Where do pet stores get their hamsters/gerbils?

[redhen]

You could google "Teddy bear hampster breeders" in your area...or check CL...

 

[Matthew3590]

PetSmart has regulations that deny them from buying from mom and pop breeders. But I do not know the full jist of it.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Quote:
Hamster mills I guess you would call them, who sell to brokers, who then sell to pet stores.

Yes, I know that for a fact.

 

[EmtheFishLady]

Petsmart gets their hamsters and fish from "Sun Pet LTD". http://www.sunpet.com/

 

[NellaBean]

A friend of mine has a small pet store. She breeds a lot of her own small critters (feeder rats and mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, small birds). The rabbits are pet quality culls from breeding show stock (their own). They also get a lot of people coming in with animals they want to get rid of, so they tend to get quite a bit of "stock" that way.

 

[Skyesrocket]

My husband used to sell baby veiled chamelons to the bigger pet stores. We would hatch out a couple of dozen eggs and then call around to the petshops to see who wanted them. The bigger pet shops only wanted a few at first. Probably to see the quality of them. Then they called a week later and said they would buy all we had. He did that for a couple of years.
When there was a rat shortage and they asked if we could supply them too. At the time we were breeding rats for our snakes. We had really nice looking rats. And even some hairless. It wasn't a huge breeding operation and the rats had multi level cages and plastic tubing to play in. We supplied them with rats for about a year. We didn't see much of a profit and it was a couple of hours of work everyday to feed and clean. So we went back to just breeding for ourselves.
I think that even with the bigger pet shops that if you have healthy stock they will buy locally. Especially with speciality animals like some lizards and such. We are in North Eastern Ohio and during most winters it is too cold to ship reptiles and critters like naked rats. They aren't willing to pay much for them though.
So if you are in a colder climate you might have better luck selling small critters during the winters locally.

 

[Livinzoo]

Quote:
Fish yes, but rodents came from Lab Pets here in GA at least. And birds came from a large bird mill in Florida.

 

[deerman]

When i had my pet shop....i bought most from my customers, even one of my employee i got started in rats,and mice. he got so big he raised 5,000 mice ever two weeks.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Quote:
Same here. When we sold out we had enough tanks set up to supply around 1,000 mice, 3,000 rats, and from 50 to 100 hairless rats, hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs a month. Not counting feeder chicks. We sold ours to a broker though. Selling to the pet stores brought more money, but the broker gave almost as much and picked them up at the farm.

So before anyone says it.... yes, we were one of those evil mouse mills.

 

[deerman]

yes he did sell alot to brokers, also zoos.


he had a great setup....auto waterers...each lot. 7 females 1 males pull babies every 3 weeks from each female. each lot was house in a drawer under a mess shelf....he sold $ 5,000.00 each month just in mice.

bad thing i was selling him feed and supplies at my cost, untill i caught him stealing 100s of lbs of feed from me.