Thinking of starting a snake breeding business.

[Wildside]

Originally Posted by mykee

You have a LOT to learn before you jump into this venture.

Such as how you will make rent in the off season?

[Terranaut]

Originally Posted by mykee

You have a LOT to learn before you jump into this venture.

All I can say is Yup!!!

[mykee]

From some one who routinely sells a lot of his lower end "newbie" stock to multiple pet stores, as a breeder, you get about 30% of their retail for your stock. Pet stores won't even look at you for the most part as well if you aren't selling ten lots or more.

[HerpVenue]

How much is electricity for your house?
How much will it be for a big warehouse?
What about essentials of breeding? Enclosures for breeders and neonates, thermostats, heating, thermometers, tape, shipping boxes, snake bags, incubators, cage liners or whatever you will use, Insurance, Rent, Water, Electricity, Security System, gas, sewer, trash. What about website, advertising, classified memberships.

Sure money can be made. But you have to start out small unless you have lots of money to burn. Small so you can figure out all the ins and out and iron out all the details.

Do you want the feeders to pay for themselves? How are you going to do that? Sell at wholesale to stores? Sell to the public so every Tom, **** and Harry knows where your place is and can rob you?

[shaunyboy]

imo you really need to produce,high end top quality snakes,also imo you need to try and work out,which type of snake will be " the in thing " next year,then the year after,then the year after,etc,etc

then even if you manage,to produce the next big thing,the prices will drop relatively slowly for the first 3 years,then after that,imo the prices plummet down really fast,with the snakes costing a mere fraction,of what they did 4 years previously...

take the Zebra Jungle Carpet Python Morph,hatchlings were around
£2200 3 years ago,£1200 2 years ago,£750 1 year ago,now you will get one for around £400,so it don't last long...

then you need the next big thing....

if you want to breed straight away,then you would have to buy,the much more expensive,sexually mature adults,that or wait 4 years on hatchlings getting up to size,but by then its 4 year later and the hatchlings they would produce are now dirt cheap

if you want to get into higher end Morphs,then adults of rare Morphs command crazy prices,i once saw a royal python (ball python) Multipule Gene Morph,go up for sale at £32,000,but that snake most likely have took 12 or more years to create

then there's things like,snakes who don't produce,snakes that get ill,people lose interest in those particular snakes,a few people produce the exact same type of snake flooding the market,etc,etc

i remember a few years ago,another Carpet Keeper i regard as a good friend and my mentor,brought the price of Bredl Pythons down,from £150 to £200 each,to £85 each.....

this was achieved with,one large clutch of Bredl that he produced,then simply dropped his price,he believes that when he sells them cheap,they become more accessable,so more can keep them and maybe go on to breed more beautiful Carpet Pythons

if he makes enough money from hatchlings,to buy another couple of snakes,to add to his already impressive Morelia Collection,then he's happy...

if he also makes enough to cover his hobby,then he's bloody exstatic,but as said it's all about the snakes with him,imo in the last 2 years he has become one of the top,if not thee top,producer of top end,high class Morelia in the UK,imo he's catching up to Europe,this year he sold the cheapest Zebra's i've ever seen,he also produced Zebra Diamond Jungle Jag's,Zebra Jag's,etc

that breeding season just past,he most likely for the first time ever,made a good few thousand,which is great,but next year he won't have much too breed as he rests his females,then after a year off,they next time they are bred,the prices will have dropped,because more people are breeding them each year,as their snakes become sexually mature.

he bought some Albino Carpets this year,but will have to wait 2 years on them maturing,so hopefully he will get another bumper year,before things start dropping in price,there will also be more people with the same aged Albino's,who may produce for the first time,the same as my friend

so imo there's a lot of ups and down's financially,also there will be a lot of educated guesses going on

survive all that and you may just make it

sorry for all the doom and gloom,i only want you to go into this venture,with your eyes wide open,imo if you know what your up against,then you know what you have to do,in order to get through it

i sincerely wish you all the best,should you precede with your venture

cheers shaun

[Jay]

There is a great animated video that you should see.

[shaunyboy]

reptile shops in my area will tell you,they make their solid weekly money,from selling,frozen prey,live prey,also reptile accessories like,vivariums,thermostats,heat mats,etc

selling people reptiles,makes them have to spend a large amount initially,then weekly money comes in from the new keepers,weekly reptile needs

imo you would have more chance of making money breeding prey,to sell to the masses...

a snakes gotta eat

cheers shaun

[snakeman879]

Start small take your time and all the best to you good luck

[Kingsnakechris]

day jobs lol

[Aanayab1]

I think the OP may have decided not to return.....

[Kingsnakechris]

I don't see why, no one was rude and his question was answerd promptly

[Skumbo]

People don't like thinking that they were wrong or something they want to do isnt going to work. But the reality is, it's going to cost him tens of thousands to get this going, and making it up through pet store sales isn't going to happen any time soon. Ive gone into a lot of local pet stores, and most of the reptiles are still there week to week.

[millertime89]

Knowing several breeders who do this for a living and several more who do it on top of their regular jobs (for one it IS his regular job during the winter when construction isn't exactly do-able here in NE) it is a LOT of work. Something that the aforementioned breeder who also owns his own construction company said to me really sticks in my mind, its a full time job and he only has about 4 dozen breeders and holdbacks. So during the summer he works 2 full time jobs along with some volunteer help from friends and family. The guys who are making good money off of breeding are lucky (another friend got the Trick gene from two snakes that he was sold as not having said gene) and are in it for the love of the animals, not the money. If you want to see what happens to the people that are in it for the money go search some of the other boards, stories abound with people in it for the money, they get in, they realize how much work it is, and get out, often taking a loss. If you really want to do this, find something that not many people are working with that you like and work with them, there's enough ball python, corn snake, and single gene retic breeders out there.

And no, pet stores won't buy normal retics off of you for 50 bucks, they sell normal ball pythons for 70-100 when they're buying them for less than 10 a piece. And PLEASE don't wholesale retics to pet stores, there's enough bad owners out there who buy them because they're cute hatchings and get scared when their 24" baby retic turns into a 12 footer after 2 years and don't know what to do with it. We don't need any more of those stories and unfortunately that's what we get from pet-store sold retics all too often.

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by millertime89

... If you really want to do this, find something that not many people are working with that you like and work with them, there's enough ball python, corn snake, and single gene retic breeders out there...

I really dislike when people say this type of stuff. It's the snake snob-i-ness coming out I suppose

Just because it's not something everything is working with doesn't mean it's automatically going to make you a ton of money. For example, no body really works with the rubber boa but that doesn't mean you'll make money hand over fist breeding them. There's still limited people who can or want to keep them. Especially with the more difficult to keep animals.

The reason people breed those animals en masse is because there's a large demand for them and because it's SO easy to keep them. There's always a beginner out there but there's not many people who can handle white lipped pythons on a day-to-day basis.

[millertime89]

Originally Posted by Aaron_S

I really dislike when people say this type of stuff. It's the snake snob-i-ness coming out I suppose

Just because it's not something everything is working with doesn't mean it's automatically going to make you a ton of money. For example, no body really works with the rubber boa but that doesn't mean you'll make money hand over fist breeding them. There's still limited people who can or want to keep them. Especially with the more difficult to keep animals.

The reason people breed those animals en masse is because there's a large demand for them and because it's SO easy to keep them. There's always a beginner out there but there's not many people who can handle white lipped pythons on a day-to-day basis.

That comment of mine was directed towards 2 things, even the people shooting for 2, 3, 4, etc. gene animals (I think BHB hit a possible 7 this season) still produce 1 gene and normal animals; and I've seen a bunch of BP breeders at shows recently that have a table full of balls and then a few dozen baby retics. I've spoken to a few of them and they view the retics as "easy money" because you can have 1.2 and still make several thousand off of 50 dollar babies because you get so many of them and I've started seeing a crazy number of baby hets/poss hets, albinos, tigers, and sunfires at shows and other retic people have noticed it as well.

I think I admitted in another thread I've turned into a reptile snob, if not I admit it here. Its not that I don't like seeing new ball pythons and corn snake morphs, its just after seeing 70% of breeders in a room with nothing but them I just want to see some variety. There are so many awesome species out there that people are having success breeding that don't even have any morphs that you just don't see at expos and it saddens me. I don't get why there's a demand for one species and not for some others. I know not everyone likes the other stuff but I just don't get the draw of ball pythons. Heck I just picked up a Savu python and a Vietnamese Blue Beauty at the last KC expo because of my affinity for the weird and uncommon. That and I've been looking for them for a while and got a decent deal on them.