So I have been breeding for bout 4 years now and a good buddy of mine introduced me to the breeding of Ball Pythons. I have around a 100 Balls now and bred my own rats for about 3 years out of the 4. I still continue to breed rats on a much smaller scale because i breed for all my hatchlings and then once they are around 300 grams i switch them to F/T! Yes all my snakes i have switched over to F/T besides 4. Not bad in my opinion. Now I have taken the ones that eat F/T continuously and just tested to see if they will eat live again, and to no surprise they the eat them every time. I guess what i am getting at is people know that i have not bred rats on a semi-large basis in the past 3 years, but yet i always get messages or phone calls to see if they can buy rats. My point is i know rats have been at a shortage but now with a lot of newer breeders jumping in the hobby (Which i think is great, way more opportunity for everyone!) it seems that even F/T rats are at an all time low as well. lol. just wanted to see you alls opinion on if you feel rats are in a bigger demand right now then they were already. LOL That’s my story/question for now. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
I’m interested to hear others with experience weigh in on this as well.
Yeah, my local breeder I get live feeders from has had to start making long trips to pick up feeders elsewhere to feed their snakes and the snakes of customers buying from them.
I myself am not producing any babies either, which is frustrating because $40 a week for feeders is pretty spendy. Hoping some of my holdback females start getting preggo soon!
I live near ARS so I just go pick up a bag of F/T rats from them whenever I need em. Never had a situation where they didn’t have what I needed. My local pet store that sells live has plenty of em too.
yep that is usually how it goes, i think rat breeding just might be where the money is at. LOL
I typically don’t like buying them from the local pet stores because they’re nasty and mean. Way more prone to fighting back than the ones I get from reptile breeders!
yeah i breed enough to get the little babies use to eating then im all abut F/T because it is just to much simpler!
I only do live if I’m able to stand there and supervise the entire process.
I have some snakes that can be shy feeders, so with them I’ll usually just kill a rat myself and leave it in their tub for them to find. Usually they pick it up and eat it within a few minutes though!
I’ll also sometimes offer stunned/prekilled to snakes like my boy Peanut, only because he sucks at aiming half the time 
Supply vs Demand, more and more people are wise to ball pythons now and with morphs becoming more attainable every year, even more people are getting in to keeping. Trend is whether you breed or not, snakes tend to multiply. Which is to say not to many people have just one snake. Add in the internet, people sharing their husbandry techniques, the old buy and die method of selling reptiles (big box stores) is walking its way out the door. So the snakes people get are living longer
Rodent breeders are having a hard time keeping up with the demand
Post has been kind of necro’d, are people still experiencing shortages? I suppose it would vary mostly by local area, but there has been a 'rona virus boom for reptile breeders all over the place it seems. We’re starting up a medium size ASF and Norway breeding operation in S. Ontario so it’d be interesting to hear if anyone else is having supply issues around here.