Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, many of the kids in our neighborhood had pet snakes.
It seems we use to collect baseball cards and coins and rocks and fossils and beer cans and pretty much anything else you can find enough of to stick on a shelf somewhere. I wish someone told me not to put my rookie Fergie Jenkins in the spokes of my bicycle wheel but we didn’t know these things might be worth something someday. For twenty-five cents, you were able to get 8 baseball cards and stick of gum. For three cents then, some of them are worth a lot more now.
Keeping pets also seemed to of interest to many boys and girls. Snakes and reptiles were popular among the boys and guinea pigs and rabbits and hamsters and the like had an attraction for some of our sisters.
Neighborhood pet stores that sold everything from goldfish to parakeets to snakes and lizards and even cats and dogs were in every in suburb. I could ride my bike to 2 pet stores within a 5 mile radius without spending too much time on “busy” roads.
I kept garter snakes and tropical fish and occasional reptiles like bearded dragons or iguanas. Some would escape never to be seen again. Some our cat would catch and they were never seen alive again after that. I didn’t know cats were natural predators for garter snakes and black snakes. The tropical fish tanks, at least 3 at any one time (thanks, Mom) held everything from guppies to cichlids. Over time, I would trade them for others or enough would die I would start a tank with something else. Sometimes algae from the sunlight on the back of the tanks would make it nearly impossible to see the fish but they seemed to prosper nonetheless.
Other kids in the neighborhood kept pythons and boa constrictors and corn snakes. At the time, one of the “cool” things about these snakes was feeding them live mice. They didn’t necessarily need to eat three times a week but if the kids could get live mice to do it, they would. It was something to see. Prey versus predator. The circle of life. Fourth grade didn’t offer live feedings in school for the classroom beta fish.
I saw an opportunity.
What if I sold the mice to the snake keepers?
I could be their sole distributor of live food. I knew the market. I knew the customers, many were friends, some were associates, some were younger or older, who I may not have known as well but knew their siblings, but the market was large enough and I could get more customers over time.
Many of these snakes lived in homes on my paper route. The idea of waking up the house at 530 AM with live rodents was a short-lived idea. But when I went to collect for the papers I could deliver the mice. I could sell the mice for more than I paid (including the mice food and wear and tear on my bike, not including depreciation on the Fergie Jenkins rookie baseball card).
I used some of my newspaper route money to buy some 10 gallon “fish tanks” that would be “mice cages”. I would have to do this in the basement as my mother did not care for rodents. If it was out of sight of where she did laundry and I took of them and they didn’t get out of these deep tanks, she would tolerate the idea in the name of the business.
I purchased a couple of male and female mice and food and such. Before long, I had dozens of mice. Within a few weeks, depending on the size of the snake, I started selling small and medium and large mice to different kids. I figured out my cost and a reasonable margin and had a successful business. For $1.50 after the ongoing cost of food (not including my time) I could make nearly $1.40 a mouse. I would find the best prices on food and bedding and over time, more mouse tanks.
Delivery on the bicycle was not an issue, the mice would sit in the bottom of the backpack. Even on cold days, I could deliver live mice. I thought about freezing some of the mice, but thought my mother would not tolerate this idea (nearly all mice sold today as I understand it for snakes are in the form of frozen mice). Revenues from Kaplan’s Mice Delivery Service were put back into the business. I started cold calling and going door to door to see if anyone needed live snake food. Some of the revenues went to buy more baseball cards when the spokes on the bike needed a good card.
Of course, over time, as is the case with any business, the business changes. The market changes. Costs and revenue may rise and fall, respectively. Something else you don’t learn in fourth grade.
The cost of the mice food went up. I don’t recall how much now but it was enough to eat into the margins more than I liked. Some of the snakes died. Some of the kids moved to other cities or states. Some of the kids went away to college and gave their giant pythons and boa constrictors to others outside my market I could reach on my bike. New snake owners I could sell to seemed to be fewer and far between. I had to compete with Atari and girls and baseball.
Large lots of mice would die for no apparent reason. In retrospect, perhaps I was breeding a clone of mice with a genetic defect that caused them to die prematurely. Post-mortems were not routinely performed but most did not yield a gross cause of death when they were performed.
Over time, I grew tired of going into the cold unfinished basement to take care of the mice and feed them and clean up after them. I started to collect more mice than I could ever sell. The cost to maintain my inventory was greater than my revenues on any monthly or quarterly basis. The pet stores were happy to sell me food until my revenue for the food exceeded the cost they were going to sell it to me for. Even at wholesale prices, it became challenging.
Then the transmission (chain) went out on the bike and it needed new tires. The bike never had brakes so those never had to be replaced.
My own interests by then had largely moved on. My key customers and sold or donated their pets.
Kaplan’s Mice Delivery Service circa 1980 had seen its day.
Today, you can buy packs of 100 frozen adult mice for about $1.00 a mouse on Amazon with free delivery next day.
