I breed out my own mice and rats. It's just easier, it is much less expensive and I know that the product is fed something decent, is in clean living conditions and doesn't look sick. Half the time I would look at the mice in the pet store and wonder if I even wanted to bring em home. They didn't look good. I would start with a colony of 1 male and 3 females. You can get food at this place for a fairly good price.
http://www.theratshop.com/shop/produ...&products_id=6

I have a local guy now that will be getting me my feed for slightly less. I do not sub out cheaper stuff at this point because I have swiss websters and they are baby making machines that I think really need a decent diet.

You can get a big thing of chip litter at a feed store for like 9 bucks, and I do mean BIG. Aquariums are fine for this. Lots better for breeding feeders than for the snakes as far as I'm concerned.

You can add vanilla (I'm told imitation vanilla also works) to the water and it will greatly decrease the smell.
You can also go with African Soft Fur Rats. They are Less smelly but certainly not odor free. The down side to African Soft furs are that they can be EVIL INCARNATE and will come at you. Some folks have also reported that their snakes won't eat other feeders once they get on A.S.F.'s.
The good points are:
They generally have larger litters. All mine have been great parent and the mom's will baby sit and feed each others kids.
When you have a problem snake as far as eating, A.S.F.'s can be hunger strike breakers.

Hope maybe this helped. Maybe you could find an A.S.F. breeder near you and try those, or mice, whatever.