Hello fellow Chicagoan!
I also attend the Wheaton reptile show (which is the one you go to I assume)
I picked up a trio to breed at the show earlier this may. From what I have read, and in my experience, the ASFs grow fairly quickly, reaching adulthood in about 3 months. Kind of a long time, but they reproduce like crazy. Back to back litters.
ASFs are nice because they don't get much bigger than the size of a small rat. I'm not sure how big your BP is at a year old, perhaps adult ASFs would be the perfect size, therefor keeping a few of them around for a few months wouldn't render them useless as feeders for your snake.
As for switching back to rats, I think it is possible but sometimes balls can be very picky and never switch back. Once my colony gets started, I plan on switching all my snakes over to ASFs so I don't need to buy frozen anymore.
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