To Breed or Not To Breed? That is the question..

In order to answer this question, you need to know a little bit about me...the person behind the curtain. I've always been the mother to my siblings, always helping out if there was a scraped knee or a broken bone. If someone was hurting, I was there to help. It's my nature to be compassionate and willing to help. October 25th, 2010, my goddaughter was born. I was there for her birth and it was the most magical experience of my life. It was in that moment that I realized it was my destiny to be a nurse...eventually to become a midwife so I can relive that moment every day of my life. Currently, I'm in my final semester of nursing school and I'm doing my clinicals on a labor and delivery unit (and loving EVERY second of it!). It's my passion to see new life enter this world. Another little side trivia about me is that I'm an avid animal lover. Every spring, I go to my friend's ranch and I help her mares have foals (basically...I'm a horse midwife). In fact, I just did a delivery on March 8th! So as you can see, not only do I love animals and love babies, but I love baby animals!

Several years ago I started keeping snakes, just as pets. I started off with two female corn snakes and a female normal ball python (I still have the normal ball and several babies from one of my corns). I learned about them, their care, and how to be a successful snake mommy to them. Eventually, all the different color morphs got me thinking that I might just want to breed once or twice to make some cool colors. I'm a genetics whiz so the idea idea of playing around with punnet squares and odds and percentages was more than exciting.

So last season, I made the decision to breed my first ball pythons. I made sure I had done my researched and had all my ducks in a row (food, racks, incubator, etc). When my first girl locked up, I was giddy as a school girl. You'd think nothing else mattered to me. When my first girl ovulated, I ran around the house partying like a rockstar! And when I got my first set of eggs, I came unglued with excitement, nerves, and fear that I would somehow do them wrong. i wished I had videoed my reaction! But nothing compares to the moment you see the first head poking out of it's egg. To know that you had a hand in creating that precious little normal (first baby out was a normal female) was the greatest feeling in the world. It's THAT feeling...right there, that told me I had to do it another season.

I don't breed because I can make money. In fact, I'm so far in the red I'll probably never see a profit...but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. For me, breeding is all about seeing the finished product, to see such god come from the animals you've created. In fact, I'm really looking forward to the first clutch hatching from one of my holdbacks from my first season. To see the completion in the circle of life is my motivation. Even if animals get sick, die, don't sell, or don't eat (I'm still assist feeding a hatchling going on 5 months old now), it's all a part of life and it does nothing but make me strive to keep pulling through, no matter what obstacles I might face (believe me...I've faced a lot these last couple of years).

My biggest advice to people who are looking to start off is make sure you start with quality (like Satomi said). If you have quality breeders, you'll create quality babies and they will sell themselves. Secondly, have an idea of what YOU want to create and work towards it. Think of a morph you'd love to have but can't own. For me, I'd LOVE to own an asystole (insert nursing humor here)! Eventually, I'll have one of these amazing animals in my collection. but I want to work for it. It gives me something to work towards. I'm goal oriented so this sort of thinking works well for me. But most importantly, have fun! If you don't have fun cleaning cages, thawing out rodents, or getting bit, then you probably have no place breeding. If you don't absolutely love what you're doing, then you WILL get burnt out and then everyone (even the animals) will suffer. If it's something you're truly passionate about, then go for it. If you don't get excited about seeing those little heads poking out of their eggs and all you can think about is a price tag, then breeding probably isn't for you.

When I start breeding it's for the love of the animals. Not money, or fame, or anything else. I truly love these animals. I do know someone who will buy any babies I'll sell. It doesn't matter if they are sold or not. I stay at home because I have 2 young children, and I can't work. I'm disabled so why not work with beautiful animals. I don't breed dogs, or cats. All of my 4 legged kids are fixed. If there was a way to fix the babies I do sell I would. This is something that I can do and enjoy and be rewarded by when my kids go to school. I would love it if my husband let me build a room off the house just for my snakes. He won't though. It also depends on how big a collection you want. I don't want more than 10 snakes. Remember if you don't have the passion then you will regret it.