How much experience before breeding?

Here's my final word on this. As far as your friend playing with the animals, some can take it, some cannot. My daughters play with many of mine like they are barbie dolls and they are fine. I have a couple they are not allowed to touch for various reasons.

The only cure for your friend may be to ask what pet store owner is willing to give wholesale for a particular animal. Odds are he will be shocked. It is waaaaayyyy less than the ticket price.

Also calculate the hours, food and other expenses it takes to take care of each animal. I can tell you this to the penny. Then..... there is always the possibility of a sudden vet bill which could take a significant bite into your yearly expenses.

Get him a better hobby. Preferably something that occupies his time and money.

Honestly it doesn't sound like he needs snakes, it sounds like he wants to spend money and is going about it entirely wrong. Get him into responsible gambling (stocks) and maybe he won't be kicking himself later

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

The only cure for your friend may be to ask what pet store owner is willing to give wholesale for a particular animal. Odds are he will be shocked. It is waaaaayyyy less than the ticket price.

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I'd love to know if he has even approached this pet store that he's going to sell them to about buying the animals. I think Jodan's right that he's going to experience some sticker shock regarding wholesale prices if he hasn't done any research into it. Especially if all he's trying to breed for is super pastels (!!!).

I would like to add that breeding takes time and you have to check them every day to get a successful breeding/laying. I have been keeping bps for 9 years and still have a difficult time breeding and knowing what to look for in terms of ovulation and such (I just started breeding last year) it takes time and money to be successful at breeding, if he is just wanting to sell super pastels he may not be able to sell all or any since there are so many higher end morphs out there now. If he is just in it for the money he most likely won't succeed. I think He needs a different hobby.

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He could, but did he start research on the breeding process yet?

Tell him that ball python breeding is not as quick-make-a-buck as it sounds. I've been pairing my one pair since last November every 3 weeks, and my female has not ovulated yet. During this whole process, she needs to eat more frequently, so more feeders to buy. Then after ovulation, it's another month and a half before the eggs are laid. Then after the eggs are laid, it's another 2 months to wait for them to hatch. THEN after they hatch, you need to wait for their first shed. Then you need to keep all 5~10 hatchlings and feed each one for a couple meals~months, depending on marketing skills and how fast they sell, before selling them and finally making what... a few dollars? Less than a week's worth of pay at his normal job?

So if you are looking at it purely from an economic standpoint, you are waiting/"working" for up to 11 months to gain back... $100? $400? You are not actually making money, just breaking even with your costs at best, especially for his first pairing and without reputation. LOL

He needs to be genuinely interested in the breeding process for this to be a good experience.

I'm not a breeder so I can't really comment about what it takes to be one etc. But I would imagine it's a lot harder than it looks on paper. You aren't going to get rich and you get out of it what you put into it. Sometimes. You need to have quality stock in order to make animals that stand out from what everyone else is making and that takes money. In addition you need to be able to spend a lot of money on a vet at the drop of a dime so your collection doesn't become sick and die. I think people get excited when they see youtube vids of people cutting clutches and showing off their snakes but they don't see the hard work that goes on during the other 24 hours and 45 minutes of their day. I have much respect for those that can run successful breeding operations. it takes passion and hard work and is anything but "easy money".

There's no specific level of experience required, it's purely a personal choice. I kept reptiles for over 20 years before having any real interest in the breeding process. Most of my collection consisted of pretty random stuff and I seldom had more than 1 of any given species at a time. Reptiles have always been fascinating to me, no less today than when I was just a stone/log flipping kiddo. Breeding opened up a whole new aspect of care that put me back on square 1 as far as experience - which was really enjoyable. If you don't truly enjoy it, you probably aren't going to last very long as a keeper, much less a breeder.

Experience with these animals is only that, business side of things is entirely different.

Imo they should focus on getting their own place first, diving into this hobby will only make it take longer before he can afford to move out. By the end of it, breeding for super pastels won't pay the mortgage. Also I think you are enabling him by keeping his animals. Unless he pays you for boarding, you should be blaming yourself as well. You could start with " if you want to breed that's fine, but I won't be keeping your animals" and don't take in any more of them.

I'm sorry but most of these responses are way too nice. Your friend sounds like an idiot to put it as nicely as possible. My biggest issue is that he is not even keeping his own animals. He has no business buying animals that he can't keep. It is insane to me that he is already talking breeding and buying more animals when he can't even keep his own animals. So he has no idea how or what it takes to even care for them and keep them healthy. He's basically saying he is going to use the people taking care of his animals to breed them for him so he can make money selling babies.

You and the other people caring for his animals need to immediately stop enabling him! If he has no place to keep them, he wont be able to have any and that would stop him from buying more and obviously squash his breeding plans. Give him a week to take his animals or your going to sell them or even buy them from him. If he takes them home, great, that is a good start. Then he can start from step one like everyone else, learn how to properly keep and care for the animals himself. Once he can do that then he can breed if he chooses to, everyone that breeds had to start from somewhere. I don't think it is a big deal if he wants to breed fairly quickly after caring for his own animals but it shouldn't even be considered if he does not keep them at his own place.

Now if he thinks hes going to make money doing it, he should really look for a better place to make an income because more than likely he will not even break even for years. Doing it because you love the animals and would like to produce more for yourself or just because you enjoy the process, well that's for him to decide but those are the only good reasons to breed them. Nobody makes money on these animals that doesn't love them. Everyone that tries quits because there is not much money in it and it takes a lot of work, time and money to take care of these animals. If your not enjoying caring for them and the whole breeding process, you will not make enough money to make it worth it guaranteed! Many have tried and they all fail. The breeders producing enough babies to make a profit have a serious passion for these animals.

The only positive thing you've said about him is that he constantly wants to take the animals out, handle them and photograph them because to me, that does show that he is very interested in them and likes them. It may not be great for the animals depending on how often and what exactly he is doing with them but that's a different topic.

First step is to stop giving him places to keep these animals he's buying. Once he's keeping them himself, then he can decide on his own where he wants to go from there but you have to stop enabling him to get more, he obviously can't start a breeding project if he has no animals. If he does take them home and cares for them himself, then their really is no set time before he starts breeding them but he'll need to make that decision on his own once he sees what it's like to care for them himself.

Lo and behold: hes now asking me to take care of his ball python because he cant keep it at his house. He wants to keep it at my house because him and his business partner had a falling out now the "partner" is trying to sell all of his snakes and leave the province. Utter waste of money and time. This is exactly what I tried to tell him would happen. Now these snakes must be sold and rehomed. So much for breeding.


Also, I dont keep any animals but my own. I wouldnt let someone pawn an aminal off on me just because they cant take care of it.