British Mice :(

[TWGarland]

Just had to share with you guys what i found out today on my mouse buying mission.

First off, this is the first time i've had to go out and buy mice in a while, since i usually buy in bulk, so if this is old news to some, then i apologise

Well, the first three local shops i would usually try, all have no adult mice, at all. Then the fourth when i ring to check, tells me they've just had some in.

I go down, get my mice, and put my question to the shop owner, "Why are adult mice getting harder to get hold of ?". He then points to this letter he has on the wall, from his supplier, livefoods.co.uk. (Very big British supplier).

The jist is, that the majority of frozen mice used in the pet trade, are actually animals supplied from Pharmaceutical companies. These companies are now producing less adult mice in order to cut costs/save money, and as a result the supply to the pet trade is decreasing.

All of the above i read myself direct from the letter, so i know its exaggeration free. Although i will add, something else the store keeper told me, and that was now the majority of mice are sourced from abroad. This shop inparticular was getting them now from USA and Belgium :shrugs: and their about 25p more expensive than usual. Don't really care about the extra cost, the mice if i'm honest looked better quality anyway, just a little concerned about the general lack of supplies.

Just thought i'd share that, any opinions?

Tom

 

[toyah]

The price we pay for mice and rats in general is too cheap because we have the lab surplus to rely on - unfortunately, now that is becoming more scarce because grain prices are rising and so there's less profit in selling at the prices they do. They are only goin to get more expensive!

I bet we will see a few people selling off their collections - there seems to be lots of people in the UK who can barely afford to feed their snakes and it's just not going to get any easier for them. I know I am paying 33% more for rodent feed (straight grains) then I was six months ago ...

 

[Tula_Montage]

My supplier is the cheapest around (Trust me, I have really shopped around). But even they had to raise prices last week and had not enough adult mice to fill my order and no medium mice. I will have to do another order when they get the numbers up again.

I would love to breed my own food again, but I simply don't have the space for 5-10 mouse cages.

Feeding a large amount of snakes must be stupidly expensive. I only have twenty something at the moment and for 600 various sized rodents I usually pay £120 and that lasts me a good 5 - 6 months.

 

[TWGarland]

toyah:
The price we pay for mice and rats in general is too cheap because we have the lab surplus to rely on - unfortunately, now that is becoming more scarce because grain prices are rising and so there's less profit in selling at the prices they do. They are only goin to get more expensive!

I bet we will see a few people selling off their collections - there seems to be lots of people in the UK who can barely afford to feed their snakes and it's just not going to get any easier for them. I know I am paying 33% more for rodent feed (straight grains) then I was six months ago ...

Thats really interesting, thanks for that.

To be honest the increase in price doesn't really bother me that much, i still consider only having to pay £1.25 for my pets weekly food supply, to be very, very affordable.

But then i'm in the position of only having one snake to pay for. Its abit worrying to hear that these grain price increases are affecting bigger collecters and breeders (dont want to screw them i want to be one, one day) who have far bigger collections and are being affected in a more direct way.

I mean, heres me sitting here, like, if only i could afford to breed my own mice! They look far healthier anyways. I mean, i have to admit i was thoroughly horrified to hear my snakes food came from Pharmaceutical companies, hell i know they couldn't have had the best lives, given the disgusting urine and faeces covered state they usually come in, but i stupidly presumed they were just bred for the specific purpose, by reptiles pet businesses or something :bang:

Don't want to start see people leaving the hobby/stop breeding because grain prices are increasing the cost of feeding their larger collections, there'd be less availablilty of quality snakes then too :shrugs::uhoh:

 

[toyah]

I mean, heres me sitting here, like, if only i could afford to breed my own mice! They look far healthier anyways. I mean, i have to admit i was thoroughly horrified to hear my snakes food came from Pharmaceutical companies, hell i know they couldn't have had the best lives, given the disgusting urine and faeces covered state they usually come in, but i stupidly presumed they were just bred for the specific purpose, by reptiles pet businesses or something :bang:

Whereever you get your mice from they shouldn't be covered in urine and faeces - if they are I would change supplier or complain. I buy in some mice, and they are always clean and fresh looking and smelling. You might get the occasional bit of crap in it, but not much at all. Mind you my supplier is not the cheapest (not the most expensive either), just the cleanest and most consistant I could find, specifically bred for reptiles, not lab surplus.

No mice you buy from commercial breeders will have had good lives - they're the rodent equivalent of battery farmed chickens. Eventually I hope to produce enough mice to feed all of my snakes without buying in, but sometimes it just doesn't work like that, you need more of a particular size etc. I moved my mice over Christmas and it took months for them to get back on track as far as breeding goes.

The grain increase prices are insane - the rabbit food I use has gone from about £7 a sack to £11, which is a hefty increase. I keep around fifty cages of mice at the moment, so it's a fair amount of grain. I'd still say that home producing them is cheaper than buying though.

 

[diamondlil]

I must be lucky, no problems with buying adult mice from my usual supplier and no increase in price at the moment. I've been self-sufficient in 'growing my own' pinks-hoppers for about a year now, and am going to try to grow on to adult size. If it gets too much work I'll hopefully still be able to get supplies of adults. (Mine would cost me 85p each, but I get a 20% discount on my orders)

 

[Lexcorn]

This lack of frozen mice / rats etc. has occured around this time of the year for a few years now.

Yes, it has been exacerbated by the reduction of the Pharmaceutical bred mice, however, it is becoming a constant from my point of view.

I agree with Toyah on this issue of accepting discusting urine & faeces covered feeder mice for your snakes. Definately return them to your supplier & complain.

Yup, I have received such items in previous years & returned forthwith.

The best advice that I can offer is to breed your own supply. It's quite a bit of work looking after the 'feeders', they demand more time than the snakes. However, it ensures a quality food which is easily compared to those that are, on occasion, offered by wholesale businesses.

Quality animals require/deserve quality food.

Lex

 

[Plissken]

I feel rather limited for mouse suppliers around here. There are 2 shops within close range; one has, IMO, quite poor quality mice so I use the other. The mice are good quality but they are pretty expensive and the range of sizes seems to be limited. For example the largest mice they sell are still fairly small and although I would like something larger, the next size up (going in to rats) is the other extreme and is way too big.

Buying online simply wouldn't be cost effective either, with 3 snakes to feed.

Maybe it's just my area, but I've always found buying mice and rats a bit of a hassle, to be honest.

 

[Susielea]

So far, touch wood, I've been able to get all sizes I need, but the medium/large at my local supplier has been in shorter supply and the prices have gone up a bit. My local guy gives me a heads up if they are expecting to run short, so I then buy a bulk load to tide me over.

Have been thinking of buying online, but I'm not sure where would be the best place, quality and price wise, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate them

 

[bitsy]

The shortage has just caught up with me on the South Coast. My local shop had to drive to Holland and collect their current supplies from a private breeder - they can't source from a commercial supplier anywhere in Europe. And even more scarily, they don't know when they'll be getting any more.

Their view is that a couple of factors have come together:

1) The UK labs that used to breed rodents are now engaged in GM trials. They're prohibited from raising food animals (for anything, not just human consumption) in the same facility as GM testing, so they've given up on rodent breeding as the GM testing is more profitable.

2) There has been a virus in the commercial stock in the States, meaning that all bulk European rodent suppliers are shipping stock over there (presumably because they can charge a premium price).

As a result of the above, there are now insufficient supplies in Europe, to service European customers.

Don't know whether this is all accurate, but it's the first time I can remember stocks of adult mice drying up. Pinkies usually disappear over the winter, but I don't think the current situation has ever happened before.

 

[torsten]

yep my local pet shops have few frozen stock and they are expensive and about half the size they used to be!!!

i have recently invested in a load of cages and some mice which are now starting to produce feed for me. it is amazing the difference in growth rates now my snakes are being fed fresh nutritious mice!!

i am feeding mine 'sow rolls' which are designed for pregnant pigs but are also perfect for the mice. a 25kg sack cost me just 0ver £7.

 

[cornmorphs]

i know its an old thread, but a really interesting read.
i have started breeding afew of my own rats and mice recently.
the plan is to be self suficient for the rats to feed royals within a few months, and the mice will just be a little back up/top up for my corns. i wont be able to maintain myself, no chance as i have too many and as people have said, doing the mice is hard work and does takes a lot lot longer than the actual snakes to look after.

 

[torsten]

Agreed, breeding mice and rats takes far longer than looking after the snakes, i have ~35 snakes but am also producing mice and rats to sell to the pet shops around here and i still have excess mice and rats being produced so i have a fair number of breeding mice and rats and i reckon it takes at least 2/3 times as long to deal with the rodents as it does to deal with the snakes.

If anyone local wants mice LOL My freezer is FULL, this is another advantage of breeding your own, you can chose what size you need most of and cull a appropiate amount at the size you need and can choose exactly what siz rodent each snake needs and then they can have that. Also my adult mice (not ex breeders) usually weigh around 40g and ex breeder mice can weigh upto 50g!

I am completely self sufficient on rodents and am in fact producing more than i need!

My 25kg sacks of pig food from Mole Valley Farmers cost £6.50 ish and is great. Prices haven't really changed at all.

 

[bitsy]

My local reptile shop is still driving a van over to Holland and buying their frozen rodents from a private breeder. They still can't find a commercial supplier in the UK.

Living in a 2-bed flat, I don't have the room (or the inclination) to raise enough adult mice for my hungry snake mouths.

 

[cornmorphs]

torsten, do those guys deliver the sacks of food? if so whats the cost?, or do they have a website?
i used to pay 6 odd quid for 15k hamster food, i am now paying 12 quid just 3 years since i last did it.
i would love to be fully sufficient, i may sit down and try and work out roughly how many mice i would need to keep.
i dont have a problem with rotation etc, i did keep about 1000 mice until our 2nd baby was born, but that then got too much..
saying that, we now have 3 and weify is 7 weeks gravid lol

 

[diamondlil]

Nige, I get my sacks of sow pellets from a feed merchants, the protein and mineral contents are pretty close to lab blocks, and they're £5 a sack (@ 6 months worth of feed for my mouse-farm!)

 

[torsten]

Hi J9,
What weight sacks are those?

I use Sacks of Sow Rolls from http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com, i don't know if they deliver because we collect ours.

 

[torsten]

I can't find the food on their site but if you email or phone them then they should be able to sort you out.

There are two types of Pig food: sow rolls or sow pellets.
the sow rolls are bigger and are better if you are using an commercial breeding rack for your rodents with food hoppers built in as the smaller sow pellets fall through the bars much more easily.

 

[cornmorphs]

Nige, I get my sacks of sow pellets from a feed merchants, the protein and mineral contents are pretty close to lab blocks, and they're £5 a sack (@ 6 months worth of feed for my mouse-farm!)

hi janine, is that 25K? how many mice do you use then, or feed sorry?
i think this is what i need to do in the long run if i want to save a little money.

I can't find the food on their site but if you email or phone them then they should be able to sort you out.

There are two types of Pig food: sow rolls or sow pellets.
the sow rolls are bigger and are better if you are using an commercial breeding rack for your rodents with food hoppers built in as the smaller sow pellets fall through the bars much more easily.

i really want the pro caging, i just cant afford it.. was hoping the corns would sell a little better soi could get some.. maybe soon.

 

[torsten]

A 25kg sack lasts me about 3wks.... maybe a bit longer. it is dependent on the number and size of the rodents being grown on.

For instance i had around 75 baby rats last weekend, i am now down to ~50... Sometimes i have none at all so there is a lot of variation.