Heads Up: Salmonella outbreak tied to PetSmart mice

MysticExotics said:

Check out Layne Labs. You can order smaller quantities, and they are on the west coast, in California.
Taht is where I geet my feeders from.
I am very happy with the quality!

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I literally JUST ordered $700 of mice and rats from them. At the wildlife sanctuary, we have ordered from there and rodent pro. Layne Labs has better quality, hands down.

I'm still sad my local mouse guy stopped breeding mice

I've switched to Big Cheese.

1. For the fact they are local now.
2. I was severely disappointed in the quality of mice from Layne Labs.

I did nothing different in my thawing, heating, feeding process; same I've always done from '98 up until TMF closed. I've never had so many ruptured bellies and pinks with freezer burn pitting until I used Layne. Maybe TMF spoiled me, but I don't recall their mice smelling, I never got freezer burnt feeders, and only had ruptured bellies if I'd over heated the mice.

I was disappointed enough that when I ran out of feeders in Oct last year, I actually went back to buying pinkies from a local mom & pop pet store weekly and getting my larger sizes bi-monthly from work. The larger ones were the kick in the pants at $75 every 2 weeks, all the while trying to save at $10/hr PetSmart pay to place an order with Big Cheese or Loxahatchee Rodents. Thankfully, I've now a better career (not job) that won't place me in such a dilemma.

I was going to go with big cheese, but everything that I needed was sold out. I've only ever heard good things about LL, so now I'm nervous. All I know is that the quality of the ones we got at the center was a million times better than RP. I can't even stand looking at the ones from RP, they're all yellow and stink!

I will miss my local breeder. I don't think anything will ever compare to those. I'm actually worried my snakes won't eat mice from other places o.e

AliCat37 said:

I was going to go with big cheese, but everything that I needed was sold out. I've only ever heard good things about LL, so now I'm nervous. All I know is that the quality of the ones we got at the center was a million times better than RP. I can't even stand looking at the ones from RP, they're all yellow and stink!

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That was just my experience with LL, after reading tons of reviews between them, Big Cheese, and Loxahatchee. I've not had the problem with my Big Cheese feeders like I'd had with the LL stock.

RP....I mistakenly tried them in '00 when The Mouse Factory was out of what I needed. I had the same experience as you. The whole zoonotic disease outbreak a few years back (IIRC) and finding out that they'll outsource, coupled with our shared experience has kept me from trying RP a 2nd time.

We'll see how this batch is, if BC has what I need in stock next time I may go with them!

I don't currently use Layne Labs, but while I was ordering with them, I found their quality superb. I never had any problems with them at all.

The only problem I have ever had with LL is that there have been a couple orders where I am short a couple on a particular size, (I have ordered several times, over the past few years). They have more than made up for it each time.

The quality has always been better than any other company I have tried.

I take that back, one other problem with LL...since they became so popular, the turn around time is longer than is used to be, but it is still not as bad as RP's was.

Yeah the Arctic Mice aren't "Petsmart mice", Petco also sells them and I assume less known shops may also sell them. We just pulled all of our a couple days ago.

I don't get my mice from work, it's way too expensive even with a discount. I go to a local privately owned shop for mice. It's not as cheap as online, but it's way batter than 13 dollars for 6!

vetusvates said:

Times when I have been in a bind, I have gone waayyy across town to a great all around family-owned pet and supply store. They have a giant of a bearded lizard there...and juveniles.

They sell live mice no questions asked. The large tasty juicy luscious lip-smacking adult mice go for $3 a piece. Never bought more than 8 or 12 in a visit, so no large scale endeavour.

I like going there. They have the supplies, and corals, to make a nice reef aquarium. Which I soooooo want,...with the human needed to probably keep it looking good (which they _don't_ supply...). LOL.

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I would SO much rather support my local feed store or reptile/aquarium shop in our little town, the feed store always smells like hay and has live chicks in a big watering tank and i love to hold them, and they have baby bunnies once in a while. Such a happy place! The other place has great salt water fish, and a few reptiles that I like to check out, but it would cost about $80/month to feed what I have now, and they will all be at about $125/month in a few years if I don't get any more snakes, and we all know THAT won't happen!

Senusenu said:

Yeah the Arctic Mice aren't "Petsmart mice", Petco also sells them and I assume less known shops may also sell them. We just pulled all of our a couple days ago.

I don't get my mice from work, it's way too expensive even with a discount. I go to a local privately owned shop for mice. It's not as cheap as online, but it's way batter than 13 dollars for 6!

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To the best of my knowledge, Reptile Industry's Artic Mice are PetSmart supply. Petco gets Mice on Ice, which is Gourmet Rodent.

HerpsOfNM said:

To the best of my knowledge, Reptile Industry's Artic Mice are PetSmart supply. Petco gets Mice on Ice, which is Gourmet Rodent.

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Hmm, looks you are right. I swear I've seen "Arctic Mice" elsewhere but maybe the packages just looked similar from a distance. I don't look at Petco frozen feeders the rare times I go there. Thanks for the correction.

I still prefer getting my frozen stuff from the local shop for cost reasons.

HerpsOfNM said:

To the best of my knowledge, Reptile Industry's Artic Mice are PetSmart supply. Petco gets Mice on Ice, which is Gourmet Rodent.

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Might be a regional thing, the local Petco here stocks Arctic Mice and I believe the mom n pop store gets Mice on Ice, or at least that sounds similar to what they have. I've only bought from the mom n pop store once. But I bought mice from Petco for about a year and am sure on what brand our local store has. Our town is small enough that we don't have a Petsmart and only got a Petco in the last five or six years.

Good to know I wasn't going crazy!

The Arctic mice are the one kind of feeder my corn has ever refused when not in blue. She actually had one in her mouth, dropped it, and fled once-I assume it tasted really, really bad to her. With one snake, shipping just wasn't worth it, but I discovered I could buy mice at expos, and, later, connected with a university lab that orders several times a year that I could piggy back on for the snakes-especially helpful once we got a BP, because the mark-up on rats is insane.

I know one person locally who has a Burmese python, and he says that buying organic, grain-fed, farm raised chickens locally is cheaper than getting frozen rabbits for his snake-and the burm likes them better (apparently his snake also refuses supermarket chicken).

I use mice direct and we've been very happy with them, and outstanding customer service. The dry ice is really fun to play with too..

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I just ordered from Big Cheese. They're running a special right now - a flat $25 shipping fee, which makes it worthwhile for me to buy feeders for one snake.