I'm in your situation also, surprisingly (I live in Orange County, CA - too bad BP's don't get big enough to eat snooty Chihuaha's and other foo-foo designer dogs /endrant). For me, it's not really that the frozen rats from Petco are expensive (Petsmart in my area is a little more, and you get less), it's that they are more expensive and I'm assuming lower quality. I don't know where the rats I'm getting are from, and how they were raised or what they were fed. I looked into some of the online suppliers listed here, but you have to buy in bulk. I only have one BP. I also went to the two exotic stores out here - one doesn't carry feeders, and the other stopped selling frozen. They did offer to break the neck of the live rats they sell...