Sounds exciting!
Do you have an estimate of the cost of the product per rodent spared you can share? This could help set a lower bound on the potential cost-effectiveness, where in the roughly worst case, donors, grantmakers or impact investors buy or subsidize the product for snake owners, similar to SWP buying stunners for shrimp producers.
The current feeder market ranges widely in price — from $3.99 for a single adult mouse at Petco/PetSmart to roughly $0.40 each for newborn pinkies bought in bulk from the largest online suppliers. We'll be able to undercut the lowest-price offering for each equivalent size.
This is not exactly like the shrimp-stunner situation. Snake keepers and breeders have to feed their animals, and if our product becomes viewed as a viable, reputable alternative, being cost-competitive and more convenient gives us a real chance to become the new default; they don’t need to pay a premium for this option. Philanthropic funding can help early on by providing subsidized or free product to induce trial and accelerate conversion; the marginal cost for that purpose is around $0.16–0.80 per mouse-equivalent unit depending on size.
Once enough keepers view this as a normal, credible option, the transition can become self-reinforcing. If enough snakes transition, we can achieve healthy margins and have a self-sustaining, profitable business.
At this early stage, we believe expert validation from respected animal nutritionists and veterinarians is central. That’s been a major focus, and it’s also why one of the concrete marginal funding uses is a university-run feeding study that will result in a published paper by an academic veterinarian.
TLDR: Hundreds of millions of mice and rats are bred and killed each year as feeder animals for pet snakes, in conditions that resemble the worst of factory farming. We are developing a convenient, cost-competitive, and nutritionally complete snake food made from beef meat, organs, and bones to displace frozen feeder rodents. Cattle to mice is up to 1 to 100,000 replacement and a very strong welfare tradeoff. Products will be on the market in 2026, and will start displacing feeder rodents immediately on a 1:1 basis. We are anonymous on the Forum, but are an ACX Grants project raising 75k in marginal funding for early product launch, plus 9k for a university study. You can donate via Manifund or reach us at [email protected].
Each year, on the order of hundreds of millions of mice and rats are bred, farmed, and killed as feeder animals for pet snakes. These mammals are typically:
Despite the scale, this area is almost entirely absent from animal welfare work — until now.
We are developing a sausage-form snake food made from beef meat, organs, and bones. The product is designed to be:
We are using inputs from large animals where the displacement ratio is extremely favorable. Even under a very conservative model, we estimate something like one cow per roughly 100,000 feeder rodents displaced. In practice, the ratio is likely better than this, since a significant share of our formulation uses organs and other components that are already low-value byproducts of existing cattle production.
We are deliberately not positioning ethics or welfare as part of the value proposition to snake owners. The product is designed to win on convenience and cost, which makes adoption far easier. This framing has been validated repeatedly in conversations with keepers and breeders.
It has unusually favorable properties for impact:
The pathway from adoption to impact is immediate and linear. Because most feeder rodent production comes from many small, highly elastic operations, reductions in demand translate quickly into reductions in supply.
This is a short-timeline intervention: the product is already ready and has begun displacing feeder rodents in early trials. We'll move into full commercial launch in 2026 to really ramp up the number of animals displaced.
We are on track for 2026 US commercial launch and can start displacing feeder rodents immediately on an ~1:1 basis.
We are posting anonymously to avoid perceived ulterior motives among snake owners. Some keepers might assume the product is inferior or agenda driven, which would directly undermine uptake.
We know anonymity increases the trust requirements here. We hope this is partly mitigated by the fact that we are an ACX Grantee, and donations go through this Manifund page. We’re also very willing to share substantial detail privately if you email [email protected].
Supports:
Funds a controlled, university-run study overseen by a respected veterinarian, resulting in a published paper evaluating health outcomes for snakes fed the diet.
If you can directly fund this 9k study, please email.
Next year, we expect to raise a pre-seed funding round, since this intervention will ultimately be executed as a commercial consumer packaged goods company. If anyone is interested in this impact investing opportunity with a check size of $25k+, please reach out and we can stay in touch.
Europe is a major pet-snake market and a large share of the total achievable displacement. We plan to explore a European build-out alongside the US launch, and will pursue this earlier if there is aligned funding interest.
For due diligence or more background: [email protected]
Having followed this project for a few months now, I've been excited about its progression. Besides the aims listed here, there seems potential for secondary benefits in the industry.