Bug Blocks Inventory & FAQ
Hello! Maybe you're here because you were reading the description for our Bug Blocks (BB for short) and found this link. Or maybe I responded to your message about when the BB would be back in stock. I am SO happy that so many hedgies enjoy these and that there is a high demand for them! I want to give some background so you guys can understand why we can't stock them regularly yet.
(The short answer is, we stock a few bottles at a time as we are able to make them, and they sell out fast. Long answer below.)
How we developed our Bug Blocks
When I first started developing these treats, my primary goals were to come up with a hedgehog treat that was biologically appropriate, but also inoffensive to hedgie owners who aren't as keen on handling whole insects (live or dried). I wanted them to be cute and very popular with hedgehogs who tend to be picky. Herein lies my challenge... we tested a large variety of insects and combinations of insects to find the most palatable option. The absolute most popular is (of course) an insect that is very expensive and chronically undersupplied nationwide. That was fine by me. I wanted to produce a great product, not just an easy/cheap one. We tested dozens of variations with our enthusiastic hedgie taste testers here to finalize a treat we thought would be popular with most hedgehogs.
Stocking the Bug Blocks... or more like selling out constantly
Why can't we keep these things in stock? Our limiting factor is the main insects that go into them. They grow slowly (taking 6 months to mature), and we raise these ourselves because they are so expensive. We have a dedicated facility for raising these insects that go into the BB. But to scale up production, we have to hold back adults. Every week or two when I run a batch of BB, I have to weigh "how many bottles do I want to try to make" vs "I really ought to hold back every female here." I know there's high demand and people can get frustrated that when I do stock bottles, it's only a few and they sell out right away. As we scale up insect production, we'll be able to make a larger volume of Bug Blocks. It just takes time to get there!
Other notes on production
I think it helps to let people know that there isn't some factory churning these out for us. We harvest the insects by hand, make these blocks by hand, and bottle them by hand. Yep, me and my husband. Once in a while we mess up (okay usually me) and some blocks end up not suitable for selling and while our hedgies love when that happens, I feel bad because I know you guys are all waiting on bottles to be stocked. Long story short, I really want to be able to provide these to everyone who wants them, and I'm sorry we can't yet!
Lastly... why don't you just raise the price to meet demand?
Because I'd rather people have to wait a while to be able to get them, than for only fancy-pants affluent hedgie owners to be able to afford them. And let's be honest, I'd feel like a terrible person to admit to the world that I'm charging $30+ per little bottle of blended up bugs (even if they are very expensive bugs). While it'd make sense to people who buy live feeder insects frequently and know how expensive that gets, it's just not what I want for Hedgehog Precision. We all know good quality stuff can be expensive, but we don't want our stuff to be THAT expensive. :)
Thanks for taking the time to read this and understand some of the background of how things work at our little company!