Ken, I've been raising my own since I started and that was only having one snake at the time. While it has gotten alot more cost effective to be raising my own since I have more snakes now it still did help then when rodents where harder to get a hold of especially with no one local.

I have mainly kept mice and a few rats but am slowly shifting the balance to be heavier on the rat side...there are alot of advantages: MUCH less smell, much more variety of sizes, nutritional value (?), and did I mention less smell?? If you can get away with it I'd say rats are the way to go if you don't need anything smaller than a rat pup for any of your reptiles. I still need pinkie mice so I keep just a couple females now. If you selectively breed or find a strain known for large litters you can produce pretty good numbers.

I keep mine in big tubs, same advantages as with reptiles in tubs. Easy to move, clean, etc. Just have to watch for chewing and make sure you use tubs that don't have any lips or edges they can easily get to. I haven't had any mice or rats chew out of any tubs yet and I just use steralite. There was another topic where it was mentioned using big paper clasps to hold the lids on..definately a must to secure the lid. If your going to be using glass I'm sure there are other things you can use to keep the lid secure.

For feeding I use a combination of the Kaytee blocks which can be purchased online for MUCH cheaper than you will see in any store plus you get a 10% discount for 3 bags or more..they are only 2.5lb bags but still worth it for me I just order alot of them. I feed that in combination with seed diet (not alot) daily vegetables and some fruits as we have them in the house.