Think I should breed or keep buying F/T?

I have 11 ball pythons and 1 BCI. I'm going to keep growing my collection. I like to feed every 5 days because they are all 2011/2012. I currently buy F/T online, but I am wondering if it would be better to breed. I did the math on F/T, and with my 12 snakes it will cost almost $900/year and that's just on rat pinkies - weaned rats, not adults.
Also, I will probably be keeping them in the garage. The day temperature in there is fine, but gets colder at night. Can I hook up a heater in there on a extra hydrofarm thermostat I have? How would I hook it up?

I just built a rack and left enough space for adjustable heat lamps to be placed on top of each tub. That way I can turn it up just enough to give them a warm spot when it gets cooler. BUT I had 4 of them just laying around so...I'm not sure how you would hook up the thermostat..I think it would want to heat the whole garage. I find it worth it to breed. Shipping kills me on FT, while I can get bedding and food for a fraction of the cost of FT.

If the heater is under 1000 watts you could run it off a hydrofarm. personally I wouldn't trust a $30 thermostat with anywhere near 1,000 watts. I would use an oil filled heater (1500 watts) paired with a ranco thermostat

To hook up any heat source to a thermostat all you have to do it plug it in, and place the probe wherever you want to measure temperatures.

Breeding rodents is a lot of work, the questions that you need to ask yourself are

• how much is your time worth
• how much will food/caging/bedding/other necessary materials required going to cost
• how much will it cost to heat
• are you willing to deal with the smell of large numbers of rodents

Then compare that to the $900 per year for frozen rodents.

I keep asking myself the same question, given my reptile collection is not nearly as large as yours i feel like in the long run i could save money breeding rodents myself. But there is a few factors that will probably cause you to break even with what you would pay for just buying frozen. One as mentioned above, time is money and these rats are going to make a mess and need maintenance. Secondly depending on where you live you may have to heat/insulate the room or shed your rats will be living in, as well as cooling in the summer months as well! So electricity needs to be factored in as well.

The way i look at it is when i get a larger collection and i am able to order 500 medium rats at lets say (MADE UP PRICE) 1.25$ apposed to paying 2.50-3.00$ i am saving money on the rats! You might say "Oh well the money you saved is going to shipping" that is true. HOWEVER if i want to save money i have to make commitments somewhere because if i breed them myself the labor and everything else included is going to be WAY over 50.00 dollars!

That is the way i am looking at it.

If anything i will have a 4 tub rat system with 1.3 colony. Freeze the rats that are not being eaten and keep live for trouble eating when i start breeding. But i am a long ways away from this!

I was asking myself that at the first prt of the year and well I built a 4 tub rack and have a breeding tank left lying around. fter about 4 months of breeding I have save $25 after my startuo costs. But the svings are just going to keep going. I would buy 50 rats at a time for about $100 that would last me 2-3 months. After 4 months breedig I have a freezer full of rats from my 1.4 breeders. I am much happier with the quality of rodents and the snakes seem to eat better they are always fresher than the ones I buy and I know they have only been frozen once. So I would say do it just be prepared for the first litter from the new moms. Mine were terrible but with the second and third litters I am getting a average of 13-15 a litter all surviving to feeder size :)

I started breeding because I have some that will only eat live.

If there is a reptile show anywhere near you it's possible that you can pick up f/t more cheaply there because you don't take the big hit for the shipping. Or you can find someone else who uses it and split the shipping. Also if you put out the word that you're in the market for f/t on your local facebook reptile groups you might find someone who can sell it to you reasonably. There are a lot of smaller breeders who either breed for the local market or breed for their own collection and gas off the surplus and sell it.

It's really what all what you want to do. Cleaning rat crap gets old after a while for me, but I'm not willing to get rid of my picky eaters.

To give you an idea on cost in 2011 I spend $1177.71 in supply to produce 2226 rodents (mainly rats)

Is it worth it to me yes for various reasons.

1# Cost
2# Knowing what I feed and knowing that my snakes get the best food I can provide them with.
3# Convinience as someone who breeds snakes having the right size available any time I need to and being able to start my hatchlings is very important to me.

Now as far as your idea of setup know this ideal temps (optimum production wise) are mid 60's to mid 70's

Extreme temps will lead to a drop in production and may lead to the death of your breeders.

My rat room temps range from 48 degrees in the winter to 85 degrees during the summer, I do not use heat or AC the only equipment running 24/7 in the rats room is an exhaust fast to eliminate the amonia smell.

When it comes to feeding I feed live however I have a few snake that I keep on F/T this way since rats go fasts and I have a surplus that has reached 5 to 6 weeks they are euthanised and frozed.

Thanks everyone!
I think I am going to breed. It is better for us right now, plus we know people who will buy from us, and we have some balls that won't eat f/t, and pet store prices are ridiculous.

Now, next question - How many can live together per tub? We are going to make a rack and use those black mortar tubs. I think I am going to use the small sized (27.5 L x 19.5 W x 6 H - 7 gallon) ones for breeding, and growing up the weaned rats. We were thinking of buying some of the large tubs (35.5 L x 24.5 W x 7.5 H) to keep all the rats in when they aren't breeding, and just split them up so there's a fair number per each of the big tubs. I thought that would be more cost efficient (and give the rats more space) instead of buying lots of the regular sized tubs. What do you guys recommend?