Mice and rats that are bred specifically for feeding don't carry disease, at least I don't think they do. If they did, why would we be feeding them to our snakes ^_^ And a mouse that is say 1-7 days old can't be that dirty o_O

Also, just so you know, getting a store to kill your mice for you, isn't really logical. The whole point of feeding P/K is so that the mouse retains as much body warmth as possible, fooling the snake into thinking its still alive. Plus, it's such a hassle to have to run out to the store every 5-10 days when you need a new mouse. I think this is the reason why most petstores and such won't kill your rodents for you.

Pre-killed, P/K, is referring to a mouse that you kill just prior to feeding, like say it's killed within 5minutes of feeding. Frozen/thawed, F/T, is a mouse that was killed by someone else, usually by a CO2 gas chamber and then frozen. If you get F/T, then you have to thaw it out before feeding. Some people put it on their heat pads to thaw out, some use their heat lamps.

I personally put the mouse in a small ziploc sandwich baggy and fill my bathroom sink up with hot water. I then put the baggy in the water for about 3-5 minutes and then take the mouse out and dry it off with tissues. I then dangle it near my snake and move it around the tank slowly like it is running around and she will follow and strike. Though sometimes she will just go right after it without a mouse dance ^_^

If your snake is between 1-12 months old, I would suggest feeding one appropirately sized food item ever 5-7 days. I personally feed Elysia, my 9 month old MBK, 1 fuzzy evey 5 days. And intent to continue doing so until she is at least 12 months old. If you feed them once every week, they will grow faster then if you feed them once every 2 weeks. Though I have read a couple threads here that say feeding 2 smaller prey items instead of one big one, 2-3 days apart, make the snake grown much faster then 1 bigger meal. I dunno about this myself. All I can say is it seems easiest to feed them once every 5-7 days until they are older then once every 7-10 days is ok.