Money sources for breeder collections?

Hey everyone,

I am just curious as to where people get, or have gotten, money to start, retain and expand their collections. I have the drive to start expanding now, and I am having a hard time keeping myself away from it, since I know I should wait until I have more permanent housing, but it is not too early to figure out the best ways to go about getting ready for it.

Basically, how did you all have enough money to start-up a considerable collection. Did you treat it as a business investment that happened to fall into a hobby/passion of yours (maybe fooling yourself saying it is a business investment to give yourself an excuse to buy more snakes? :D), or did it really start out slow with only a couple new snakes a year, and you just bred when you could.

Feel free to be lengthy, I like hearing people's stories, and hopefully it will help me figure out what would be best for me.

Also, on another note....not just the collections themselves is what interests me....as much, if not more, than the snakes themselves, I am wondering how people expanded their "tools of the trade" (racks, incubators, tstats, random instruments, etc). This is another problem plaguing me. When I do have the money....do I build a rack, get a tstat, etc....then fill it when more money comes around again....or get some snakes and put them in single tubs like what I am doing now so they get up to size sooner, then when everything is really ready to go, spring for the rest. Timewise, this seems better b/c I become satisfied with more snakes earlier, but I waste money on tubs that wont be used in the rack (most likely) and UTH's.

Sorry for the length :(

Just the same way you would get money to buy a house or car...A job

Allright, I guess I didnt really set the focus well. I realize that yes, 99% of people will be buying snakes/stuff from money from their jobs...obviously. My real question is how did people spend it. Stuff first, then snakes, vice versa? All at once w/ a big purchase or little by little that accumulated into a large collection over the span of several years?

Believe it or not, I fell into this just by chance. My brother actually got me into snakes in general, he had a few corns. Then I twisted his arm to go to a reptile show, to see what it was all about. We both loved BPs, and I immediately started doing research on different morphs, co-doms and doms, etc. After careful planning, months later we bought our very first snake from another reptile show. She was a yearling spider. I raised her up for a year and a half and now we are hoping her to be our mother of our very first clutch. Basically, we saved our money up, did some research, bought our first female, raised her up, and then bought our male (pinstripe). If you have the patience to raise up a female first (that's the hardest part about breeding BPs), and save up the money, it's not too costly. Plus it doesn't help if you have a partner to split the cost up

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by joshthaxton

Believe it or not, I fell into this just by chance. My brother actually got me into snakes in general, he had a few corns. Then I twisted his arm to go to a reptile show, to see what it was all about. We both loved BPs, and I immediately started doing research on different morphs, co-doms and doms, etc. After careful planning, months later we bought our very first snake from another reptile show. She was a yearling spider. I raised her up for a year and a half and now we are hoping her to be our mother of our very first clutch. Basically, we saved our money up, did some research, bought our first female, raised her up, and then bought our male (pinstripe). If you have the patience to raise up a female first (that's the hardest part about breeding BPs), and save up the money, it's not too costly. Plus it doesn't help if you have a partner to split the cost up

---

I think you mean it doesnt hurt. Thanks for the tips, I hope to find someone that wants to go in on the breeding with me, but I really dont think anything is going to come along.

Woohoo avatars are working again!

I completly understand what your going through because i was there myself... i bought snakes, using money from my job but every pay check i would put like $50 in an envelope, and put that in my sock drawer. then finally after 2 years i had roughly $5000 to start my collection but along they way i did purchase lots of normale female some about 400g to 2500g i had about 10 of them and had them in 20 gallon fish tanks growing them up and big.. then after the 2 years i had 10 ready to breed females the samllest one being 1300g and bought wood and built a rack to house my snakes, but before that I sat down and priced everything i was going to buy so i can figure out the size of this rack, finally deciding i built the rack, bought the thermostate and all the tubs. so now left with about $4100 i went to shows in canada, bought from a breeder in new york, and some from montreal. so this was like 1 1/2 years ago, so now i have lots of snakes and basically funded most of my other aniimals and racks and food from breeding those normals with co dom males and selling them to local pet shops and reptile stores, and i also advertised on my local classifieds online.. and basically made my money back and bought more, and i bought a safe and now i keep all snake maney in that safe along with the het papers, and all old records of my snakes.. but i dont consider these animals as a business investment, but more like pets, most have names...

Started with what was supposed to be a pair of sub-adult ball pythons (actual age unknown).
When I decided that I wanted to try my hand at breeding I brought the 4 snakes that I had to a shop owner to have them sexed. (1 Suriname, 2 balls, 1 kingsnake)
Found out that all but the king were female... what to do now...
Started researching where to find a male and stumbled upon what has now become a hobby/part time job.
Found myself a proven breeder morph and went for it.
Became friends with the breeder I bought him from and have made a number of friends in other breeders around my area.
Some of the money for new snakes comes from males that I hatch, while I have found that tax time and hatching season are almost a match made in heaven.
Oh yeah, and a full time job helps too.
This year will be great, no more spending paycheques on snakes. They have their own bank roll now. :D
-Steven

Well the easy answer is you have to have a place to keep all of your collection first. So I guess we bought our stuff first. You can build cages cheaper than you can buy them. I would suggest picking up some used cages at first that is what we are doing. Usually you can find someone who is upgrading caging and is willing to part with their older caging. As for snakes, We picked up some normal females. Craigslist does help with that if you can sex snakes well. But most of all pick up morphs that you like. Planning on turning money on snakes isn't all its cracked up to be. Most breeders that i know started off with a few morphs and a couple females and turned The money they made back into more snakes. That is the model im trying to follow breed what I like sell what i don't want to hold back and roll that back into more snakes that i like. Well i guess better caging comes along too. I can't wait to get my ars rack.

I still have a relatively small collection myself, but here is how I have gone about it:

It all started with deciding I wanted a pet snake. My roommate and I each decided to get one, and we originally decided on corns. We went to the local reptile show, were a little freaked out by how small the hatchling corns were, and decided to try ball pythons instead. We each picked out one female and took them home. Flash forward to the end of the next summer. Roommate decided she wanted an albino, but since they were so expense, she decided to get hets. Picked up a pair of hets at the next reptile show (they happen twice a year). Of course I couldn't stand to be the only person with one snake. From there we ended up each acquiring a rack, which we subsequently strove to fill. The original cages became quarantine spots, and now we have a quarantine rack. So for us, we started housing in cages, but moved almost immediately to commercial racks once we started expanding. My favorite is Reptile Basics racks, but they are fairly close to me so I can save on shipping and pick them up. I like to say I tend to get housing before the animals. For example, I just bought a new 5 slot 32 qt sweaterbox rack from reptile basics. Until that point I had been housing my snakes in a single older rack (minus one newbie in the downstairs quarantine rack). I also bought a herpstat pro. Since it has four probes, I figure it will do me for a long time. So now I have five snakes, nine rack slots (13 if I use the dividers I have for the bins), and a thermostat that will run my incubator this year and three other racks, as well as the ranco I have been using, so I am pretty well set for housing and caging supplies for the immediate future.This way I can afford to keep a hold back or two this year, and still hopefully have room to buy something new at the show.

That is how I've done it!!

Ive built up my collection over time, spending money here or there, working out payment plans, or finding stuff cheaper than normal. Friends have also given me animals, which is really really cool, and truly has helped expand my collection as well. :D

Just time. overall. A snake here or there... eventually you start to wonder where the heck you got all that money... LOL