Well, I don't have a lot of time under my belt, but I raise both rats and mice, and I cycle breed my rats, so I'll try my best to help...
First of all, rats eat 10x more than mice.
Pregnant/nursing rats eat an insane amount, which is good. In most cases, they only need a week of rest before they go into the breeder tank.
But here's the catch-22.
The growing mice eat a lot and they take a lot of time to get big enough.
I've found that rats have some major advantages.
1. MUCH easier to cycle breed. Rats tolerate shuffling of cagemates a lot better than mice.
2. They stink less. A LOT less. I guarantee that 3 mice and 5 rats will stink a LOT less than 6 or 8 mice and 3 rats and you'll need more mice to produce the same amount of feeders because the mice grow a LOT more slowly. Think of all those male juvenile mice eating solid food and peeing in the corners. Ugh.
3. Baby rats are much easier to handle than adult mice, the mice will be able to run and have fully functional teeth and claws. The baby rats will barely have their eyes open. Mice scatter and run from you, the baby rats are in piles. If you drop an adult mouse, it runs by instinct. Drop a baby rat, and it lays there.
4. Snakes seem to grow much more quickly eating a diet of baby rats than adult mice. Mice and rats of the same size really AREN'T. The baby rats weigh more, and that's what counts.
5. You're much more likely to produce a surplus with rats, which means you feed the babies off at a younger age, which in turn means the snakes digest faster, and the rats get more rest. Also, less smell than the mousie alternative. Feeding small items more frequently is easier on both snake and rat alike.
6. Dietary requirements and lifespans. Rats will tolerate a so-so diet, and will compensate by getting skinny, scratching them selves, or eating more. Mice compensate by eating their young or getting tumors. It's much easier to feed rats.
I'd recommend starting off with 1 male and 2 female rats, 2 or 3 10 gallon aquariums with screen tops, and a 40L or 55g aquarium with screen top or equivalent homemade housing for the rats and a single 10 gallon aquarium and screen top for the mice and leaving them together.
From the rats first litter, save 2 females and let them raise them. These rats will be much friendlier than the ones you got from the store because the pet store is a traumatic place for animals.
Let them stay with the mommies, and I wouldn't separate the male from the females on the first litter. Once the females start to look a little plump, put them both in a 10g tank, leaving the little ones with dad.
Once the mommies in the maternity ward have their babies and they are fed off (If you want to save another 2 females, go ahead.), give them a week of rest and put them in with dad.
Eventually, you get to the point where you have have 6 or 8 females and one male, and all it takes is a 10g cage, screen top, water bottle and hanger for every pair of females. It's fairly easy to set the 10 gallon tanks on a cheap plastic rack from a home improvement place, and it looks fairly organized without building a rack system for tubs. You really don't need one with less than 50 snakes to feed.
It's much easier to clean 10g tanks than the 40L or 55g tank.

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