How to Buy Pinkies for a Pet Snake

All pets require food, including young pet snakes. Since you can't buy a bag of Snake Chow at the local retail store, you'll need to purchase pinkie mice for snake food. Pinkie mice are young rodents sold as feeders for snakes too small to eat fully grown rodents.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Know if the snake eats live or frozen food. You can purchase pinkies in either condition, depending on your snake's feeding preferences. If you're buying a brand new pet snake, ask the store personnel or breeder whether the snake is accustomed to live or frozen food.

2. Buy snake food only from a reputable pet store or independent snake breeder. Mice can be filthy, disease-ridden creatures. Never feed wild mice to a pet snake. Feed them mice bred in controlled conditions for this purpose.

3. Confirm that the pet store sells pinkies for snake food. Some pet stores refuse to sell animals as food items and can treat you rudely when asked to do so. You can avoid a potentially embarrassing situation by making a phone call in advance. If they do sell pinkies, ask if they have your choice (live or frozen) on hand.

4. Go to the store (or breeder) and ask to purchase the number of pinkies that you need. If you're buying frozen pinkies, be sure to get them to a freezer quickly unless you intend to thaw them immediately for your snake. As with any meat product, once thawed, pinkies shouldn't be re-frozen. Always thaw pinkies completely and wipe away excess moisture before placing them in the snake cage.

Tips & Warnings

• Stores often place live pinkies in a container and then put them in the freezer to suffocate. If you find this procedure disturbing, place the frozen pinkie container in your home freezer for several hours before opening it.