What's a Snake to Do
When It Can't Get
Rats, Live or Frozen?
--With 20 Million Herpephiles,
Some Gorging Their Pets,
Rodents Are Hard to Find
By Robert Johnson
05/13/1999
The Wall Street Journal
Page A1
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
PLANT CITY, Fla. -- Susin April Tippie gently cradles one of her company's hottest items: "R04 Jumbo Rat, seven
inch-plus-plus-plus -- $3."
As the gray-and-white Rattus norvegicus nuzzles Mrs. Tippie's neck, she says, "We sell an average of 20,000 to
25,000 rats and mice a week."
If only that were enough: Lately, demand has been running about twice that, she says.
Quick, comb the subways. There's a national rat shortage.
Yes, rats, the icky, furry critters with hunched backs and nasty-looking teeth, are in short supply. Mice , too. And
that's bad news to the nearly 20 million people who have the gluttonous maws of pet snakes and other reptiles to
feed. "The `herps' have come on like gangbusters," in recent years, Kraig Adler, a biology professor at Cornell
University in Ithaca, N.Y., says of the pet-reptile boom. "They're the low-maintenance pet of choice for busy adults
and kids alike."
What used to be a haphazard assortment of backyard rodent-raisers has become a $235 million-a-year industry
replete with air-conditioned breeding rooms, Internet catalogs and competitors scurrying to expand.
About 93% of the 180 million rats and mice raised in the U.S. this year will be sold as food, and that still won't meet
the demand. (An additional 2% are sold as pets, and 5% are destined for research laboratories.)
"My monitor lizards have some hearty appetites, especially the 5-footer," says David Loupe Jr., an auditor in Los
Angeles, who has seven of them and also keeps 13 snakes in his garage. "I had to call rodent dealers all the way to
Florida last week and was turned down by the first six -- just to buy 1,000 frozen mice ."
One breeder who refused Mr. Loupe's order is Jim Dykes, owner of the Pied Piper rat-and-mouse farm near
Knoxville, Tenn. "I didn't know the guy, and I have to make sure there's enough product for my regular customers,"
Mr. Dykes says.
Other rat growers are responding by raising prices. "Some people may joke about a rat shortage, but it's true," says
Dick Phelan, a marketing supervisor at SAS Supply, a rodent breeder in Germantown, N.Y., that plans a price
increase of up to 5% in June, the month millions of baby snakes hatch in terrariums around the nation.
Mrs. Tippie's career illustrates that like nature, this business is selective and requires adaptability. The 41-year-old
general manager of D&H Pet Farms Inc. started out raising hedgehogs, trendy as pets until people realized that they
have prickly quills. She then turned to what her peers and patrons call "prey mammals." She tries not to become too
attached to certain rats, which she says are smarter and more affectionate than such pet-store staples as guinea pigs
and hamsters. "I love rats," she says.
She boasts about her brood. "Your best rat or mouse isn't necessarily a fat one," she says, with the confidence that
comes from feeding samples of her wares to seven pet boa constrictors. She insists that her rodents stay lean, and
thus healthier as reptile food, on a high-fiber diet that includes beet pulp and wheat germ: "It's like someone who
wants the best for their Mercedes; they don't want junk parts."
Indeed, raising rodents is dicey. They won't mate if the air conditioning is too chilly, yet many pampered rodents
died in last summer's heat waves. And reptiles can be picky: Certain sizes and types require particular measures or
morsels, such as "pinks," as newborns are called, or "fuzzies" -- about 10 days to three weeks old. A rodent that is
too big might gnaw a snake to death.
While buyers like Mr. Loupe are willing to take frozen rats, which allows for stockpiling, the shipping costs are
higher for iced rodents than for live ones. Besides, many reptiles are finicky and insist on a live or freshly killed
meal. "You can train them to eat thawed-out frozen, but some owners won't take the time," says Toby Cromwell, a
herpetologist at Reptile World Serpentarium near Orlando, Fla. Moreover, he says, many pet-reptile owners love
watching the hunt and attack. "The snakes don't need that, but it fascinates a lot of people."
Helping to worsen the shortage is a wave of so-called power feeding of reptiles -- tossing them two or more rodents
a week, which encourages far faster growth than was common just a few years ago. "People are `bulking up' their
snakes and lizards. It's an image thing," says David Tetzlaff, animal curator at Caribbean Gardens, a tourist
attraction in Naples, Fla. "I have seen monitor lizards so overfed they look like footballs with legs."
Face it, little lizards and snakes just don't impress the tourists anymore -- let alone herpephiles who want to astound
friends with their hobby. Instead, life is imitating art. For reptile watchers, the promotional slogan for the 1998
movie "Godzilla" rings true: "Size does matter."
James Murphy, herpetologist at the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., says these days he can easily
distinguish between pythons and boas raised in captivity and ones obtained from the wild. "The captive-bred ones
have bodies so big the heads can't keep up with them."
All this eating can be unhealthy for the reptiles -- not to mention the rodents. Mr. Tetzlaff of Caribbean Gardens
warns about the risk of "hair impaction," which afflicted one of his monitor lizards last year. Too many rat snacks,
he says, caused the creature "to form a hairball the size of an orange in its gut. A veterinarian had to perform
emergency surgery."
If the vet's job sounds disgusting, it's not all that much better than working at some of the breeders. "It's filthy and
then there's the smell," concedes Mrs. Tippie. Thus, her worker-turnover rate is nearly 100% a year. "Some people
quit during their first coffee break."
She must be careful, too, not to serve up feasts that are too ferocious. "I put down the biters" with gas "because
biters breed biters." She should know, having been bitten 12 times in her eight years in the rat-and-mouse business.
Anticipating price and supply problems, many zoos and other tourist attractions have started raising their own rats
and mice . Mr. Cromwell at Reptile World Serpentarium says, "It's more economically sound, and we have a better
selection of sizes on hand."
So, where does this all leave things at the home of the world's best-known mouse? "The subject has never come up
before," says Diane Ledder, a spokeswoman for Walt Disney World, which recently opened its Animal Kingdom
wildanimal park.
She maintains the theme park's standard cheer when explaining that some exhibits at Animal Kingdom are fed
frozen rodents -- including mice from an outside supplier. "I think people know that Mickey is wonderful," she says,
"but the reality in nature is that animals need to eat."