Feeder Business

Hey everyone. I was thinking of maybe starting a mini rat and mouse business in my area and go to some reptile shows and sell live and frozen. Does anyone think that I will be able to turn some sort of a profit when I make my own racks and pay for food and other sorts of fees? Would I be able to sell them on craigslist and things like that? Let me know what some of you think. Thanks.

That's a tough question to answer. You will definitely have better luck selling frozen at a show but not out of your house. If there is big Ball Python community in your area, you will need mostly live. Consistency is the biggest thing. You need to produce more than you can sell/use because if you can't come through for buyers when they need them, they will go to another consistent source. Of course, one day you could be selling 40 rats a week to one person, then next week they are producing their own. It's a gamble so expect losses, but gains can also be found. You just have to look to fill wherever the void is.

First thing to consider is that selling on craigslist (at least in your area - I live here too) is going to be very tough because of all the crazy flaggers.  In the past I have tried to unload a little bit of frozen surplus on the Pets section and it never stays up for more than 15 minutes.  I'm not sure if it is prohibited or not by craigslist, but I'm telling you that it doesn't matter - people on that site think that snakes and feeding snakes rodents = evil.  You are better off using a forum or a classified site to make connections.

If you decide to produce your own for profit, I would make some local connections first and start off small.  See if you can actually produce the quantities that your customers expect.  Get in touch with people who do not have massive collections.  You'll want to find people who need 100 rats a month, not 1000 rats a month.  I personally know a guy who would love to buy rodents from someone locally instead of driving around to all these crappy little shows.

People may not agree with me on this, but the live feeding thing is somewhat of a myth.  I have been keeping and breeding ball pythons for 11 years now and almost never feed my snakes live.  Sometimes I will buy some live fuzzies when I am trying to get a baby to eat their first couple of meals, but the last two years I have produced babies that took F/T their first time.  And yes, those snakes are still alive and doing quite well.  If I saw your ad and you were selling rodents in my area, I'd give you a try, but I'd want them frozen.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that BP's only eat live but that most of your BP owners will be feeding live if it's like my area. When I was selling rats, over those few years I had about 20 regulars and only one bought FT from me. I wanted to switch mine over this year, was even successful on a few but with full time work, full time school, and full time everything else, I just don't have the time to process frozen rats right now. Removing the chance of a bad strike and having them all on FT is an achievement for sure though.