About being expensive, its your thing. You know your budget and how much you want to spend. I can,t comment on that. But the other thing about the rat biting a Boa Constrictor which is raised on eating live, this is a myth to me. It can happen only if the owner made on of these mistakes: The snake don,t want to eat and you did not watch over and did not take the rat out. The size of the rat is too big compared with the snake. Or if you put the rat suddenly in the cage without letting the snake smell the air first to know what,s coming. Other than that, it won,t happen. Boa Constrictor is not a corn snake. Its one of the most powerful constrictors in the world