NORWAY RATS all the way. Considerably easier to breed, FAR fewer aggression problems between each other, and much lower chance of a mother killing her babies. They also seem to breed MUCH more consistently than ASFs or Mice. If I miss a pregnant rat and am too late in moving to a maternity tub, male norway rats rarely ever harm the babies. If I have orphaned baby rats due to a first time mom not quite being sure of how to be a mom, I never have an issue with being able to plop the babies in with another mom to take care of them.
Mice are notoriously a pain in the rear, frequently are aggressive towards each other and are MUCH more sensitive/easily stressed, and therefore tend to have more issues being good mothers.
I like ASFs and have a very small colony, but they don't get large enough to be able to feed just a single one as a proper meal for a large BP, and you would need several to feed anything but the smallest RTB. They take FOREVER to become sexually mature, but once able, they produce produce produce, and then they stop entirely... in a norway rat colony you can very easily add 'new blood'. Very frequently with ASFs people have difficulty introducing new blood to the colony and unless you are adding very young ASFs, the adults will frequently attack each other.
As for nutritional value, I can't weigh in. I feed Norways, and only have ASFs to scent rats for stubborn eaters, or to start babies if they wont start on rat pinks (rarely an issue). My primary reason for keeping ASFs is that I would like to have a large enough colony to be able to sell to others for feeders, because otherwise they don't have much use for my snakes.
You couldn't pay me enough to breed mice.
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