I've bred rats for feeding for a few years but I'm planning to stop. My snake collection hovers around 2 dozen or so and I prefer to feed live. Economically speaking, it definitely is a money saver however, I find myself spending way more time with the rats than I do my snakes and that's been bugging me. I have the rats in a shed and every year, a fluke of a hot day comes along and wipes out half the colony and I end up starting all over again. There is also a rat size issue I have since I have lots of snakes. I always have tons of rat pups but never anything bigger because I don't have space to grow them up which ends up with me buying the larger sizes from stores anyway.

With that said, I think it's awesome to breed your own rats if you have a small snake collection OR if you have tons of space to grow the rats OR minions to do your bidding and have them clean the rat cages OR your snakes are willing to eat frozen in case you don't have enough rats.

As for the smell, I heard that you can put some vanilla extract in the water and it'll help tremendously. PLEASE RESEARCH THIS BEFORE TRYING. I have not done this myself since I breed them outside the house but a friend has tried it and said it worked for him.

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