I just started raising our own. Our first pair started out as snake food, and by the time the snake would eat, the rats were too big. Peekaboo had her first litter a month after being with Scabbers. None of my snakes needed pinkies, so I raised the first of them to just over 2 weeks, (fuzzies) & fed to the rats. The fancy rat sites say not to wean until 5 weeks (4 minimum) but Peek started weaning at 3. By then they all had fur and their eyes were open. I fed some and they were the right size for the snakes.

At 4-5 weeks, they were getting too big for my needs, so I euthanized and froze them. My Pissy Snake just took the first one for the first time last week. He's been on live adult mice for about 2.5 months, but he's since taken a FT rat pup. I tried again early this morning after work, but he refused.

My daughter just got a baby corn, and it's still needing MICE pinkies. I've got 3 females preggers right now, and I bought some frozen because I didn't know how soon the mice would pop and I didn't want to run out.

I knew going into it that I'd be doing in the litter, but it was hard. I don't know about your area, but it cost me $45 to get the hose, CO2 bottle, valve, etc. in order to gas them. Beside the bedding, feed, blocks/salt, housing to keep them all healthy. I did it because shipping is sooooooooo expensive for me to get the FT from a vendor, but I may change my mind after a while. Peek and Scabbers are pets now anyway, so it doesn't matter one way or another. I am thinking of breeding her again, so that I can freeze some rat pinkies for Wrigley. He's upchucked the rat pup and the mice I've fed him, so this next time I'll try something smaller again.