Petco is expensive, but there "feeder" mice and rats are actualy pets (well, its more of a "we don't call them feeders") so when you go into petco for snake food, you are actualy getting something ment to be a pet.

Actualy I would not mind picking up a couple rats from petco every so often as they do look clean. If I was to start breeding rats, I would likly start with petco for the parents (would need to go to different ones to get males and females).

If you see a prego rat or mouse, grab it and get another for your animal... wait till the female pops and let her raise the babies a bit and when they are weaned, just feed them off