I can't breed my own rodents as I live in a small apartment, and my landlords would freak. I even had to pay a deposit to have my snakes, (and lizards), and they made me promise in writing to only feed F/T to the snakes and mealworms to the lizards.....no crickets allowed, (specifically so I would not try to breed my own, I had to promise so they would allow me to have the critters). Though I could try to do it on the sly, it's not worth an eviction notice. So, I'm always looking for a better mousetrap so to speak. The chain pet stores are hugely overpriced on F/T IMHO, but I found a locally-owned mom & pop who breed their own and charge about a third less than the biggies do. Only problem is they are occasionally out for weeks at a time, so I have to stock up when I can. I will probably give Layne Labs or Rodent Pro a try one of these days, but the shipping costs are brutal and it's only cost effective per-rodent if you order upwards of a hundred at a time. It just so happens that the mom & pop sells F/T mice so cheap I can buy three mice for the cost of one rat of any size, (even teens and fuzzies). Therefore my snakes, even the adults, get fed large mice most of the time. It costs me less to feed three large mice than one med rat, so other than my biggest female, (who gets a med rat usually), all the snakes are usually fed smaller, more frequent meals, (shhh, don't tell the snakes, they just think I'm spoiling them!). I pay $1.89 for mice, while any rat is $5.99

As to cleanliness when breeding rodents, like all things it depends how it's done. I've seen large-scale pet-specific rodent facilities that smelled like an ammonia factory, mainly because they just didn't bother to keep it consistently clean. However, I have also seen large-scale lab facilities that were breeding rodents for scientific purposes where you could eat off the floor and couldn't smell much of anything. I bred my share of rodents in past decades, and if cleaned regularly the smell can be managed, but it is labor intensive. I agree with whoever suggested harem breeding, that's the way to go.

S