Using Wild Caught Feeders

I know it's not ideal, but does anyone do it? Wouldn't freezing kill off at least some microbes?
I have a lot of gophers and rabbits where I live, and it would save a lot of money if I could use those instead...they seem like they would probably be a bit cleaner than mice and rats, wouldn't you think?

Freezing would certainly eliminate most if not all parasites and microbes, but the real issue here is that you don't know the history of the feeders. What is the area around you like? Some of these animals could be contaminated with pollutants or poisons, and there would be no way of knowing, and no way of addressing the issue. In addition, your snakes could become dependent on whatever food sources you are using. Can you be certain you will always have access to them? It isn't really worth the risk in my opinion, but of course it's your call.

Yeah I'm not sure it's worth the risk either...I think the gophers tend to stay in the same general area, so they should be ok for pesticides and stuff...
As far as becoming dependent, well these are a pest here, so as long as I stay in this area supply won't be an issue...I've started feeding some of my adult snakes chicken along with rodents, and they seem to be OK with switching like that...

And I would think most diseases wouldn't be transmitted to such different animal types...for example, I would think any diseases rodents would have would most likely just be passed on to other animals. I think it would mainly be the parasites that would be the issue. Somoeone can correct me if I'm wrong though...I don't know much about this kind of stuff...

Sorry, I mean passed on to other MAMMALS.

I would not risk it either. Trace chemicals are in *everything* these days, and poisons are always a concern.

I think the bottom line is that there are so many reasons not to and so few good reasons to make the risk worth it. Love thine snakes, poison them not.

Not to mention you don't know if the animals could be eating someone's garbage. I'd rather pay pet store prices than feed any of my animals wild caught but that's me. There's people who swear by it until the day they end up with a poisoned animal and their animals die...

Do you think the main issue is the chemicals then? I'm pretty sure I could bet them from a clean source...
I mean if you have one snake, the cost isn't a big deal, but if you have a lot it starts to add up...

I have fed my snakes the occasional dog-killed rat, but I did worry a lot as to whether it would have been near any poison. I also use hand-caught house geckos for my reptile eaters.

However, I must say that I do this because I do not have access to cleanly-reared feeder animals, and if I had access to those I probably would not be using wild-caught feeders.

I guess you are looking at wild animals not house pests, so the poison chances would be minimised. Personally I probably would use wild animals that I knew FOR CERTAIN were living in open country away from houses, and only if I knew EXACTLY how they had died (are you shooting?), but I think I'm probably very much in the minority.

I do think that freezing would kill most parasites likely to be transferred between mammals and reptiles, but the risk is that not all would be, and you'd want a dedicated freezer in case of fleas, ticks etc pre-freezing.