There is alot of info about breeding rats as feeders in the feeder forum. A summery of breeding rats and gestation is below:

Good ratio for a couple snakes: 1:2 or 1:3 if you want to sell off excess.

Gestation; 19-21 days
Litter size: 8-12 on average.
Weaned: 3-4 weeks Separate males from females by 4 weeks of age.

females should be at 3-4 months old before being bred for best results.

Food: best food is a quality rodent lab chow for nursing/breeding rodents. Providing cooked chicken (or other non red meats), vegetablies, some fruit, grains (large parrot mix is good) for variety is good. High protein (19%-24% protein, around 8-10% fat) dogfood without any red dyes can be used instead of the rodent chow.

Caging: most people who breed rats for feeders put them in cages much to small in my opinion. A large rubbermaid (opaque one, not clear) container with hardware cloth stapled over a large hole cut into the lid works well for 3-4 adult rats and babies. For racks, most use the large cement mixing troughs. These are not as tall as the rubbermaid containers so rats lose that extra space in height. But that is up to you. You can't use the hoop style feeders in the rubbermaid containers, so ceramic bowls are needed.

Bedding should be kiln dried pine shavings, aspen shavens, CareFresh, Yesterday's News, shredded newspapers or similiar non cedar substrates. Mulch could be used but I find it is too damp for mice/rats.

Hmm, that pretty much covers it. Oh for small breeding groups, its always best to be friendly with the adult rats, makes removing offspring easier. But even then, I recommend removing all the adults out of the cage, then the babies. Extra babies can be frozen and thawed later.

With weekly cleanings, the smell isn't too bad. Aspen, carefresh, yesternews (a pelleted kitty litter made from newspaper pulp) and to a lesser extent, the pine shavings, help reduce odor.

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