We have three ball pythons in our house. We acquired the first one about 13 months ago, the second one about 9 months ago, and the third about 4 months ago. At various times, all of them have eaten frozen thawed; however, all but the newest one (which is not quite one year old) have gone on extended hunger strikes to the point where they wouldn't eat FT or pre-killed. About a month ago, when one of them was on a hunger strike, I decided to try feeding him a live rat. Sure enough, that did the trick. So, for about the past month, I've been feeding all three live rats. Now, I'm wondering whether I would be best off just breeding rats on my own. My primary goal is to avoid the headache of having to go to the pet store every week for live rats. I could try going back to frozen thawed, but I've found the live rats to be a lot easier because I don't have to mess with thawing frozen rats, which I found to be rather time-consuming, and don't have to worry about wasting money on thawed rats that are never eaten (for a while there, I was throwing out a rat or two every week because one or two of the BPs weren't eating). Of course, breeding rats on my own would probably offer a secondary benefit of being less expensive than buy rats.

I've read the stickied threads, but I'm still not sure what all is involved in breeding rats. More specifically, how much time is required? For example, how often do the tubs/bins need to be cleaned? Also, how many bins and rats would I need to supply my three BPs with food on a weekly basis (right now, all three are eating small rats, but two of them probably could eat medium rats).

I'm hoping some of you experienced rat breeders can give me a concrete idea of what to expect if I decide to start down the path of breeding rats.

Thanks in advance for your advice.