How much $ to get started?

For me, I wanted to start small but with a handful of morphs that I like, coupled with a few that I believe are and will continue to be good sellers. I figured that to get a real good initial start it would take at the very least $5000. I was lucky enough to have a close friend that really liked the idea and thought it sounded like a good investment. He wanted nothing to do with the actual snake portion of the whole thing, he was only interested in investing financially, investing in me and my passion, and seeing what happens with the small hopes of maybe seeing a return on his investment somewhere down the road. So we started a limited partnership and my friend contributed the majority of the initial funds to get it off the ground, while I run and oversee the entire operation.

I took $1000 to put towards equipment, supplies, the first years supply of feeders, just anything and everything I could think of to get it rolling. Because every decision I make is budget oriented, I ended up spending less than the $1000 on equipment and supplies. Cutting corners by making my own racks and such. I took $4000 and planned to use that for my future breeding clan. I ended up spending $3900 on 6 snakes and I had already purchased a Mojave for $200 before all this began so I have 7 potential breeders. So I started with $5000 and currently have close to $400 left in my account for emergencies and what not. I am also continuously putting funds back into the account as they are available, $10 here, $20 there. I always make sure there is at least a few hundred in the account.

This would not have been a possibility for me on this level without an investor. Before my friend came on board I was going to start with my one male Mojave and maybe get a female normal and possibly a female Mojave. I was going to give it a shot regardless, it just simply would have taken me much longer to reach a level that I felt was going to offer the most chance at success. So although it is 100% possible to start a breeding project on the smallest level with only maybe 1-2 k, maybe less, I think if you want a real good shot at success faster, as far as seeing a return on investment, you will need to make more of a substantial initial monetary investment. And even then the possibility still remains that you end up in the red and stay there. Because to me success has as much to do with making the right decisions on the journey as how much $ you throw at it. I know it's a long shot, but if you can find someone that you trust,that believes in you, and is capable of and willing to throw a good chunk of change into the fire for a gamble, I would suggest going into a partnership to get a good jump start on it. If not and you don't personally have that kind of cash to throw around, then you will just have to start small with a few of the lower dollar snakes that you enjoy working with and climb your way up slowly. It's an investment in time as much as anything.

On another note, my comments are based on the idea that you intend to make something of a profit doing this. So ask yourself how you measure success in this particular endeavor. If you simply want to produce a healthy clutch of baby ball pythons then this most definitely can be done for very little money and you will be successful at it. For me it's both. Because of that I will be successful in one respect or another, no matter how it turns out. Hope some of this helps. I'm still on the bottom trying to make something of it so take my comments for what they are worth.

I'm not really expecting to make any kind of a real profit from it for a while, but i really enjoy BP's, and would like to see the cost of keeping multiple snakes at least offset a little bit =)

I'm gonna go work out a rough budget, for all the supplies and starter snakes i'll need, and start saving towards that goal :)

We got our first two Ball's on April 26 this year and now we have 14 plus 4 more on the way, supplies, snake racks, rat racks, rats we are close to $5000 so far in it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrDooLittle

I haven't kept track. However, our first snake started as a pet, and we fell in love and started collecting pets. We never thought of them as a business. Now since we have them, we will breed and see what happens. Not for money, but for fun and seeing cute little babies pip! And if we get some money, hey, great!

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

---

x2 to this ^. My collection started as a hobby, with a corn snake followed by 1.1 ball pythons. I now have 14 ball pythons and no more corn snake, lol! (he was an evil little snot and got sold, nothing drastic). I'm with DrDooLittle on that: if they turn a profit or even provide enough to sustain their supplies when I breed them, great. If not, I enjoy the hobby very much and have the means to keep any and all of the offspring if they don't sell. My goal with the animals I have is to produce the morphs I like and if in turn I'm able to sell a few along the way, all the better. It's probably for the best but I have no idea how much I've spent on snakes, racks, etc. I'm well over $5,000 just in animals, so I try not to think about it, lol! :D

Nobody has mentioned the not-so-obvious costs; here's a breakdown of my PERSONAL hidden costs. Please note most are estimates

*a hosting plan for a website - $75-125 PER YEAR
*a web designer if you need one - $500 (This is on the LOW end of things). Also of note, you may need a graphic designer to make up a logo, and design your business cards.
*business cards - I buy mine for $69/1000 cards, though I can get them on sale sometimes for cheaper
*extra hydro & electricity costs - $50/month (Hydro here in BC is STUPIDLY high)
-washing bins out w/ hot water when they get dirty
-extra dishwasher cycles to wash out your snake's bowls on water-changing day
*substrate for your snakes - $25/bale of aspen (ongoing cost). I know aspen is a lot cheaper in the US, but I'm just listing this because people don't think about all these things that add up
*incubator - $170 is what we spent to build our 35-bottle wine cooler incubator. And we're looking at building another, bigger one which will probably run us twice that. Perhaps even more if we can't get our hands on the type of fridge we want.
*extra rent $ if your collection grows enough that you need a "snake room." - $200/month
*table fees to vend at shows - $50-150 PER TABLE, PER SHOW
*vinyl show banner - $150
*show display cases - $700
*gas to get to and from shows - $xx - $xxx. This cost can get pricey!! We're going to vend in Red Deer most likely (August 2012) and the gas alone is going to cost upwards of $300
*hotels when you vend at shows. Again, we're probably lookin' at $500 at least just in hotel costs
*feeders. We breed a lot of our own food (Which also has associated costs & workload) but we do still buy the majority of feeders as frozen/thawed from a local supplier. If I had to guess, I'd say we probably spend about $100/month.


Now I'm not saying that ALL of these things listed above are required or essential. But I think you'll find you won't be selling any snakes if you don't "make a name" for yourself, which includes things like a website, official business cards, and getting your face out there at shows. People don't generally buy from "Joe Blow" on kingsnake.com, you have to actually have a presence in the herp community. Not to say that you won't sell anything, because you will, but I like to buy from people who I know will back themselves up, and will have people backing them up, saying "Yeah I wouldn't hesitate to buy from Soandso, check out her website here!"

We barely sold anything until we did our first show. Even then, our first show was a bit of a flop. Sold 2 corn snakes, which covered our gas $ and table fee. Our second show, was a SMASHING hit! We completely sold out of everything we had in stock.

Anyways. Keep those costs in mind. And perhaps take a look at this thread to gauge weather or not you think you'll be able to make any $ off of this. Out of the 6 options, 45.99% say they are losing $ breeding. 13% make a bit of $ but fire it directly back into the hobby.

So needless to say, I wouldn't invest a whole ton of money right off the bat. (We kinda just did it by accident ;) ) And ONLY do it if you are absolutely in love with the hobby and willing to sacrafice tons and tons of your time. This sometimes means staying in and scraping poop off Sterilites while all your friends go out and party. In my opinion, your animals should always come first.

...I think I'm done.

Thanks squamish =) i actually did factor most of that in already (except for the part about shows)

luckily my wife is a web designer and a great artist, so i have that covered

I do plan on making a name for myself, since i got out of the army in feburary, all i've wanted to do is breed ball pythons. so right now im gonna take about 1 1/2 or 2 years to research, plan, slowly build a collection, gather all the equipment, to make sure im absolutely as prepared as i can be before i start breeding. that last thing i want to do is have a bunch of babies and not know what to do with them.

i really appreciate all of yalls input, it has helped tremendously.

also, i think i decided on which morphs im gonna get. i was thinking..

lesser super pastel
black pastel
mojave
spider
normal

i did have one question, can a male breed to more than one female per year?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chained

Thanks squamish =) i actually did factor most of that in already (except for the part about shows)

luckily my wife is a web designer and a great artist, so i have that covered

I do plan on making a name for myself, since i got out of the army in feburary, all i've wanted to do is breed ball pythons. so right now im gonna take about 1 1/1 or 2 years to research, plan, slowly build a collection, gather all the equipment, to make sure im absolutely as prepared as i can be before i start breeding. that last thing i want to do is have a bunch of babies and not know what to do with them.

i really appreciate all of yalls input, it has helped tremendously.

also, i think i decided on which morphs im gonna get. i was thinking..

lesser super pastel
black pastel
mojave
spider
normal

i did have one question, can a male breed to more than one female per year?

---

Oh yes!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SquamishSerpents

Now I'm not saying that ALL of these things listed above are required or essential. But I think you'll find you won't be selling any snakes if you don't "make a name" for yourself, which includes things like a website, official business cards, and getting your face out there at shows. People don't generally buy from "Joe Blow" on kingsnake.com, you have to actually have a presence in the herp community. Not to say that you won't sell anything, because you will, but I like to buy from people who I know will back themselves up, and will have people backing them up, saying "Yeah I wouldn't hesitate to buy from Soandso, check out her website here!".

---

Just to second this section 100%, without that part you will find being an invisible breeder will not get you sales, another thing is to consider there are going to be times you need to sell lots, so do not be afraid to hit up your local pet shops, get to know them and hopefully work something out when your sitting with 20 normals and you need to move them out. But there are a ton of hidden costs along the way. hence why a lot just try to break even and put right back into it.

I am not a breeder but have been running business for quite some time. The capitol expenses is one thing but the operational ones are where the real cost will be. The things like power and food, and all the other small things the 25$ here and there sneak up on you sometimes. I would be careful in planning what your monthly cost you can carry and for how long. I have watched people set up companies with a bunch of capitol and not be able to carry operational expenses for very long and bankrupt them selves in the process. I would plan how much a month you can afford and then plan the size of the operation around that rather than how much capitol you have.

How much money you would need depends on what your goals are. The bigger the dreams, the bigger the wallet you will need. Just jumping into this as a business takes DEEP POCKETS. Starting small and working your way from there is very time consuming but the least costly. As a hobby, it's expensive. As a business, I couldn't even imagine. I don't even want to know how many snakes I'd have to produce and sell every year to pay all of my bills. Seems to me like it would take a lot of the fun out of it.

But, to answer your question about how much do I think it would cost, I would imagine 40k+ to be able to do it full time.