Whole Prey Prices?

[Deleted]

I want to add whole prey to my fuzzes diet. I don't have a place to buy it in my area. I have to drive a hour to the nearest petco and one frozen rat its 5 bucks. I have been shopping around and found this web sight. www.gourmetrodent.com/frozen.html

Is this a good price for whole prey? Has anyone bought from here? If so what do you think? They charge a 6 dollar fee if you buy under 500 animals plus shipping. Is this a good price for rabbit 2 bucks a pound? I want to get 100 chicks 50 medium rats and 100 adult mice plus some rabbit. How long do you think that will last with 4 ferrets? I don't plan on feeding it every meal but like 3 or 4 times a week.

[Sherry]

OMG!!! I could only WISH I could get mine for those prices!!! Cheapest I can get adult mice for is $1.25 each, rat pups 2.25, and D/O chicks were $0.99 each!
Even online, adult mice are .85, rat pups $1.45

[goingpostal]

Those are about normal online prices, there's a bunch of options, most are in the providers section here. I've ordered from rodent pro a couple times, filling up a box goes pretty fast with larger prey, but gets real expensive with smaller ones. I was feeding four and ordered about every 6 months.

I was doing whole prey less often than you want to do, using huge quail, medium or large GP, large or XL rats about 2x per month each, plus 10-15 young adult mice 2-4 times a month that I breed. I'd get a rabbit or two at $5 each and chop it up to feed over that time period as well. They would eat those amounts in one day, maybe a little longer for some things. Chicks are pretty much a treat item, they love them but not nutritious enough to be a meal. ferrets will eat quite a bit, they say 1-3 oz females, 2-4 males is normal daily.

These days I am down to two ferrets, it's not really worth it to order rodentpro due to the shipping so I found a cheaper source for rabbit, still breed my own mice and order quail through hare today instead. They really dislike larger rats although they love mice, they love GP so I wish I could still get those but oh well. Rabbit is a big hit as well. Oh, you want mostly adults as well but throwing in some younger ones and/or retired breeders is good for variety, different sizes have different amounts of nutrients.

[Deleted]

This is really helpful thank you. why Is rodent pros shipping so off the wall. The prices are much cheaper there but shipping is astronomical. Is it the same way with all whole prey sellers.

[goingpostal]

All the ones I've found only use fedex overnight, and charge actual prices, not a flat rate or anything. If you live somewhere larger or close to a bigger city you can maybe find a reptile show or breeder near you and save on the shipping. Faunaclassifieds has tons of people selling feeders.

[Deleted]

RodentPro's shipping isn't any more expensive than any other online retailer that I've noticed. I order from them a couple times a year. I always fill up an entire box to make it a little more cost-effective, and it's a big box with insulation. Includes insurance too. You just can't ship anything frozen cheaply.

Even including shipping RodentPro is cheaper per mouse than local sources for me... and I don't have a reliable local source anyway. I am slowly convincing my husband to build a rodent rack so we can start breeding our own.