Why did you get into breeding?

Just curious as to what made all you breeders out there get into the hobby.

Did you just want to have fun with it and do it as a hobby?
Do you make good money off of it?

I have a good friend who is a big BP breeder and I went by his house today and looked at his snake room of over 100 ball pythons. It really sparked my interest to get into it sometime in the future.

He tells me it's incredibly fun, and he makes a little extra cash off of it.
I would LOVE to see what all kinds of combos I could create with some basic morphs.

So, why did you decide to get into breeding? Is it really that much fun? :)

I did for the Hobby and maybe one day to make some extra cash!! :D

Because I saw a pic of a blue eyed lucy and had to have one. I started researching bp genetics and became obsessed with it. Decided I might as well try and make my own BEL. I've been having a blast with it. Im having so much fun with it I've even quit drinking. I was drinking a 1.75 liter of vodka a week!

I got it to breeding for one reason: To produce the pied I could not afford to buy.

Of course, now I could buy it if I wanted to, but there is a certain satisfaction in producing my own. My collection has expanded from two snakes to 32, and my plans from producing a pied to producing all kinds of pretty things along the way to producing many different pied combos.

I enjoy it. It is a full time job, just to warn you. The biggest thing is to go slowly, and not get in over your head. I know many, many people who jump in blindly, buy a fortune in snakes, then when faced with the reality of the hard work, food strikes, health problems, breeding issues, and so on, they get out as fast as they got in, usually thousands of dollars poorer.

So yes, do think about breeding. But take your time, find out what base morphs you like and what combos they make. Invest in a few to start with, then as you learn and grow, you can expand.

Gale

Well.. I guess I'd had over a decade of reptile keeping and decided to expand my experiences to include reproduction. "Discovering" ball pythons became a driving force, even though I've focused more on other species.

Oh yeah I'm going to keep it simple at first no worries :) I have a normal female now, then in the future my starter breeding snakes will hopefully be a cinnamon, a pastel, and a spider. My buddy would sell me those morphs super cheap cause he's too busy with the high dollar stuff :D lol

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Originally Posted by darthsamurai

Because I saw a pic of a blue eyed lucy and had to have one. I started researching bp genetics and became obsessed with it. Decided I might as well try and make my own BEL. I've been having a blast with it. Im having so much fun with it I've even quit drinking. I was drinking a 1.75 liter of vodka a week!

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This is EXACTLY what happened to me.

i havent started breeding yet but making money isn't why i decided to breed. it's the excitement of producing your own animals with such a variety in morphs and the possibility of making something that you only dreamed of owning.

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Originally Posted by JaGv

. it's the excitement of producing your own animals with such a variety in morphs and the possibility of making something that you only dreamed of owning.

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Yes!!!! :)

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Originally Posted by Trackstrong83

Yes!!!! :)

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altough you do see alot of people jumping into breefing bps because they see the big guys making money. i personally can wait till i have eggs and hatch them out into beautiful little snakes just to be able to say i produced those animals myself.

Honestly I don't even care about making money with them. Yeah it will be nice, but producing my own morphs will be INCREDIBLE.

Producing kickass morphs! Thats pretty much my number one reason. Being able to show someone a sweet looking animal and being like ya i produced that, nbd (with the help of my snakes of course lol).

When i first started out all the morphs seemed expensive lol. Well i dont really have that opinion anymore, but i promised myself that i wouldnt buy a multigene animal, i have to produce my own first. Hopefully this year thatll happen, my first year breeding! So excited! :D

I definetly am not in it for the money. For probably at least the first few years ill be holding back anything i deem holdbackable and will put most of any money i make right back into more snakes. Bps and herps in general are a hobby for me so of course you gotta spend more than you make doing it! Honestly no matter how many balls i get i never see myself going fully pro bc id be afraid of burning myself out. I see it as a hobby/maybe a second job sorta for my life and then when i go to retire ill be able to focus on breeding full time. It'll be a good income for me at that point because by the time i go to retire social security may not exist anymore :O

Well I first had a husbandry related issue with my snake and stumbled onto this forum to try to find out what's going on.. Then I saw a bumblebee, and found out how the heck they got it to look like that! I found out that by breeding a yellow snake to a super reduced patterned snake, you get a super reduced patterned and yellow snake! It was like combining colored crayons to create new colors! One of my goals isn't to produce a new color, but I want to produce something that people go "WHOA! What is THAT?!"... I haven't bred any snakes yet, or any animal for that matter... Hope to this year though :D!

It also combines 2 of my other animal-related dreams :P!! Being a zookeeper and being a vet! I think breeding will be better! You get to get your hands messy and get super involved with everything that goes on - and the reward at the end of every day is pride in your own collection! I'm super proud of what I have :bow:.

Being part of a good community is a huge plus too! There are a lot of hobbies that you do on your own, and you don't really ever need to talk to anyone... What's the fun in that?? Everyone wants to show off the fruits of their labor!

After keeping exotics for most of my childhood, it was a hobby that had sustainability. When I first saw the albino pied, I knew I had to have one. If you can keep your initial goal in mind, a single breeding project can take up to 6-7 years. It's pretty rewarding achieving long-term goals.

I got into it because I am absolutely FASCINATED by snakes! I started looking around and came across WOB and the BIG morph list and was immediately intrigued. I used to despise BPs cuz at all the pet stores they were just normal and boring and I wanted something like a boa but as I started looking into BPs I bought a pair of Pastels and quickly became attached. I started looking at breeder's sites and the snakes that were for sale and was shocked by the prices! I am breeding because I want way too many morphs than I can afford and so I figured I would buy the ingredients to some of the morphs I liked and work my way up knocking out morphs and adding more and more to the collection. If I end up doing this for a living well now that would be sweet but I would just like to get to where it pays for itself. And if I happen to create a worlds first while I am doing it that would be awesome too! :gj:

I got in to breeding for the vast amount of money there is to be made by it. So far, so good. I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams:rolleyes:

I did it mostly for the hobby. I wouldn't mind making some money at it in the future ;) I love the idea of breeding animals and seeing what kind of things you can make. I also really like being involved with the reptile community!

I'm just hoping to be able to pay myself back for the snakes and mice. Break even and get rid of all the babies. I'm gonna do it because obviously I love the animals, and in the future I would like to have a business maybe, say, half the size of BHB. But first just a few pairs. I'm starting out young, so maybe I'll get known and by the time i'm done with college i'll be reputable. Right now i'm a nobody in the reptile community. Lol!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SED5kzrSzWw

Really though, I know I will not be able to buy some of the morphs that I really like but I can either make them OR trade up to them:gj:
Plus I have met a lot of cool people:bow:

Even when I was a child I loved reptiles, ball pythons more than any. There is a crap load of morphs that I truly want, but honestly cannot afford. So making them myself was the better option. Plus, watching these females lay eggs and then watching these little worms come out of the eggs is such an amazing experience! I don't care if ive had 1,000 clutches hatch, that 1,001 clutch is still going to be just as amazing as my first.

I'm 5 years into breeding these snakes, and thousands of dollars deep. I still have yet to make much off of them, but I honestly don't care. I am in it for the love of the creature and the pure amazement I get from it all.

This is my first year breeding just last week got my first eggs, what got me to start breeding is not the money but producing morphs that i cant buy( too much money). I think its more fun producing your own morph then just going out and buying it anyways. Next season i hope to produce my all time fav morphs a BEL and next a pied.

Wanted to get into it back when I had my huge female redtail boa but ended up giving her away before heading off to school. I was never into ball pythons or smaller snakes in general but the thrill of getting eggs and seeing the tiny little heads sticking out of the eggs made me change my mind. Only have had two clutches but its a hobby for me now.

Would like to try with boa's but have not really researched into it.

I wanted to keep snakes since I was a little girl, and I had a book on ball pythons that I bought in college when I thought I'd sneak a pet into the dorm rooms. I found the book a couple years later and saw a picture of an incubator with the tiny heads poking out of their eggs. I youtubed a load of other hatching videos and my heart just melted into little pieces. I knew I had to make it happen. And then I found out that the hobby can pay for itself in time, and I convinced my boyfriend. Three months later we had 10 pythons! :O