, in a large box, and extra anything, mostly adults, in a medium box.

Nanci..how long can you keep them in the freezer?

Right now I have been labeling each freezer bag for each day of the week, with the names and what they get, a few days at a time. If one refuses, I mark out that name and try offering it to the next day's feeding if the size is the same. Then I just take theirs out of the bag for the next day and cross their name out (while still frozen of course). If I see they are in blue, I take out their mouse before thawing them. It is working so far. For the ones I know will possibly cause me feeding trouble, I put them in their own bags so nothing gets wasted. Once the online order comes tomorrow, I probably won't be doing that anymore because I had a bag of hoppers I couldn't get any of the snakes to eat...so they had to get tossed.$$ down the drain! So I had to start all over again. I had just gotten them from a bulk store order but since none of them would eat them I figured something had to be wrong with them. I had them for 2 weeks before opening the bag so the store wouldn't take them back. They had a very strong odor and had bedding and droppings in the bag. They didn't tell me who they got them through...guess they didn't want me to know the mark-up.

I just got an order in from RodentPro last week. I've always split orders with someone but this time I was on my own. Since most of my 09s are on fuzzies or hoppers now but were just eating pinkies when I got them, I didn't really take in to account the size difference in ordering 300 pinkies or 300 hoppers, and the box was actually 85% full. Needless to say the bottom drawer of the freezer isn't QUITE big enough to hold all 700something mice! Good thing my hubby doesn't care (o:

I'm just finishing up a bag of weanlings that have been in the freezer since probably August of last year. They look exactly the same as the day I bought them. I was getting ready to pay a bit extra to buy from a company that vacuum seals their mice, but didn't feel like it was worth it since I haven't had issues with freezer burn or anything. Now pinkies are a different story, and the pinkies I had left from about 6 months ago were starting to get ugly. We also have a newer freezer that's really good about holding the temps, and doesn't get opened a whole lot.

http://www.reynoldspkg.com/reynoldskitchens/handi_vac/en/product.asp?cat_id=1337&prod_id=3918

This is what I use and love it. Bags last for 4-? seals.

CrousesCorns said:

http://www.reynoldspkg.com/reynoldskitchens/handi_vac/en/product.asp?cat_id=1337&prod_id=3918

This is what I use and love it. Bags last for 4-? seals.

Click to expand...

Okay thanks for the link!!

cobained said:

I'm just finishing up a bag of weanlings that have been in the freezer since probably August of last year. They look exactly the same as the day I bought them. I was getting ready to pay a bit extra to buy from a company that vacuum seals their mice, but didn't feel like it was worth it since I haven't had issues with freezer burn or anything. Now pinkies are a different story, and the pinkies I had left from about 6 months ago were starting to get ugly. We also have a newer freezer that's really good about holding the temps, and doesn't get opened a whole lot.

Click to expand...

Ditto here... I get all my mice from rodent pro. They do not vacuum seal but even so they keep no problem in the freezer for 6 plus months. Even the pinks i don't worry about,..even though they may start looking ugly to us, the snakes still love em and thrive well on them!:licklips:

My vacuum sealer said that meat that is sealed properly can be kept in the freezer for about 2 yrs. None of my vacuum packed mice have ever been in the house that long, to many hungry mouths to feed!!

I've got un-vacuum packed mice in my freezer that are almost a year old and look as fresh as the day I got em.

I use Rodent pro and would not go any other way! "....Unless i breed my own..." :uhoh: I went to a local reptile shop and thought the mice would be fresher since they where locally breed and vacuum packaged. Surprisingly I was wrong. Rodent Pro has clean mice that last long and look healthy. "As healthy as mice-sickles can look".

Forgot to tell everyone on this thread...the mice from mice direct came in looking beautiful! They were packaged great and they look so clean. The last ones we got from the pet store were anything but clean..they had food and mice terds in the bags with them! Not with mice direct! I am so happy..but now I have a freezer that has 1200 mice in it and still room for more...so I need more snakes to feed so I can get more mice to fill the freezer....okay so it is just an excuse...but hey it works!

Yea I have a designated mousey freezer too!!!

I was rather disappointed with my online order. I got large PINKIES, small peach fuzzies, normal fuzzies, and fuzzies nearly as big as hoppers. Plus, a few have had open stomachs, and mouse intestines STINK. The ones at my pet store weren't as bad, but they had broken legs/tails and were too expensive. Not sure about the hopper mice, but I can see a little wood chip, and a few of them seem to have been injured BEFORE freezing. :\

Once I use up my frozen mice, it's hand raised for me. I hope you have better luck than me, though.

OH! And the zip lock hand vacuum pump works GREAT. I've only used it with hot dogs in the fridge (because I get 24 at a time), but so far it has worked better than any other bag.