Just wait until you get your first vet bill from feeding live rodents to your snake or lizard. Blood sucking parasites are out there, and are usually transmitted by feeding live. Ticks, mites, tape worm, round worm, pin worm, hook worm, to mention a few. For years now, I've been trying to educate herpers that freezing kills all parasites dead, reducing them to just a little more digestible protein.

Also, some rodent breeders aren't that bright. I've been told of one that brags to his customers that he doesn't have any problems with mites, because he just "dust the cages wood shaving with powder that kills them." I guess he's not concerned that the rats and mice would be ingesting this powder and absorbing it through their skin. Common sense is often uncommon.

If you have ever seen a snake or lizard with it's tongue bit out, or an eye bit out, you would never feed live. Unfortunately a lot of beginning herpetologists get into it for the wrong reasons. If they are honest with themselves, they just plain enjoy the "thrill of the kill." These are not our customers.

Also, most pet stores promote live sales, because while the mice and rats are in inventory, they just might grow a little bigger and get a better price, or better yet, they should drop another litter while they are waiting to be bought. Their best interest is not always your best interest.

Why do you require a minimum order of 100 mice or 50 rats?

First, I sell to you at the same price that I sell to pet stores. That's my way of competing with them, but not competing for their customers who buy them onesy, twosy. The other reason is the economics of the shipping cost. Because I have to ship them out with 5 lbs. of dry ice, wrap them in fiberglass blanket, and send them next day air, it costs you a minimum of $29.50 to ship one mouse, 100 mice or up to 200 mice. After that the charge goes up gradually by weight. About $20 of the rate goes to get the plane off the ground, and the truck in front of your house, because neither of them gets good gas mileage.

What do you feed your mice and rats?

They are grain fed. We start with a base of Lab Chow rodent feed that guarantees 28 vitamins and minerals. This sounds very good, but the mice rats smarter than that. They eat sunflower seeds first, then Oats. it's toss up between which next, corn or Milo. Milo is round kernel southern nutritious. also have some "secret ingredients" them add to overall nutritional balance.

The bottom line is that we have healthy animals. They look good, they smell good and have shiny coats. We spend extra money on feed because not only does it cause them to grow faster, and have bigger litters, but mainly because we have some very picky customers, zoos, breeders, dealers and collectors who realize that a nutritionally fed mouse or rat will help them to have healthy reptiles or birds.

Also we grain feed our rodents, because our competition is too cheap to, or else they don't care what they feed them, as long as they don't die on them. Have you seen my ads that start, "Arf, Arf, Arf. If your mice are barking at you, then maybe you should ask the breeder what they have been feeding them." That is because 90 to 95% of my competition are feeding dog food only, and the cheapest dog food at that. We feed our mice and rats better than anyone else in the industry, because we care and our customers care.

How do we kill our mice and rats?

No, we don't thump them, drown them, or electrocute them. We put them down with the most humane method, CO2 gas, carbon dioxide, this is a natural substance that just puts them quickly and quietly to sleep. We then immediately seal them into Cryovac®, wheel them into a walk-in freezer, blast them with cold air. They go from happy little mice or rats to rock hard in about 30 minutes. They don't come fresher than that.

Why do you use Cryovac® Vacuum Sealing?

This is the same stuff that you get your cheese in at the grocery store, and does a great job preventing freezer burn. Freezer burn occurs in zipper lock bags after two or three months. We used zipper locks for years, and because most of my customers only had one or two snakes, an economical order quantity of 100 mice or 50 rats would supply them for six months to a year. They would end up throwing stuff out because at some point the snakes just don't want them, because the way the rodents smell is important to them. So these disappointed customers would go back to feeding live and risk getting all those blood sucking parasites, ticks, mites, ring worm, round worm, tape worm, pin worm, hook worm etc., so, all my educating them that "freezing kills parasites dead. Deader is better, We have guaranteed dead arrival." All this education was wasted, because zipper lock bags are only designed for short term storage of 2 to 3 months.

Cryovac® vacuum sealed packaging has been around, for say, 30 years. It's the same material that you get your cheese in the grocery store. Because of the inherent problems of packing mice and rats in zipper lock bags, I decided that it was time to set a new industry standard for mice and rat breeders. If you are buying over 3 months supply, Don't settle for zipper lock bags. You'll end up throwing stuff away. Have I made myself perfectly clear? Because Cryovac® vacuum sealed packets are impervious to gases and moisture. 1. You won't freezer burn 2. As long as you keep them frozen, you'll have a 2 to 3 year shelf life. 3.You'll have no refrigerator odor. This works both ways, because snakes hate garlic flavored mice and rats. Whatever scent that was on the mouse or rat when we put them down, is what your snake or lizard will smell when you peel it out of the package.

How to get free snakes?

FREE SNAKES Springfield, OH - Sean Cockran, a client of ours, periodically runs an ad in the local paper, something like this. . . Afraid of your snake or lizard, don't know what to do? I'll come pick it up, no questions asked. Call now (add phone number here)! When he runs the ad he will get 2 to 3 calls per week. Most of the snakes have been neglected or abused, and are not in the best of health. Some ask him to pay them, say, $25 (usually for the aquarium or cage). Try it out to help snakes in your area.

Now for the DFQ... Dumb... F&#%king Question

When you thaw them out, then do they come alive? No... sleeping beauties. You've been watching too many cartoons. I am always amazed when I'm asked this question, mostly by intelligent, college educated people.