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Best Frozen Supplier These Days?

Which Frozen Rodent Supplier do you use/perfer?

  • The Big Cheese Rodent Factory

    Votes: 13 24.1%

  • Rodent Pro

    Votes: 19 35.2%

  • Cajun Mice

    Votes: 6 11.1%

  • Other (write below)

    Votes: 16 29.6%
  • Total voters
    54
No such service over here

There's no proffesional prey-breeder here (that I know of and I've searched) but there's a guy In Copenhagen who sells very nice frozen mice which you individually pick out yourself from a big chest freezer he has -or just buy a bag of 100 that he's prepackaged. I recently picked up a 100 count from a vendor at an expo and am absolutely appalled. Like some of you have said, they're all smooshed and clumped and have yuck all over them. There was one in the pack (which actually went straight in the bin) that was totally soaked in urine- disgusting. I still have a number of small adult mice in the freezer from the stock I bred myself last summer (my adults are brumating so they don't need to be fed) and they look like I just froze them yesterday. Their coats are clean, no urine all over them, not stuck together....it wasn't hard to achieve.
I know these big breeders need to churn out many thousands of items and on top of that have to feed and care for the animals...but it's not so hard to do really.
:-offtopic
On another note...does anyone else have the problem of mice splitting open and spilling putrid smelling guts out everywhere? It's happened to me a few times when the snake is squeezing the item down and the belly ruptures.....now that's the definition of stinky!!!

Adèle
 
Anyone got a URL or contact information for American Rodent? A quick Google search did not turn anything up.

Thanks!
 
Princess

When I used to warm my frozen rodents under a lamp they could get "over warmed" or basically partially cooked. I would sometimes get busy and leave them under the light too long.
It was definitely a timing thing.
These over warmed rodents would have a tendency to burst. Even worse, they would usually burst when I picked them up to place them with a snake.
So, now I get a pan, fill it about three inches deep with hot water from the tap and throw the mice in. They will usually thaw out within ten or fiften minutes. Never have to worry about them "cooking".
All I do when they thaw is dry them with paper towel and they are ready to go.
I have never had one burst using this method.
 
On another note...does anyone else have the problem of mice splitting open and spilling putrid smelling guts out everywhere? It's happened to me a few times when the snake is squeezing the item down and the belly ruptures.....now that's the definition of stinky!!!

Adèle[/QUOTE]

I think Jimmy Johnson got it right- I have not had any exploding rodents using the "soaking in warm water" method :)
 
Hi all, I know that over heating the mice is bad (for the simple reason that a hungry snake might eat something too hot and burn itself) so I'm very conscious that I don't do it.

I use a plastic cup with a lid (it had noodles in it once upon a time) filled 2 thirds of the way up with hot tap water, sheet of plastic wrap over the water, mice on the plastic and all topped off with a lid. 10 minutes gives me perfect serving temperature for pinks and for bigger mice I top it up with fresh hot water after 20 mins and then serve after a total of about 30 mins. It's only happened a couple of times and only with rather icky looking feeders I've purchaced....never with my home-growns. When I serve up a home-grown, it looks like it's just been freshly killed and doesn't smell any worse than a clean live mouse smells but some of the ones I buy look and smell aweful...even when they're still frozen. I container I have the home-growns in doesn't smell at all but the bag with the purchased ones has to be tightly sealed and double wrapped....icky.
 
Princess

sounds like a lot of trouble.
Why not just drop the mouse in the water?
Just dry it with paper towels when thawed and feed it to the snake.
I tried it once by putting them in a sandwhich bag and floating that in the water.They smelled terrible. I don't know how to describe it but I think all of the odors and "death" were just steamed into them.
I think the water helps disipate the smells. Kind of gives you a nice clean thawed mouse.
I like to use a large container. The more hot water it will hold the longer it will take to cool.
oh well, just my thoughts on the subject
 
The way I do it keeps the mice dry and nice (for me) and means less handling of the prey item. I used a pair of dental tweezers ( having a dentist mum is very handy sometimes!!) to get the mouse from the freezer to the cup and the cup to the snake so I never have to handle the mouse. It's not complicated at all. I just toss out the plastic wrap each time and keep the cup and lid under the sink. This also means there's less chance of passing on bacteria from one feeding to the next. If I were to soak in water in a pan (as you do) I would need to properly disinfect the pan each time I use it and as I have 7 hungry mouths to feed on differing schedules (dependant on age and gender) It's easier this way. I seem to not have more than 3 days in a week when I don't feed. I could probably condense it to 2-3 feeding days in a week but it doesn't take more than a few minutes (after defrosting) so I don't mind.
 
Rodent Pro

I just placed my first order of frozen critters on-line. I used Rodent Pro (50 mice and 25 rats) The mice looked pretty good. All the rats I ordered looked excellent. I vacuum packed all of them into six packs. While I was sealing them, I noticed that a few of the mice were, ahem, 'stinkers'. Overall I'm fine with the order though. No major amounts of mouse turds or bedding.
 
mice

Sounds good Neumann.
Glad you were satisfied.
It can really be a pain if you get a bad shipment.
They will rectify problems but it can take a little while.
 
I recently ordered from BCRF for the first time. I thought their customer service was great and the products came very well packed and clean. The adult mice in particular look very good (from a snake standpoint). Even the fuzzies and pinks I ordered were very plump and clean. Many of the pinks had nice full bellies.

I can't complain about the cost, as I ordered more to bring down the cost and overall I think it was worth it. I don't really have a lot of time or patience to deal with getting credit or complaining about not getting what was promised, so I think I'll be sticking with Big Cheese.

On a side note -- CornCrazy: I was originally getting my mice from Petco which I guess is American Rodent? For some reason, out of the blue, my yearling didn't like them anymore. I had to resort to live and then back to a new "brand" of mouse from BCRF to get him to eat again, so I believe it does happen.
 
LOL...I think it's crazy that sometimes they will only eat what they want. In my snake's case...they want the stinky mice...YUK!
 
As I just purchased from PetCo, I am positive that they use Gormet Rodent, but they also had T-Rex 6-Packs also. I have never seen them before, but they are 6 small mice all frozen and seperatley placed in little "cups" in the packaging... was kinda interesting, but they were hoppers, and I needed large pinkies
 
....you're probably right Quigs, I misread from a previous post. Their mice (gourmet rodent) worked fine with my snakes, but I just had to pick through them to selectively get the better quality ones. The store near me puts them all together in bags that are not sealed well and they get freezer burned and broken up quite a bit.
 
Wow...it amazes me that anyone would buy mice from PetCo.


The first time I even asked about their frozen mice...I was absolutely OUTRAGED at the price...they wanted $1.39 PER PINKIE mouse.

RIDICULOUS.


I have no snakes brumating right now...and with the change in seasons all my snakes have become finicky eaters...

I would have to take out a loan to buy mice from PetCo...just for all the ones that get thrown away!!
 
I placed my first rodentpro order not long ago. I had been buying them at petco but it was getting too expensive because I have a lot more snakes now. Finally it just made sense to order some online. The rodentpro package arrived on time, they had a sale on hoppers so I got a deal, and they look about the same quality as the ones from petco except they cost a lot less. I did have to repackage some because of broken bags, and I might have gotten too many so I hope they won't go bad in my freezer and stink it up! :puke01:
 
I noticed the T-Rex 6 packs at a local PetCo tonight. I thought they might be worth getting until I saw the price...... $10 and change for a six pack of fuzzy mice :sidestep: :puke01: :sidestep: :puke01:
 
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