I started with 17 snakes earlier this year with both a small colony of mice and the rats. I have a total of 12 rat eaters and 5 mouse eaters at the moment. For me, I have a few who feed better in live or pre kill and it is significantly cheaper to breed my own and have that readily available. One of the local places that sells live feeders charges $4.50 plus tax for a live rat pup which makes the difference in cost significantly easier to justify. By my calculations, even with my upfront costs, it will work out cheaper to breed by a significant margin even just to feed my own snakes if they did all eat frozen thaw.
I also enjoy the rodents themselves and while they're not pets, the breeders are definitely treated well. It helps significantly that I invested in pet-quality lines for my rats; no tub chewing and no aggression whatsoever, if you start from scratch with pet store animals or feeder bin animals, breeding out those traits can be frustrating and cost a lot (chewers especially when you have to replace bins or cover holes frequently).
Since my rats are pet quality, I have the option to raise up extras for sale to pet homes to offset the cost of feed and bedding as well as excess feeders to local friends.
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