I have to admit I take better care of my feeder rats than a lot of people do their housedogs. The feeders even get toys, special treats of food, and I clean their cage religiously anytime it get smelly or once a week, whichever comes first. The snakes are cleaned reguarly and my poor little Hepburn has another appointment at the vet college to be seen and have blood taken.
Side note: I honestly believe there are several reasons to take really great care of your feeder rats.
1. Bored rats destroy stuff, including waterers, caging,each other, etc. Give them things to do, hide the food in cardboard tubes, toys to drag about, and they won't be as bored.
2. Clean rats with good wholesome food are healthy rats. Healthy feeders gain weight better and have less disease, which means a better meal for your snake.
3. Stressed rats will not gain weight and are more disposed to cannabalize each other. Better weight feeders and none lost due to being eaten alive by their cagemates saves money.
4. It is only humane to give them a happy interesting environment while you have them. Any animal I keep is treated as good as I possibly can, as I believ it is my responsibility to that animal to provide properly for it. Rats really are intelligent social critters and make wonderful pets. I play with mine a lot. I still don't feel 'bad' for them when they get eaten, they generally have a swift death and did have a great time up until that death. The ones I buy as adults, you can SEE the difference in their behavior by the time they have been around a week or so.
Recently I had a friend pay me one of the highest compliments ever. He said "If reincarnation is real, then I want to come back as one of your feeder rats. One, I'd have a GREAT time playing and eating all the time, and two, I'd get to move on to a new body pretty quickly as soon as I got eaten." I had to laugh.
Sorry for the length. I need more cold medicine. Plague monkeys.
Wolfy