How much does it cost you to house a snake?

How much per snake do you spend setting its enclosure up? If you have a single expensive item (such as a thermostat or rack system) running multiple snakes, divide the cost of the item among the number of enclosures it regulates.

I realize the numbers will be all over the board, but I'd like to get a feel for what people spend to acquire a snake outside of the cost of the animal itself.


Formula:

Total $ invested in husbandry supplies (thermostat, thermometer, tubs & racks, etc) / # of snakes you have = cost of housing per snake.

For ONE snake and first snake, most of the cost is just upfront with buying all the equipment necessary. And then the cost of housing itself is literally nothing, just a bit on your electricity bill for the one heat pad, and one rodent a week for food. It's also much less cost if you use plastic tub setups vs. glass tank.

For my first tub setup for my first snake, upfront I paid about $150 total for thermostat, hygrometer, temp gun, heat pad, paper towels, water bowl, tongs, soldering iron (for holes in the tub), plastic tub, and plastic hides off reptilebasics.

I paid $100 for my first tank (40 gal) and about another $100 for everything in it. After that I went DIY rack. Less than $100 and currently housing 4 snakes. Probably spent another $50 on tubs, water bowls, and hides. I have extra tubs and open rack space, so I could house 2-13 more snakes, depending on size.

So $150+ for my pied and $26-45 for the others. It'll be even less for future snakes since I already have all the supplies.

Counting in a mainly handmade and modified viewing enclosure, instruments, supplies, decoration, feeders, etc etc I spent roughly 500€ on setting up. Another 220€ for the snake itself, and i ended up at roughly 770€ for everything, which is nearly ~850 USD. Uh. Yeah. (Note: I "only" spent like 170€ of that on the bare enclosure itself, reptile supplies are very expensive in Germany. It's a tiny hobby over here, so stuff gets hella expensive...)

I suppose I should have added a few higher price brackets. I figured most people would be running racks with several snakes to split the cost of the rack among the snakes.

In the beginning it cost me about a $100 with the tank and heat lamps, then I built a rack and bought a herp4, that was about $450 for all, then built a 2nd rack, now I have an ARS7030 I bought used with tubs, that cost me about $1200. Like most people here it is an addiction and you can never have just a couple noodles! I now have an incubator that I built and a hatchling rack, so the price for 1 snake depends on what you plan on doing, and how you house it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spikeanoid

How much per snake do you spend setting its enclosure up? If you have a single expensive item (such as a thermostat or rack system) running multiple snakes, divide the cost of the item among the number of enclosures it regulates.

I realize the numbers will be all over the board, but I'd like to get a feel for what people spend to acquire a snake outside of the cost of the animal itself.


Formula:

Total $ invested in husbandry supplies (thermostat, thermometer, tubs & racks, etc) / # of snakes you have = cost of housing per snake.

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So for my first rack I spent about 100 on the raw materials to construct it. Then rounded up roughly 10 per tub and its a 6 tub rack. And 110 for the Herpstat. And 10 for a thermometer on the hot side x6 and 10 for a thermometer/hygrometer for the ambient temp/ humidity x6. Then about 15 dollars in heat tape and another 5 dollars in the plug/wiring/electric tape. Water bowls about 2$ x6. Hides about 5 x6. I think that's everything... Comes in around 452 ? Divided by 6 gives you around 75 dollars per tub housing cost. These would all be your one time costs.
This doesn't include substrate ,the snake, or food.

I've spent about $3,000+ on my ARS rack system that holds 20 large snakes, half of it will hold adult ball pythons, the other half will hold adult Woma pythons. I actually decided not to fill it with Woma pythons, I just have one in there and just bought a dwarf reticulated python that will outgrow it in about a year or so. Once my retic gets big it will need a Vision 600, those are about $600 for that one cage and that one snake. Once the retic gets bigger it will probably eat jumbo rats or medium rabbits every week, that's going to be a big expense. You didn't ask the cost of the snakes, my most expensive ball python was $1,500.

I probably have about $10,000 total invested in my ARS rack and 18 snakes. Should pay off in the long run once I start cranking out baby snakes, should actually make way more money than I spend and hopefully will pay not only for that rack but a few more. I'd like to get a hatchling rack, a grow out rack, then a rat breeding rack and maybe a rat grow out rack, all from ARS. So that's probably another $12,000 in equipment I'm looking at in the next few years. I should be able to make that with the babies from the first few years. But all my snakes are babies and it will take me about 2-3 years before I get my first babies, so I may be all set up and break even in about five years if I'm lucky LOL. I may get another retic male to breed my female, probably once my female gets really tame and a year or two on her as far as growth.

I like the ARS racks, they are top of the line and they hold their value. I see a lot of people get really cheap racks up front, then fill their whole room with cheap racks only to find years down the road that they want to replace them all with higher quality rack systems. You can almost sell a used ARS rack for the same price as a new rack. For most people it's a money making investment and you can easily get most of your money back if you decide to sell the racks after you use them for years. I like to go pro right from the start, that way ten or fifteen years down the road you end up with a really nice setup instead of a bunch of stuff that needs to be replaced.

So I guess right now I have about $500 per snake invested on average.

I also didn't include my rat, mouse, and ASF breeding operation. Probably have about $1,000 invested in that as well. Although since I breed my own rodents and use feed from the feed store, most of which costs less than $10 per 50 pounds, I'm coming out way ahead on the price of feeders.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spikeanoid

I suppose I should have added a few higher price brackets. I figured most people would be running racks with several snakes to split the cost of the rack among the snakes.

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Yes, should have included higher prices. The enclosure alone was $250. My usual comment when people ask is, "the snake (normal male BP) was $50, the setup $500 ha ha ha".

http://i.imgur.com/J6qaPeQ.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Golem

Yes, should have included higher prices. The enclosure alone was $250. My usual comment when people ask is, "the snake (normal male BP) was $50, the setup $500 ha ha ha".

http://i.imgur.com/J6qaPeQ.jpg

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That's an awesome set up! I agree.. the set up is very costly especially if being kept as a pet lol. But I think it's more for us than it is for them :P