My feeders bigger than the store's?

[Bobo's Mama]

I have a question for mouse breeders. Does it seem to you that your pinkies and fuzzies are larger than the ones you can get in the petstore? I've just recently had my first 2 litters (17 babies) and overall, the pinkies just seem so much larger than the live ones that I've gotten at the petstore. They always seem so runty. They have fuzzies that are the size of pinkies and hoppers the size of fuzzies. Mine look so plump and healthy. :shrugs: Any thoughts on this would help a lot.

 

[Taceas]

Yep! That's one of the benefits I've found to raising my own.

Most of the time, if you're buying the pet stores' own product that they breed in the back rooms, then in my experience they get by as cheaply as they can.

They feed poor quality food and keep them in bad conditions rather than if they're treated right and fed well, like ones we all raise at home.

I've even had pinks weigh twice as much at the same day of development (5 days old, etc) for that of store bought mice.

So again, thats one reason I stopped buying sub-quality feeders from petstores and took up raising my own. It averages out in price in the end, and the quality is just so much better.

Not to mention, the better quality food means your snakes grow better. =)

 

[Gintha]

They sometimes also sell you wild caught mice *grumbles* now I have to get Treasure tested for parasites, tho the vet says most would die in the freezing process... luckily Hunter is on good mice from a supplier.

 

[Baba-Lou]

I've noticed that to. I found out that the petstore up here doesn't give the mice real mouse feed. They give them Gerbil/Hamster food, and I've found on some days they give Rat feed. But then I go looking on the shelves, and theres plenty enough Mouse food. :shrugs: Makes me really wonder if they know what their doing in the end, and if I should apply for work there. But if I did they would probably put me on till and tell me not to give any good help to customers. Ticks me off sometimes.

 

[Gintha]

This pet store is driving me nuts. They've been fined 19 times now for euthenizing their mice by suffocating them in a bag, or freezing them alive. Now I find they are supplying customers with wild caught mice. *grumbles* wish s&h from Mouseman was cheaper ~,~ As it is.. this is the only place I have to go ~,~

 

[Baba-Lou]

Aww poor mice. I think my innner child just started crying. Thats so sad.

 

[Taceas]

That is sad. =(

Our petstore here actually feeds the same rodent block that I do, but they keep their mice crowded and there's a lot of diseased and sickly mice running around. That's where I believe I got this current case of sniffles from I haven't been able to get over with my mice right now.

I went in and they didn't have any pet mice out, so I asked for a male pet mouse, and they went to the back and got what I guess was a feeder mouse. The rest is history. He slowly developed the hunched back and sniffling then croaked a month later. Then over the course of a year it spread to all of my colonies. Now I'm barely creeping along, only got 5 babies in the last month out of nearly 30 adults.

Hamster and Gerbil feed I wouldn't even feed to hamsters or gerbils. Its all seeds, of which they only eat the sunflowers and pee on everything else. Rodents are like children, they eat the candy first and ignore the healthy stuff.

 

[Baba-Lou]

I agree. My mice throw everything out of their food bowl and only eat certain things. I'm thinking of trying a different feed on them. Maybe they won't kick it around. We'll jsut have to wait and see I guess.