When does it start becoming economical to breed your own rats?

I have an issue with cute feeders becoming cute pets. Now I request the ugly or plain white

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I have the same problem! I made it a couple years in between my last group of pet rats then I got a batch with 1 in particular that was beautiful AND super friendly so of course I couldn't feed her off and needed to save her and a friend "for my son" as pets lol

I'd say breeding rodents isn't for everyone, there's a lot of time and energy involved and if you counted your time involved or hired employees to care for the rodents you'd probably have very thin profit margins in most cases. However, if you have free time and don't mind working with animals for no pay or pay per hour figured into your bottom line then you may want to try it. If you don't figure time into the equation the economy of it comes down to two things, feed and bedding.

In fact if you did it right you could almost breed your rodents for free. For example, if you dried out your grass clippings you could have free bedding. And if you got all the expired food from feed stores you may be able to get that at a discount or even for free. If you had some land you could even grow your own corn, oats, and barley and make your own rodent food. I use pine chips for bedding and I keep making it thinner and thinner in the cages so it's cost effective, but still has to do it's job. I also use feed store grain, some as low as $8 per 50 pounds. I come out way ahead breeding rodents if you don't count my time involved in daily feeding / weekly substrate replacement / and monthly scrub down of everything.

That said, the main reason I like to raise my own rodents is so that I can be self sufficient, especially since I live in the middle of no where LOL. I can get feed and bedding anywhere for my rodents, but in some places you'd be hard pressed to actually find live rodents. When I was actually feeding frozen thawed I had a lot of rodents that I would throw away that my ball pythons wouldn't eat. Now I actually do a mix of frozen thawed and live / fresh killed. I usually start with the frozen thawed and if they don't bite I'll try a fresh killed. I usually start with my pickiest eaters first so I know if I'm going to need more or less in the end.