How much $ to get started?

So, i want to start planning out how to get into breeding BPs. Right now i'm thinking about waiting 2 years, to give me enough time to save up the money for all the equipment i'll need as well as the morphs.

First question is, how much did you guys spend to get started?
Did anyone get a business loan for it, or did you just save up?

also, im thinking about starting out with something like pastels and pieds, but any suggestions as to what to breed are welcome as well.

I just saved up. Anyone could tell you that they didn't just become a business right away. It all starts as a hobby. As far as how much, it depends on the reptiles, where the rodents are bought, and the specific equipment you use. You'd probably like at least 5000 if you're jumping straight to a business, but that doesn't leave a lot of room. Like I said... Most start slowly, but that's just them. I'm hopin' my first clutch ever hatches in 2013. I dig clowns just saying. :D

Im headed towards a clown project too! and have over 3k easy spent in the last couple months

I'll give you a rough estimate for what I did.
Build rack $200(heat tape included, and tubs)
Bought a rack from rb bc build was too heavy-$300
Divider for rb rack-$16 for 2
Thermostat $350 (herpstat 4)
Albino female $350
Pastel lesser female $675
Black pastel female $450
Still need a killer bee male($1000) a firefly female($900) and another 2 gene female($800-$1500)
And I will need another rack for my females when they are full grown. Plus an incubator.
This does not include food.
But it all depends what you want to breed. My suggestion is to start getting you females, and in 2 years they will be close to breeding size, and it will not be such a heavy bill if you space out what you need slowly. I take $100 out of each paycheck and put it toward my snake fund so when I want the snake I like I can buy it with out having too worry how much it cost. But start slow and if your in the bp game to make money right away, you will lose your money real quick.
Tom

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Originally Posted by MorphMaster

I just saved up. Anyone could tell you that they didn't just become a business right away. It all starts as a hobby. As far as how much, it depends on the reptiles, where the rodents are bought, and the specific equipment you use. You'd probably like at least 5000 if you're jumping straight to a business, but that doesn't leave a lot of room. Like I said... Most start slowly, but that's just them. I'm hopin' my first clutch ever hatches in 2013. I dig clowns just saying. :D

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Agreed. I spent about 5000 on my collection and then supplies and all that. I dont think you should get a loan but thats just my opinion because the snakes you get usually wont be ready to breed for a couple years supposing you get babies to raise up (female breeders are spendy and few and far between) so that means you will be payin on a loan and then on top of it cost of operations and so it just doesnt seem real lucrative and the fact that it is a slow growin business if that is what your intentions are.

Here are some good reads:

http://ballpythonbreeder.com/categor...tile-business/

well so far from Jan 1 2012 till right at this moment, i am just about $4500 into it, and still have a ways to go, still more stuff needed. most pick up along the way a little here a little there. takes a lot of time and patience to go from hobby to business. and a lot more of a loss than a gain for a while at the start of it.

The sky is the limit as far as starting money. It depends on way too many variables such as room, what you like or what you want to try to breed, buy them young or buy them as adult and so on.

Most folks start it as a hobby, probably the best way. I would never take out a loan for them but I am just a hobbiest getting deeper and deeper and de... lol

It all depends. You could probably start a hobby level breeding thing to get experience for under a grand. And I very much recommend starting small. If you have little experience with snakes breeding, don't dump $5k + into a project that may not succeed.

Pick out a nice normal female with size. You can find them now because many breeders sell off some of their normal stock after they have laid to make room for new holdbacks. You can get a sizable female now for under $250 most of the time. Work with her, get her eating right and gaining weight. Then you can shop around for a hatchling male single or double gene. There will be lots of them coming into the market right now. Don't worry about his size, males breed sooner than females do.

While your female is getting back up to size and your male is growing, you can invest in a small rack system for future purchases and babies. Get an incubator and egg tubs, all those things that cost more money. By the time your girl is ready to go again, and your boy is up to size, you should have everything you need to care for a clutch of eggs. Then you can take the money from your hatchlings, should you be fortunate enough to get any, and reinvest in more snakes as your experience builds.

Sure it takes time, and starting out small isn't as glamorous as you'd like, but it is a solid way to find out if breeding is for you, without a huge investment of money. Time on the other hand, you will need a big investment of, even with two snakes and their clutch.

Gale

If your going into this just wanting to make money and think breeding snakes will be cool and easy, you are going to be greatly disappointed. Hate to be negative but that's just the truth, the people that make it are the ones that have a true passion for what they do and have the experience to boot. And would keep and have kept reptiles with no monetary upside.

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!

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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.

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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!

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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?

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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?

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Oh yes!

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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!".

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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.

By the time I started breeding I had easily spent 3k on snakes and supplies. If you have that much right off the bat that will get you breeding. It took me a few years before I started breeding.

I tell people that about $20,000 is reasonable starting capital for a breeding business. That's a business, not just a hobby that pays for itself. You need that much to get your foot in the door at a high enough level to progress in a reasonable time frame. (It's not much good if your business takes 2 decades to become self-sufficient).

You need to be able to pay for all of the expenses for your business for the 3 to 5 years it will take for it to pay itself back and become self-sufficient, and then start making a profit. You will put in a lot of 'free labor' during the first few years. You will need to reinvest heavily from the money your business makes. Reinvesting every year is the key to building the business--without reinvestments, income will drop instead of rising.

The money I invested was from an inheritance. The issue with a loan is that they will generally want payments on it each month, so that may be difficult. This is not a business that will pay you every month.

You may be able to get away with starting out with 8 grand, but only if you can invest an additional 8 grand every year for the first 3 years (that's in addition to reinvesting most of what you make from selling offspring).

Above all, do your research--LOTS OF IT. If this is a business, treat it like a business. Be smart in your investments, don't skimp on quality equipment, and plan for the long term. Track ALL of your expenses, and keep careful records. People fail at this because they don't manage it like a business, they buy the snakes they want rather than the ones that will give the best return, and they don't anticipate covering the expenses until they're self-sufficient.
If you're not certain you know enough, or will like this, then get an adult normal female, a low-end morph male, and give yourself a year to try it out, and continue doing tons of research.
There's no 'get rich quick' here, but there is a very solid career if you do things wisely.

Obviously, if you can invest more than 20K, then you'll become self-sufficient sooner, and will progress faster.

The folks who tell you that you can't do it? They're usually the ones who did it wrong. Find out what went wrong for them, and you can avoid the same mistakes.

If you do it smart with $2,500 and you don't get screwed by the odds you can easily make all your start up costs back and cover your food costs too. What happens depends on the odds tho.

Next year I will see how it goes for me. Even if I hit the odds dead on I will make all my start up back and cover the cost of food. I treat it solely as a business, I made the best choices I could animal wise with the budget I had. built my own racks and incubator to save on cash while I was at it

Like previously stated it depends on how deep you plan on jumping into the hobby off the bat. i love ball pythons so its a hobby first business second.My rule of thumb is if i cant buy it with cash i dont buy it, i save and purchase everything when I can there is no rush. yes the hobby is changing and developing everyday but your love for the hobby is personal and you should feel happy at whatever point you are in your hobby/business.:)

I can see how people do it as a hobby. Sell animals to pay food costs and aquire the morphs they like for basically nothing after they recoupe the start up costs. I was referring to it as a source of income, either as a main or secondary source of income.

Don't forget that your females may not produce every year either. I've got a 2500 gram girl that has been locking up since late October and still nothing.

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Originally Posted by adamsky27

Don't forget that your females may not produce every year either. I've got a 2500 gram girl that has been locking up since late October and still nothing.

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Thats why i say always have some big normal girls around just in case. They are pretty cheap so no reason to not have a few.

Right, a large number of adult normal females can save your butt. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak! You'll want at least 2 good quality co-dom males, and a lot of normal adult females--that will give you a quick return.

If you CAN, get all of your animals from a single source, and avoid quarantine issues.

Quarantine is massively important, and cannot be understated. Plan for it. Plan to quarantine for 12 months. Yes, everyone's saying 3, but 3 is a token quarantine period, not a serious one. The big bad diseases that can kill all of your animals can and do incubate for longer than 3 months. Some have been tracked to incubate for as long as 10 months. Be safe.

Once you have your initial animals, when you do your buying each year, keep them and their rack separate from your existing animals. Remember to quarantine a rack from the arrival date of the LAST animal that went into it. You will probably want 2 quarantine areas, so you can begin the next year's buying before the previous year is out of quarantine. Remember that it's better to be 'too cautious', because 'not cautious enough' could result in the loss of everything. The larger your collection grows, the more you have to lose.

Anyone who's been on the forums for a couple of years has heard the horror stories of what can happen when quarantine isn't strict enough. Businesses have been destroyed, and lives devastated.

do your research i bought a hypo/het hypo pair but then i got hooked and bought a pinstripe,mojave, and a spider my advice to you is get 1 or 2 good breeder males and the rest females females will take longer to reach maturity and if you wanna make some different morphs fast stick with the codom morphs then work your way into the recessives

Right. Look at the trends, too. Some morphs are holding their value much better than others, over the years.
Orange ghosts dropped quickly and dramatically. They shouldn't have, but they did.

Pieds are dropping very slowly. Lavender albinos are dropping very slowly.

The price drop on calicos has been slower than the drop cinnamons went through. Take care not to mistake a less popular morph for one that's more stable in the market--less popular morphs may be harder to sell.

The more research you do, the better your outcome will be when you're ready to make purchases.

You really cant stress quarantine enough and a great point was made about buying your animals from one breeder if you can. It will get you a better price in a combo deal which could save you a couple hundred bucks easily.

As far as starting off you can spend as much as you want. Try some cheaper things first to see if it's for you. Most people, such as yourself from what I can tell, who want to start this as a "business" fail miserably and lose their investments. Generally people start off as a hobby and it continues to grow from there.