Thanks for your reply, rapture!
You've given me a lot of information.

I actually didn't consider that keeping live rats would be more of a benefit! now that you mention it I can see it making f/t feeding a lot easier.
and good call on the reversed schedules, too... even though I knew BPs were nocturnal it didn't occur to me for some reason that their active times would be offset.

I'll be moving back to chicago in a month or so, I'll have to check and see if my new herp/exotics vet has any sort of discount for seeing multiple animals at a time. I assume that snakes should have a similar fecal check schedule to BD's, every six for the first two years and then once a year in adulthood?

thanks again for your help! You've really eased my mind about the housing situation. Best wishes.