Who's Making Money Breeding Ball Pythons?

Ahhh, the trap of breeding success...

I can produce X number of mutation Q, sell those for $XXX each, cover my costs and pocket $1600.

Oh wait, you know what, I better keep this one, and this one, hold back this one for breeding in two years, hold back these to trade for those over there. And this pied here, nicest one I have ever seen, better hang on to that one as well.

Ah crap, now I am $700 in the hole.

:D

As much as I'm looking forward to the breeding aspect of the hobby, I really don't keep track of finances all that well. How much the snakes cost doesn't really cross my mind (aside from being able to meet my bills and savings requirements). As of right now it's where all my play money goes because it's what I do for fun! I know I haven't even gotten close to breaking even. I focus on getting the ingredients I can afford, and then try to coordinate that with my fascination for selective breeding.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robyn@SYR

Ahhh, the trap of breeding success...

I can produce X number of mutation Q, sell those for $XXX each, cover my costs and pocket $1600.

Oh wait, you know what, I better keep this one, and this one, hold back this one for breeding in two years, hold back these to trade for those over there. And this pied here, nicest one I have ever seen, better hang on to that one as well.

Ah crap, now I am $700 in the hole.

:D

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Sad but so very true....been there and doing that...lol
Travis
Lair of Dragons

Bought my first snake a month ago, I am defiently in the hole about 1300 bucks and i plan on digging myself into that hole deeper. I still need a Female! or two!
:-)

Ya you will dig a lot deeper....why does everyone buy the males before the females....
Rebecca post jumped out at me...when I saw the ratio of males to females:
Rebecca
facebook ~ google+
www.rawreptiles.com ~ RAW Reptiles on Facebook
Snakes
5.21 Ball Pythons ~ 1.1 Hypo Jungle Boa ~ 1.1 Hog Island Boa ~ 1.1 Anery KSB

Now that's the way to do it...5 males 21 females...that has potential all over it
I have 17 males and 50 females now 6.7 are tied up to the same project year after year...dbl hets...so I really have 11 males and 43 females...
Most buy a male because they are cheaper and you can say I own that morph and the real expense hits when you start grouping that male....buy females first...they take longer to raise and you can always pick up a male that can be breeding size in a year....JMO
Travis
Lair of Dragons

This is my first season with eggs. I've picked up 4 girls in 2 weeks. I've been keeping balls for 6 years and not seen any return. I have two clutches. One will be on the ground in 12 days the other is a spider het albino x albino pair with 5 good eggs. If I get 1 albino spider and single morph hets and I have a chance of making some BELs from a mojo x mojo I can produce with bad luck $1000-2000 of offspring and with good luck $2000-5000

Define making money?

Breaking even and no longer being in the hole?

Making a small profit that allows to enjoy little extras in life?

Making a living at it?

I went from being in the hole to breaking even to now making a little profit.

What I learned from this thread:


Buy more normal females.

I'm currently am in the hole about 15k, but that could all change in the next few months. Have some big time clutches coming up, thinking I'll have about 20-25 eggs in total. Depending on sex ratio and actually making sales, I could leap right out of that hole.

to me thats a interesting question as i havent invested too much money in my collection and i trade small med rats to local breeders for single gene morphs that i sell or keep so the feeding part is takin care of rats pay for them selves as well as a new single gene every now and then so im turning a lil profit already because of my rats and havent even had a clutch as of yet even though i have a normal who is going through prelay shed and another adult cinny bred to my mojave will go soon ,so i guess it really depends on how you look at profit -rats are not snakes but i would not be breeding the rats on such a big level if not for my ball python collection so to me its not a total loss more like a gain