I feed live because thawing rodents takes time, and if there is a refusal..they go in the trash. It seems like such a waste of life I hate throwing away uneaten rats.

Live is just easier for me. If a snake doesn't eat, the rat goes to someone else or back in the bin for next week. No meaningless loss of life!

As for breeding, I breed ASF so I can't really help you with the rats, but you could start with one female rat per snake for a while and see how that goes, then expand if you need to.

I'm in the process of expanding my rat breeding. 9 tubs- 4 breeding tubs, 4 tubs for creating new groups/grow-outs, and one grow out tub for the remainders.

The most annoying part about rats is cleaning though. I feel like I spend more time with the rats than I do with the snakes! Haha