I'm curious about raising my own feeders. I only have one ball python to feed, but I figured I could probably sell excess rodents, as pets or feeders. I'm only curious; I don't even know if I could kill them, but I would like to learn more.
The reason I am looking into it is because the local pet store doesn't always have the right sized frozen rats, so I have to substitute for multiple smaller ones. It's getting rather annoying, especially because the store is an hour away. Thankfully, we have other reasons to travel that far, so the trip isn't wasted. But I don't know of any other suppliers in the area. The ones I do know of have shipping fees, making it at least twice as expensive.
So, I have some questions.
Is the diet of feeder rodents the same as for pets? Could they be kept in the same building as rabbits, or would they pass diseases or something? What kind of setup do they need? How large, approximately, do rats grow in comparison to African Soft Furred? Right now, she's a sub-adult, so adult rats are too much for her.
I don't think I have specific questions about breeding that I can't do research into, but there aren't too many articles on raising feeders.
Also, something I definitely think I'll be doing is raising insect feeders, such as crickets, red worms, silkworms, and mealworms. I don't have other reptiles, but I could sell them for lizards or feed them to our chickens. Is there any specific diet different to their natural one when being used for food for reptiles?
Thanks in advance.