Where to get rats to breed

I have been looking into the possibility of breeding my own rats in the future for my snakes. What is the best place to find rats that are breed able?

I live in the DC/Baltimore area btw,

Best place is from someone already breeding feeder rats.

What you want is to get small rats that you will raise to an optimum weight of 250 grams, never get adults, never get proven breeders.

I did not have that opportunity and started with rats from Petco and petsmart and held back and selectively bred the to achieve the colony I have now.

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I got my original rat stock from a chain pet store, but I got my female mice from Craiglist and the male from a small time pet store. There is a rat fancier society, but I'm not sure if they sell their offspring for people to breed or not, so I'd just get ones from other people. I'm hoping to start another rat colony when I can make room, so CL will probably be my go-to place when I get to that point. Right now I've got the skeletons of 2-3 mouse colonies, just need to grab some more females.

Yeah, I have been having a hard time finding a breeder who breeds them as feeders or as both pets and feeders. A petco near my takes really good care of the animals that they sell so I may look there.

I managed to find some at a pet store that was supposed to be selling them as food only. I got four - three females and a male. Two of those I ended up putting down for bad RI, one of which was the male. I got four more at another pet store - the only two places I could find in all of Reno that would sell me live mixed-gender rats. That was supposed to be another three females and two males, but turned out to be two females and two males, one of which had RI so bad that his face was crusty. Picking and choosing wasn't an option - I was lucky to get what I got. So that left me with one male, and four females. One of the second batch was already pregnant when I got her, and gave birth three and a half weeks ago. She was older than the others - I'll be putting her down once the litter is weaned, because she has head tilt with no signs of ear infection. NONE of those breedable age rats I bought are tame at all. They bite, they are aggressive, and they are not pleasant to work with. Just a warning on what to expect if you end up settling, like I did. However, I'm holding back a male and two females from that first litter, and I handle them daily to get them tame, with the intention that they will become future breeders. I'll be picking out another male and more females from the other litters to do the same. Unfortunately, I did not stagger litters properly... so I'm going to have a major surplus of rats pretty soon, but I made arrangements with the local pet store to take some of them. Be sure to stagger your litters. I believe there's a suggestion chart on this site somewhere for that.

First litter - born 2/27 - 11 pups.
Second litter - born 3/15 - 11 pups.
Third litter - born 3/18 - 13 pups.
Fourth litter - observed breeding 3/5 - expected this weekend.

Check local reptile FB groups. There's bound to be at least one person with some quality feeder stock. I met someone local through this website actually and that's how I got my first good stock. My first stock were Petsmart rats. 2/3 girls were maternally aggressive. The third female passed away for unknown reasons after a month. I wouldn't recommend pet store stock. I euthed them when my good feeder stock was of age and producing.

If you're into the rats there's several of FB rat groups that are feeder and pet friendly. Being a part of those has really expanded my rat resources and I have some new genes to play around with and a network of people to go to for help and advice.

I would look for a breeder and if not just buy rats from your local pet store. I would not suggest that you buy from chains such as petco because I have a bad experiences but it could be different in your area.