A question of Ethics

[blindfireak40]

Here's a completely hypothetical thought, and I was just wondering where you guys stood on it:

It's fairly widely accepted that Rats are superior food items for rodent-eating snakes. It's also a commonly noted phenomenon that some snakes tend to want to stick to mice once they've been started on them. A lot of snakes (especially colubrids) start on mice, because rat pinks are too large.

The question is this: If there was a non-invasive way (think chemical or herbal means) to induce labor in rats, would it be ethical to induce it at early enough a stage that the rat pinks could be consumed by baby colubrids? Would there still even be health benefits with slightly underdeveloped prey items? Discuss.