"Fee" for lending out breeder males

I've already spoke with a breeder, and I'm planning on picking up a breeder sized male at an expo next weekend to pair with one of my females. I believe my friend will be picking up a close-to breeder sized female from the same breeder.

My friend is already asking to use my male to pair with her female, which I have no problem with. My question is, what is an acceptable fee to ask for her using my male? How do I determine what's fair to take in a clutch that can have anywhere from $60 normals to possibly $1000 morph babies? The pairing would be lesser x spider. She said that if she got two lesser bees that I could have one (which would be awesome), but I'm not sure if that's a proper trade.

This will be my first year at attempting to breed, so still trying to learn some of the ins and outs of it all.

The way I have always done it is , split the clutch 50/50 value wise.

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Originally Posted by Patience Cooper

The way I have always done it is , split the clutch 50/50 value wise.

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I haven't bred yet, but me and a few friends have already talked about this and this is exactly what we came up with. 50% is better than 0%. You just have to make sure that where ever your BP(s) go, they will be getting the best of care while they are gone or it really isn't worth anything.

Just my 2 cents.

dog breeders usually "usually" have a contract made. I've seen deals that the person with the stud, this case the sire, the owner would get first dibs on the one animal, plus a percent of cash from what's sold.

From what I've been told by several established breeders is that the owner of the more valuable snake gets first pick, then the other guy picks one, and so on. Also, lesser bees are not even going for $1000 this season, so they aren't going to be that much next season.

I've only loaned out one male, and gave a female to a friend to be bred by one of his.

The male I loaned out was a breeding loan that I really didn't care what came of it. I just let him use my male but I don't want any babies. I was giving that male to my sister after I got him back anyway..

My big female on the other hand, means a lot to me. I let a breeder friend take her for a few months to be bred to a couple high end males but she didn't take. I took her back to do my own breeding this fall. The agreement was 50/50 split. If there happened to be an odd number of morphs, he said I could have the extra, but I wouldn't care either way.

Now there is the possibility of sperm retention since she locked multiple times all summer with his males. If I do still get a morph from his pairings, he will be informed and we'd still split whatever we could 50/50. If there was only one from his pairings, and the rest from my pairings, I'd just give it to him.

The point I'm making is you need to figure out what will be done in every scenario. There has to be trust between the two of you, and some give and take.

It's easier if your friend lives near you and is a well known and trusted friend.

Otherwise, you really need to document your agreement, what will be done in any scenario the clutch can provide. A contract of sorts is a great idea if you both are in it for gain.

Breeding loans are where lots of people get into situations where there are hard feelings at the end. You should have a contract that specifies every detail of every contingency. Who is responsible if the loaned snake gets sick? What is compensation if the snake dies? Who is responsible for vet bills? Who pays for food during the breeding loan? What happens if the person who owns the snake moves? What happens if there is only one nice morph in the clutch? How does the split happen? When does the split happen? and on and on and on.....

I've started to go down this path once, but when I started working through a contract with the partner, we both decided we didn't want to pursue because there are just too many opportunities for misunderstandings and bad feelings.

Oh, and don't forget quarantine procedures. That will add months to the loans.

I'd just avoid them.

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Originally Posted by MikeM75

I haven't bred yet, but me and a few friends have already talked about this and this is exactly what we came up with. 50% is better than 0%. You just have to make sure that where ever your BP(s) go, they will be getting the best of care while they are gone or it really isn't worth anything.

Just my 2 cents.

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I know lesser bees aren't going for $1000, I was just using that figure amount as an example. Also, with dogs, you're right, the owner of the stud generally gets first pick. But that's also in a litter where all pups will be close to the same in value.

I trust my friend 100%. If anything were to happen to my male (god forbid) while in her care, she'd take full responsibility. And I'll also be using my male too so she'd only probably have him for a few days every couple of weeks so feeding wouldn't be an issue. I also don't want half of her clutch. That would be more babies I'd have to sell. But getting a lesser bee out of it would be awesome. So maybe if she's willing to make that deal, then we could go from there. I just didn't know what was acceptable, but seeing as how most people split the clutch 50/50, giving me a lesser bee (if she gets one) would be more than fair on her end.

Thanks for all the info, everyone! This is why I love this site :) everyone is more than willing to be friendly and help out!

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Originally Posted by Don

Oh, and don't forget quarantine procedures. That will add months to the loans.

I'd just avoid them.

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They should be done quarantine by the time breeding season starts, though. And if we have to start a little later, that's okay too.

I would NEVER breed in-house then send a male out then bring it back and breed in-house with him and then send him back and forth, not a chance...

The only way anyone uses my males that I am also breeding is in my house.
If a male gets breeder loaned it goes to the other persons house and stays there until the breeding season is over and then goes into quarantine when it returns to my house.

In standard breeding loans the female is the one moving for and extended amount of time. Obviously you can't move the male back and forth between locations, animals must be quarantined when moving to a new location (anything from 3 to 6 months) additionally moving the male is not standard has there are no guarantee that he will be bred to one female and one female only.

My advice get EVERYTHING in writing from who does what to how the split will work to who is responsible should a health issue arise.

Split may vary, they are based on the value of the animals, not all clutches are split 50/50 for example you would not split a clutch 50/50 if you had a male banana paired to a normal female, things like those are to be evaluated and discussed and agreed upon prior to the loan.

Remember loans can be risky and can complicate friendships so make sure you think this through carefully before going ahead with this, not trying to scare you just warn you that it can complicate things depending on who you are doing a loan with.

Thanks for all the info, I'll have to re-think this. She's willing to bring her female to my house, but it seems this whole situation is just going to cause a bit of a headache. She doesn't even have the female yet so I may be worrying about this for nothing. We'll deal with it if and when the time comes.

Were doing this with our albino female this season, no written contract, but im not overly concerned. She has been with the other breeder since she was injured and due to his work, effort, and knowledge she has been eating like a hog(she wouldn't eat for us) and put on a ton of weight. He has a spider het albino male we agreed to breed with her this season, babies 50/50. We also had a simliar thing last year, he loaned us a breeder normal female to breed to a black pastel male we bought of him, he wanted some more black pastels, well she did not produce, and we wound buying her from him because we fell in love with her. To me it comes down to one thing, trust. If you dont feel you can trust the person you are working with get it all in writing, hell it probably wouldn't hurt to get it in writing anyway.

Sometimes the best laid plans go down in flames. My friend and I had worked out a deal, just for fun and to see what we would get. Everything was going fine, I had both snakes, I did all the work, which I was fine with. I would rather do most things myself, 10 years as a Marine has taught me the only person you can count on is you a lot of the time. Well surprise right after her pre lay shed I get told I have to go to Okinawa for 6 months. So the female plus all of my snakes go to stay with him while I'm gone (Very long story). The eggs should have hatched 2 weeks ago but I find out a week before they are due that he has been cooking the at 83 this whole time. And to add insult to injury the simple little pastel that set everything in motion for my wife and me to start keeping and breeding balls gets cooked by a heat lamp in the cage. It was one of those ones that has the heat lamp in a cage hanging attached to the celing. I know that accidents happen but when you own and work 7 days in a pet store you should have an idea of what you are doing.

the one most important thing over everything else in doing this is trust, without that you dicing with disaster.
I let me male Woma go to a friend most of last breeding season, he stayed there the whole time, but i wouldnt have let him go to anyone else, if someone wants to borrow one of my males it would be someone i knew and trusted implicitly and the female would be coming here.
without wholehearted trust there is nothing.

My buddy and I do loans every year. I will be moving my females to his house for this reason. Usually what we do is a split clutch 50/50. Who ever has the more valuable snake gets first pick and we take turns.

However if were breeding a double gene snake to single, depending on value, whoever owns the double gene gets the first two picks and the other person gets the 3 and 4 picks then its 1 by 1. (if that makes sense)

We have a chart made up of who gets what. Plus doing a loan with someone you know is always helpful.

Heck my parntner is the only reason I will have a shot at spider het clowns, and mojave het clowns this season.