A shortage of frozen rodents is a growing concern for many reptile owners and native wildlife carers in Perth whose animals rely on mice and rats for food, with some being forced to surrender their pets.
Perth Reptile Rescue and Rehab volunteer Natalie Parr says a major frozen rodent supplier in the eastern states has decreased shipments to Western Australia, reducing supply and forcing up costs at smaller pet shops since.
"People are so desperate now. As soon as mice or rats go up on [social media] pages for sale people will just buy the whole lot," she said.
"I understand why, but at the same time there's nothing for anyone else because they're stocking up."
Ms Parr said the organisation had been overloaded with requests from people struggling to feed their snakes.
"It's getting worse, like six messages every day," she said.
"I think there's probably going to be some losses simply because some of the animals I have been given already have been quite emaciated.
"I have lost a couple, unfortunately. There was just no return once they've got to that stage.
"One of the recent carpet pythons I took in ... his owners hadn't been feeding him for over seven months.
"I could tell that they were in a really hard situation when I took him in."
Ms Parr said it was hard for individual pet owners to get access to the limited supply.
"Basically, you have to have an ABN. If you don't have an ABN these larger companies won't even look at you to supply you," she said.
"Local, smaller [rodent] breeders are getting overloaded too. Some also supply the zoo, which is a priority for them.
"Many people have to turn to pet shops and honestly pet shop prices are through the roof."
Carers 'rationing' rodents for native wildlife
West Australia's leading wildlife rescue facility WA Wildlife is also struggling to feed its native snakes and owls.
Its director of operations Dean Huxley said the organisation was rationing its mice to feed all animals in its care.
"These are animals that we need to feed so that we can treat them and heal them so they can get back out into the wild," he said.
"Anywhere between 500 to 700 mice-eating animals come through the door each year.
"Barn owls in captivity, for example, will not eat anything but mice, so if we can't source mice we can't rehabilitate those animals."
In WA, it is illegal to use live vertebrates for feeding. All animals used for feeding must be humanely euthanised and then frozen, Mr Huxley.
"I have heard the major supplier has been limited with their stock," he said.
"There are shortages and importing from the eastern states is expensive."
One of Australia's largest rodent suppliers, Pisces Group, was contacted for comment but did not respond.
Tarryn Starkey, owner of pet supply store Snake City, was told by breeders and suppliers the shortage was due to "breeding issues".
"Normally, they'll come back and they'll find upwards of 100 little pinky mice that have been born," she said.
"But now when they go back to the boxes they'll find that there's 4 or 5 [or] maybe a maximum of 10 in there.
"It may also be due to the fact that there's been a rise in in reptile keepers.
"There's been a lot of people come into the hobby and therefore a lot more snakes and reptiles are needing to be fed."
Ms Starkey said people were turning to other food sources such as chicken necks and baby chickens to feed snakes.
"It's desperate times at this point. We've got to get our hands on whatever we can," she said.
Human food off the menu
Exotic pet veterinarian Luke Bradley said feeding pet snakes wild-caught rodents could be detrimental to their health.
"The biggest concern is where people are trying to replace rodents with not necessarily the most appropriate food items," he said.
"We're seeing things like chicken wings and chicken necks being fed to them. They're not a complete nutritional package and not a good item longer-term.
"[I've seen on] social media cases where people have been trying to catch their own rodents to feed as well, which is a disease risk.
"We've had clients come in starting to panic that they won't be able to feed their reptiles."
However, Dr Bradley said it was important for pet owners not to panic and to try to utilise social media and community reptile groups to source food.
"It is more of a risk for younger snakes which need to be fed pretty regularly, but adult snakes should be fine without being fed for a couple of months — especially over the cooler months," he said.
"There's quite a few good reptile Facebook community pages out there with lots of good advice on where to try and source rodents.
"So it's probably worth trying to find those [independent] places rather than just relying on the pet shops."
