African soft fur rats are steadily becoming more available. With that, the price is dropping very quickly ($10/trio). It won't be long before they are the same price as regular mice and rats. From what I have read and asked of breeders, their litter size is comparable to that of standard rats. I believe in the future most rodent breeders will also carry ASF. I'm not sure on how fast they reach adult size, but I do know breeder sets will consume a lot less food than a breeding set of large rats. The benefit that they will never outgrow food size for my ball pythons is just a plus for me. I don't plan on switching all my snakes to these, right now just going to give them a try. I have talked to a couple of bp breeders that have tryed ASF rats and have had great success with them and are considering switching more animals to them. Most will keep regular rats and mice to feed to babies that will be sold.