Thinking...

[presspirate]

I'm considering buying snakes for a breeding project down the road. I feel it would be a decent idea to offset the cost of the hobby. I don't want to do anything too cray to begin with, and obviously I can't spend thousands of dollars on a pair of snakes to breed. I'm kind of thinking of a pair of straight jungles, or a pair of Dumeril's.
So, I guess my question is what would offer the best R.O.I., Whats the best way to go about selling the young after they are born. I'll eventually ask about the whole breeding process.....but I need the snakes first. So, where do you guys think I should stick my money? (Please, no BP's or Corns)

Thanks

[Aaron_S]

You want a return on investment and don't want to buy ball pythons? You're nuts.

It's much harder selling a clutch of straight jungles than it is to sell a clutch of ball python mutations. If it's purely for profit then I suggest ball pythons. A couple others you can look into are blood pythons as well as boas depending on how the ban is going.

[presspirate]

It just seems that there are so many BP's and corns out there already that the market must be flooded with them.

[percey39]

Hmm i would do as freebody suggested said in another thread and buy a pied ball and a pastel black as well. Then you can produce panda's and make thousands upon thousands with an initial outlay of $3200

[Freebody]

Yuppers :) and they look amazing, or get a pied and breed it with a lavander albino and make dreamsicles they sell for 3k as well. to be honest you can make blue eyed lucys with a long list of snakes that would cost a total of 700 and they sell for 2.5 k , butters, mojave, lessers are just a couple off the top of my head that can be breed to make supers. which in these cases are blue eyed luecys, 2 fires makes black eyed luecys. Ball pythons are great id you get multi morphs in one snake. thats where the money in them is :) GL

[mykee]

I've produced over 1500 ball pythons since I started breeding and I've always sold out by Christmas of the same year, without exception. Keep in mind that I'm in Southwestern Ontario (an hour west of Toronto) so my market is substantially smaller (1/10th) of yours.
If you're not going to breed ball pythons, you're doing your pocketbook a disservice.

"Yuppers and they look amazing, or get a pied and breed it with a lavander albino and make dreamsicles they sell for 3k as well that project will take at least five years to produce a dreamsicle, and even then, you're only looking at a 12.5% cance of getting one with an eight egg clutch... and they won't be worth $3K then.. to be honest you can make blue eyed lucys with a long list of snakes that would cost a total of 700 and they sell for 2.5 k BEL's are selling for between $1200-$1500, butters, mojave, lessers are just a couple off the top of my head that can be breed to make supers. which in these cases are blue eyed luecys, 2 fires makes black eyed luecys. Ball pythons are great id you get multi morphs in one snake. thats where the money in them is GL "

"Hmm i would do as freebody suggested said in another thread and buy a pied ball and a pastel black as well. Then you can produce panda's and make thousands upon thousands with an initial outlay of $3200 "
A male pied is $2000 for a breedable IF you can find one. A female black pastel will run you $1000 if she's breeder sized.
Year One: You breed them, 50% of your clutch are het pieds, and 50% are black pastel het pieds, and that's IF she breeds.
Hopefully, you have 1.1 black pastel het pieds to breed together.
Year Four: The female is now three years old and ready to breed.
You pair the two BP het pieds.
You have a 1 in 8 chance or 12.5% chance of popping out a super black pastel pied.
In four years, a panda pied will be worth about $1500 because SO many people will have already produced them (myself included)
But what do you do? Remember, 12.5% chance of getting one. Keep it and breed it? Sell it and give away the project?
Ball python breeding is as large a mental game as it is anything else.

[Freebody]

it is so worth it in the end, but your right its not easy or it would be dirt cheep already. if and when my mothers het peids breed, im going buy a pastel black and try to produce one, but that years from now so i may just get a pied and buy a darn panda peid by then LOL :)

[D&J-burgos]

purple passion, caramel glow, bumble bee pied the BPS i want the most

[presspirate]

That's what I'm saying, there are already so many BP breeders out there, that everything either has been done, or will be soon (As with any other snake breeds.) So to jump in late in the game and try to play catch up would probably be fruitless. And the marketplace is so much bigger than your local are anymore. Maybe breeding snakes is not a great way for me to offset the cost of my hobby.....

[percey39]

In four years, a panda pied will be worth about $1500 because SO many people will have already produced them (myself included)
But what do you do? Remember, 12.5% chance of getting one. Keep it and breed it? Sell it and give away the project?
Ball python breeding is as large a mental game as it is anything else.

I understand this completely, but if you strike lucky and manage to get a male and female panda in the first 2 clutches ( after breeding the initial one ). Then you could still cash in on popular snake. I dont know the first thing about bp's but IF you managed to breed a panda pair would that not still be a $11,500 clutch right there!

[infernalis]

Maybe breeding snakes is not a great way for me to offset the cost of my hobby.....


If I can pay for my garter snake habit with garter snakes, anyone can support the habit with anything. ;)

[Will0W783]

True, there are an awful lot of BP breeders out there on the one hand, but on the other hand, there is usually a large market for BPs. I just made the decision to back out of BP morphs, because the market around here is not good, and there are many others who do a much better job than I could any time in the near future.

Presspirate, basically with a smaller investment, you will get smaller return. If you buy a very expensive pair of breeding morphs of anything, the babies will be worth more. However, if you invest thousands of dollars on a pair of snakes, and something goes wrong during the breeding and you lose one, well then you have lost that much more money. I'm not one to look at breeding snakes as a monetary windfall. If mine can someday pay for their own care, that would be great. If there's profit after that, all the better. But I'm looking mainly to support my collection and produce some beautiful, quality babies.

Some things that could be interesting to get into, and cost you less than a grand for a pair that will breed in 1-2 years include: Stimsons/Childrens/Spotted pythons ($250-400/pair), Jungle jaguars (a jungle jag and a jungle will run you close to a grand for a good-sized pair that will need another 1-2 years before breeding), albino boas, green tree pythons and emerald tree boas. However, I would NOT recommend GTPs or ETBs as your first breeding attempt- both are delicate species and a lot can go wrong. Even seasoned breeders occasionally lose a female GTP to complications, so it's even harder for beginners.

If I were you, honestly, I would opt to go for a less expensive, hardy species to start off with: carpets, Children's pythons, something like that. It will be a small initial investment and the babies won't be a windfall, but carpets are hardy snakes and can tolerate the bumblings of beginners a bit better than a lot of other species. Stimsons and Children's pythons do not necessarily need cooling in order to stimulate breeding, and are small snakes that usually produce clutches readily. Again, these are very hardy species and are recommended for beginners. Once you have managed a few successful clutches with the first species, then you can look into more expensive designer morphs.
This is just a suggestion, but it's a philosophy that, if done carefully, stands to benefit both you and your animals in the long run.

[presspirate]

Thank you Willow. That was very informative.:yes: I'm glad you seem to understand my thinking. I'm not looking to make a fortune here. Just enough to buy rats, maybe pay for a vet visit or two should the need arise, I don't have. nor do I want hundreds of snakes. Maybe I should have been clearer in my initial post.....:sorry:

And yeah, with the luck I sometimes have I'd buy a $1000 snake and the power would go out for 4 days or something, I'd end up keeping it warm in a sleeping bag with body heat and farts......:no: