Anyone use Layne Labs?

I hope MiceDirect is good, just placed a huge order with them. I think they are in IL and I'm in IN but shipping was still $40 but I think it was 1100 mice. Splitting the order with another member so we can save on shipping. Love that!

holy crap thats alotta mice!

layne labs

shipping was $48.00 and took six days I was very disappointed in this site!

unless a person has many snakes, buying in bulk like that really doesn't make much sense. What little money you save, you end up spending on the shipping charges.

I am able to buy mice at 3 local stores in my area for about 2.50 per mouse. I have not been able to find any online sites that actually save me money unless I buy over 100, and since I currently have only 1 snake, that just makes no sense. 100 Mice would last about 3 years, and I'm not going to eat anything that's been in the freezer that long and neither is my snake.

I just placed my 3rd order with Layne. Price and quality of the mice are great, but yes with shipping it is only economical with 2 or more snakes to feed. I order for six months at a time. My price, including shipping works out to $1.03 a mouse. That's enough less than PetSmart to make it worth the effort.

As to the complaint post, which looks like a google and sign up just to complain, Layne quotes shipping before you buy so anyone can take or leave it. They clearly state they only ship 3 days a week and so if you order on a Thursday it can easily take 6 days from order to delivery. This is clearly stated on their web site. If you don't like that, don't order from them.

My mice have arrived well packed, hard frozen and are top notch. The shipping price is not the lowest but the quality is high and because they will sell in bags of 10 and 25 it can work out for us small time keepers with snakes at differing prey size needs. I looked at other deals this time around but went back to Layne.

DollysMom said:

I just placed my 3rd order with Layne. Price and quality of the mice are great, but yes with shipping it is only economical with 2 or more snakes to feed. I order for six months at a time. My price, including shipping works out to $1.03 a mouse. That's enough less than PetSmart to make it worth the effort.

As to the complaint post, which looks like a google and sign up just to complain, Layne quotes shipping before you buy so anyone can take or leave it. They clearly state they only ship 3 days a week and so if you order on a Thursday it can easily take 6 days from order to delivery. This is clearly stated on their web site. If you don't like that, don't order from them.

My mice have arrived well packed, hard frozen and are top notch. The shipping price is not the lowest but the quality is high and because they will sell in bags of 10 and 25 it can work out for us small time keepers with snakes at differing prey size needs. I looked at other deals this time around but went back to Layne.

Click to expand...

Wow! Thanx for that! I also have like 5 or 6 places to get mice in my neighborhood, at an average of 2 to 3 bucks a pop, but with 4 sneaky ones and more on the way, I think I might look into Layne for the possibility of stocking up, especially for hatchlings which can go through mice like crap through a goose!!

And here I initially thought this thread was prematurely brought back to life by accident! Just goes to show that ya never know!!

yes the shipping procedure was listed ,but not the high price of the shipping. I feel like $48.00 for 50 2 gram mice should be enough for overnight shipping.

DollysMom said:

I just placed my 3rd order with Layne. Price and quality of the mice are great, but yes with shipping it is only economical with 2 or more snakes to feed. I order for six months at a time. My price, including shipping works out to $1.03 a mouse. That's enough less than PetSmart to make it worth the effort.

As to the complaint post, which looks like a google and sign up just to complain, Layne quotes shipping before you buy so anyone can take or leave it. They clearly state they only ship 3 days a week and so if you order on a Thursday it can easily take 6 days from order to delivery. This is clearly stated on their web site. If you don't like that, don't order from them.

My mice have arrived well packed, hard frozen and are top notch. The shipping price is not the lowest but the quality is high and because they will sell in bags of 10 and 25 it can work out for us small time keepers with snakes at differing prey size needs. I looked at other deals this time around but went back to Layne.

Click to expand...

I agree! LL used to be much quicker, before they became more popular. I used to get my orders within a few days of placing them. A lot of people started using them, after RP had quality issues a few years back.
Due to the increase in demand, their turn around time became the same time frame as RP and other popular large feeder suppliers.
Those on the west side are going to get a better deal on shipping costs. Even when RP has cheaper prices, I pay more for shipping, to go across the U.S..

ferretti1228 said:

yes the shipping procedure was listed ,but not the high price of the shipping. I feel like $48.00 for 50 2 gram mice should be enough for overnight shipping.

Click to expand...

Once you start selecting your items, on the right hand side, there is a blue box under the list of items in your cart, that says "calculate", to give you an idea of shipping costs.
They have to use a minimum sized box to fit the insulation and dry ice in.
It is more cost effective to order large quantities.

I use LL exclusively now after trying a bunch of others. The feeders are by far the best and the customer service is fantastic. LL is one of the only places you can buy small amounts of feeders and I have snakes (13) using multiple sizes but are ready for the next size so this appeals to me. BUT...I live in CA so shipping is comparable to Big Cheese for me and they come in one day.

Also, I had placed a mod/lg order recently and some A$$ stole them off my porch (that's Karma for you!) and LL sent me a new order ASAP...no questions asked!!

I placed my very first order for shipped mice a few months ago from American Rodent. The product is good, everything was well packed and labeled. Their site describes by name and weight, so I had no problem wondering what to order. I got jumbo mice, large, medium, small, and crawlers. They are well distributed across the weight gradient.

ferretti1228 said:

yes the shipping procedure was listed ,but not the high price of the shipping. I feel like $48.00 for 50 2 gram mice should be enough for overnight shipping.

Click to expand...

Okay, now you admit the shipping procedure was listed. I usually don't like to get argumentative, but when someone criticizes a company because they don't like the clearly stated way the company conducts business, I have difficult time remaining silent.

I just put your state and one of the two zip codes for your town and a bag of 50 small pinkies in the cart on the Layne Labs site. The stated shipping is $47.33. Close enough to $48 to be accurate. The thing is that even when you don't precalculate the shipping it is clearly shown before you finalize the order.

Most mice from most suppliers are shipped ground with enough dry ice to make the trip. Just because you think it should be overnight does not make your criticism fair. You don't have to like them and you don't have to do business with them, but when I see criticism that is unfair, I will speak up.

I'm simply a customer and have no other relationship with Layne Labs. Did your mice arrive correct in size and number, frozen and in good condition? If so, you got what you bargained for. If not, you should take pictures and contact them immediately. Since you didn't complain about the number or quality I assume they were alright. On the other things, you did not do your due diligence and that is your responsibility, not Layne Labs.

I didn't have time to read through this entire thread, but I love Layne Labs. Their rodents are super clean and packaged well. The only reason I don't always order from them is because the shipping can be cost-prohibitive all the way here to Ohio. Otherwise I would never order from anyone else.

My second choice is Big Cheese, but I prefer the packaging and more consistent sizing of Layne Labs.

RodentPro is disgusting and I will never order from them again. My boa wouldn't even touch their dirty, foul-smelling rats.

If I ever order frozen mice again, I will probably give Lane Labs a try. There is a thread I posted right after I joined here, I didn't come out and say that the thread was about Rodent Pro, but I hinted heavily that it was. The name of the thread is "Problems with on sale feeders" or something like that.
I ordered 50 day-old chicks, 100 pinkies, 100 fuzzies, and 100 hoppers.
Something wasn't right about the hoppers. I don't know exactly what it was, maybe they weren't frozen soon enough, idk, but the snakes won't eat them. Also, their little bodies, once defrosted, are still all hard and stiff. Rigamortus (sp?) or something...
I called Rodent Pro and he guy was intrested enough in what I had to say, and he took down the product numbers from the bag, but that was it. He never tried to make it right.
~Beau

I remember that thread BeauBoi. It was easy enough to figure out when you referred to them as rodent professionals or something like that.

I got my third order from Layne Labs last week. I buy a 6 month supply. Though if you are careful you can keep them up to a year, I prefer not to. Very happy with their sizing quality and shipping speed (ordered on Friday, received the following Wednesday -- as advertised). I needed several sizes in small quantities of 10 per bag and the largest bag I bought was a bag of 50 small adult mice. Layne is the only place I know that I can buy bags of 10 if I need to.

Even with shipping it works out to just about $1 per mouse and that's so much less than PetSmart that it is worth it. I can get frozen mice at the Chicago Reptile House, but it's s 30 minute drive each way and the price per mouse is about the same as from Layne. The only way for me to get cheaper is to buy at a show which I have done, but again the minimum bag there is usually 50 and I can't order just when I need to.

I started growing my own feeders last year, after the Rodent Pro disappointment, but I only raise natal mice (due to their lack of odor).

Unfortunately, most people don't want to buy hatchling snakes that have only feed on natal mice because they fear the snake won't want to eat regular mice (completely unfounded by the way), so I still buy pinkies and fuzzies for my hatchlings that I plan to sell.

We have a new feeder company in Lason, a suburb outside of Charleston, called "Carolina Feeders & Breeders". I am hoping that they are just off to a shaky start, because the order I got from them last week was rather disappointing. I ordered 100 medium fuzzies, but when I opened the up the sizes were horribly inconsistent...

So, I plan to put in an order from Lane Labs later this year and give them a shot.

~Beau

BeauBoi said:

Unfortunately, most people don't want to buy hatchling snakes that have only feed on natal mice because they fear the snake won't want to eat regular mice (completely unfounded by the way), so I still buy pinkies and fuzzies for my hatchlings that I plan to sell.

Click to expand...

Oof, I worry that people will be even worse about reptilink-fed hatchlings. I don't understand why anyone would think ASF-fed snakes wouldn't eat lab mice though.

Dragonling said:

Oof, I worry that people will be even worse about reptilink-fed hatchlings. I don't understand why anyone would think ASF-fed snakes wouldn't eat lab mice though.

Click to expand...

A breeder/seller near me here on James Island is actually having that problem now, regarding the reptiilinks I mean. She mentioned it when I saw her at our last Repticon. I don't know if getting them to change from the links to mice would be a problem for all snakes raised on them, but I do have to admit that the one snake I purchased from her (a lavender albino California kingsnake) did give me headaches for the first couple of months because she didn't seem to know what to do with the mice I was trying to feed her. Eventually, she did switch over though.

With the natal rats (aka African soft fur rats), I can sorta see how it happened. Ball Python owners/breeders used the natal rats to get their picky eaters to eat, and it worked a little too well. The natal mouse is native to the same areas where the Balls are native, and after they ate the natal mice they wouldn't go back to regular mice and rats..... However, comparing colubrids to ball pythons is like comparing oranges to bananas. I have never had any trouble with my colubrids switching back and forth between natel mice and regular mice or rats (or chicks, or quail, or hamsters.....).

~Beau