How many is too many?

When the rats are on schedule, it is very easy. The snakes do not take much time to maintain, but it boils down to how much work the rats require for me. I'm also trying to save money to go back to school, as my decision to go back to school was made after the financial aid deadlines, and I don't qualify for much yet, because I'm under 25 (despite paying for it myself). Aside from normal bills, I'm also trying to save money to get a partial sleeve/back tattoo.. which I know is going to be rather costly... so.. as long as the rats are doing what they're supposed to, we get the help we need to clean the snakes/rats, pay them in rats, and life is much easier. If I were doing this on my own, and didn't have my boyfriend and a couple friends who are willing to trade services for paying off snakes or for feeders.. I would have a much smaller collection for my current lifestyle :)

I used to have a home zoo, until I realized having a home zoo is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. For me, it was too much. Now I'm down to 2 pythons and 2 boas, and I don't know how I could possibly have wanted more. 4 is perfect; not much maintenance, I now have the space, time, and money to provide large and elaborate enclosures for each of them (I'm working on outdoor enclosures as well for summer afternoons), and most importantly I am now able to spend a LOT of time with each of them, getting to know their individual personalities and spoiling them rotten. :D

Of course everyone's perfect number is different, and I have a great respect for any keeper who takes good care of their animals, no matter how many snakes they choose to have. But in many cases (or at least for me) having a 'collection' is overrated. There's always going to be one more snake that you'd love to have, but there is something to be said about keeping a small number of snakes that you really love.

I must agree with anatopism on the fact that snakes are simple. I have just started a colony of rats so its not a big one and I only have a few rats at the moment so thats a new project that I am looking forward to. I have 13 snakes with a new one coming in a couple of weeks and I find that maintaining them is very simple I just take some time every morning to check on my animals and note anything like sheds and other presents. I really dont have a schedule that I clean. as soon as a mess is made I pull it out of the rack and clean it up. If a snake has not messed its cage inside a week I clean it anyway. Water gets changed every other day and honestly I enjoy it because I get to handle them too so I figured I would slowly continue to grow my collection based on what I think is good for me... I am also trying to pace myself so that next year I have space and time for hatchlings too. I dont think I would feel overwhelmed by any less than 30 or even 40 snakes...

We have enough rack space for 96 right now. We would be comfortable with around 100, but my wife is not keen on keeping rats so that would bump the cost way up getting weekly feeders.

I'm not going to use the poll because I've seen people who can't even care for one. It becomes too many when you can't take care of all of them. Period. If you can handle 20 then go for it, if you can handle 100 then go for it.

Ball pythons? On my own I could probably handle a breeding collection of 15-20 snakes, and whatever offspring come from those. Assuming I'd be holding back a couple to replace breeders, and selling the older ones off, I'd probably keep it 20 or under while I'm working full time and trying to get back to school. There are only 2 BPs I'll never let go of/trade out for breeding (as of right now) because they were my first two snakes ever, as well as my first "pets" that I owned personally.

Now when you get into variety of species, I think I'm getting near my limit. Having only ball pythons for a while was easy because it was the same basic schedule for simple to keep snakes (same enclosure requirements). Then I got a crested, which was easy on her own too. Took on my old roomie's crested, since it'd be simple to add, then a pine snake, and taking care of my boyfriend's daughter's leopard gecko. Most of the work? My boyfriend's green iguana. Adding a tropical diurnal herbivorous lizard has added a lot to the "pet schedule". He needs salad every morning, cleaning, changing out a giant clunky water bowl/swimming dish, expensive lights, etc. Any of these, even the iguana, on their own would be no issue, but all together it takes a chunk of time. Can't just take 'em all and stick them in the same rack :P

I still want a few more animals, but we probably wouldn't have a huge collection, and breeding is a hobby for me. I'd love to get into some of the colubrids, maybe having a breeding pair of Mandarin rat snakes and my pied black pines or something.

Ive taken care of 40 plus ball pythons cut back to 25 due to having surgeries and had no problems whats so ever with it. I go threw tubs a few times a day to insure everyone is clean an safe a sound. This keeps my tubs extremely clean an doesnt take but a few mins to do. This also stops the amount of dirty tubs I have to clean from building up.

My limit is ~25 until me and my bf get a bigger place. I'm comfortable with the ones I have now and wouldn't have issues adding a few more.

I work 40+ hours a week, go to college full time, volunteer on a regular basis, help my hubby run his gaming business, and still manage to keep the 'zoo' up and running. Quite frankly, the cats, dogs, and chinchillas take more time than all my reptiles put together. Where that's concerned, my corns are the most time consuming in terms of cleaning/feeding. I check the snakes twice a day and feed once every 5-7 days depending on age. I clean as soon as they do anything in their cage and on feeding day, they get a full clean (or two days after in the ball's case). If I didn't have the mammals and hubby to tend to, I'd be able to have a lot more snakes but I'm not willing to get rid of those so I keep my snake collection down to under 20 animals. As soon as I graduate, that will go up since I'll have the extra time I'm currently using for homework. :)
My rule of thumb though is I have to have the time, energy, and money to properly take care of them and that includes if something goes wrong. I have gotten close to getting in over my head before and had the good sense to downsize and back off on the rescue work I was doing. By staying within those limits, I've found that I truly get to enjoy the animals I have.

My limit (and my parents) is 3 bps plus their babies.


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