breeding rats.. practical?

[bleeding_sarcasm]

so i go every week to my local vivarium for my rats to feed my snake.. and... recently theyve been running a little low on live rodents and so they dont really have a very good selection of sizes. i bought 2 smaller rat pups because they didnt have one large one.

and im wondering if it would be practical for me to just buy an adult pair of rats and start breeding them myself. using what i needed and selling the rest back for credit at the store... i know they smell. but other then that i really know very little about rat upkeep and whatnot.

its more of a vauge idea then an actual plan. and any comments would be welcome.

i only spend about 2$ per rat pup and its not like its putting me back alot. i drop quite a bit of money there on a regular basis [60$ today] and i could definitely use the credit... but i thought i would kindof put it out there and see what people say before i actually propose something.

thanks alot.

[Sunn]

If I only had one snake I wouldn't bother breeding my own rats.....
with 15 it's quite a different story......I breed them, send them to heaven
and then vaccum freeze them. Occasionally I still buy from breeders and send
those to heaven also due to my need for so many sizes and recently reducing
my colony to only a dozen breeders.

You could buy a few more at a time and freeze them to reduce the chance of parasites though.

[Silvermoonfox]

First, rats don't smell unless you're not taking care of them, a pair of adult rats would need to have their bedding changed about every week. Second, unless you're feeding several snakes breeding your own isn't really practical. Most pet stores will only give you 25 cents per rat pup if they'll take them at all. And most pet stores, especially ones that sell snakes already have an over abundance of juveniles and adults. Considering that a momma rat can have anywhere from 5-15 babies you'd have to be prepared for a bunch of rats. And since rats are prolific little critters the babies would start breeding at 5-6 weeks old. Very easily you could wind up with a huge population!! Of course you could kill and freeze the rats yourself, but if you're going to do that it is probably easier just to buy frozen. No mess, no hassel.