I agree with pretty much everything you said, but wow! $60 a month for 6
gerbils! I Never really kept track but even when I had about 60 gerbs
(counting babies) I never spent more than $20-30 a month on food and bedding
and a few toys. Of course, that's not counting all the aquariums and stuff I
had to buy to begin with. I certainly lost alot of money though, you're
right. ;) My big problem was waterbottles. They would go thru at least 1 or
2 a month. Finally started using those plastic hangy Quick Quenches. They
have only destroyed 2 or 3 of them in the past 2 yrs (mostly by climbing
them and chewing off the plastic loop, not actually damaging the bottle)
Elizabeth
At 250 cages, monthly bills ran thus:
$104 for 200# custom mix feed
$10 for fresh food (carrots, apples, etc-scratch-n-dent-specials)
$10 for milkbones by jumbo boxes for hamsters [2 boxes of 'large']
$15 for six waterbottles, others dying of old age and
missing o-rings and getting gnawed
$10 for vet bill misc and bandaid bill
$15 for misc housing (buying a sheet of expanded metal
mesh or another leaker at a rummage sale, etc)
$6 bedding, two bales
$5 cleaning supplies (bleach, soap, odoban, etc)
$5 for gas
$10 for utilities (water, electricity)
$3 ads
So you see, that if you're spending more than roughly
a buck a cage a month....you're buying lots of extras.
I figure that a cage holds two gerbils....and between
one and two hamsters depending on the breed.
Now mind you I figure a setup is around $30 each...and
I didn't figure those in because I no longer have that many
cages/tanks/setups in service. I scrounged a lot (got
the tanks free for the hauling, got a lot of the metal mesh
on clearance and throwaways, etc)
Things like gnaw wood, I have lots from neighbors and
my hubby's wood projects (apple tree trimmings and
white pine chunks) TP rolls, I had 'the network' that
saved them for me.
[and the figures are for those of you who wondered how
much it really costs...other than floor space and time, to
run a large rodentry...once you have things set up it isn't
that much to maintain other than time]
Deb
Rebel's Rodent Ranch
