New to breeding

I've had many snakes in the past, read some books, and done my homework, but I've got some questions. I am going to start breeding very few snakes like 1 male, 2 or 3 females. I am going to specialize in albinos and albino morphs. But my main concern is the market, of which I know very little about. I live in MS, so most of my sales will be online ( Fauna, Kingsnake.com). Is it relatively easy to sell ball pythons there? Do you commonly sell expensive (over $1000) snakes there, if they are good examples of the morph? Any insight would help. Thanks

Being a newcomer to the market will be your biggest obstacle in regards to higher end morphs and the hets produced by the albinos.
Best advice is produce quality animals and price right at market value... not way above or below. Know your animals and be prepared to answer tons of questions professionally and promptly and have outstanding customer service.
Most people break in by breeding dom/codom morphs... they are visual and it's a little bit easier to sell therefore easier to build a solid base reputation. Good luck with your endeavors :)

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It all starts with high quality animals and also picking projects that are a little more uncommon. So if you want to go with albinos, make sure you get the nicest high contrast albinos you can find. Yes, you may pay a little more, but you'll make a nicer animal. I'll pay attention to who the breeder of an animal is, but if the pictures show a high quality animal, I can look past if I know the breeder or not. Another angle to take is go with lavender albinos. It will be more expensive to start, but still many projects untapped with them. You can also go the toffee/candy or toffino/candino route also. Those projects are still very new.

Next you want to think what projects to go with. Pattern morphs work nicely with albinos. Hmm.. I wonder what an albino purple passion would look like?


Chris

I was thinking about breeding a nice high orange enchi albino to an albino, but like I said, I'm not sure how easily they will sell. I would hate to have all these valuable snakes, but nobody to buy them.

The best advice I can give to anyone that is just getting into this beautiful industry is to be prepared to keep every single baby you produce. That way if you are not able to sell them all you will be prepared. Sometimes you will sell them all right away and other times you will only be able to sell one or 2 and have to keep the rest for a while. You may also not sell a single one. When breeding anything do it for the passion of the animals and not for the money that is involved. Be prepared to lose money and never make it back. Be prepared to have the worst odds possible and never produce what you are shooting for. Be prepared for everything that can go wrong and know that at some point in time it will go wrong. The reason I say all of that is because when you are prepared for the worst and the best ends up happening then it is a better feeling than when you feel that you are going to kill the odds, all feed right away, all are perfectly formed and sell every single baby right away and end up with horrid odds, none feed, most are deformed, and keeping them all.

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Originally Posted by T&C Exotics

The best advice I can give to anyone that is just getting into this beautiful industry is to be prepared to keep every single baby you produce. That way if you are not able to sell them all you will be prepared. Sometimes you will sell them all right away and other times you will only be able to sell one or 2 and have to keep the rest for a while. You may also not sell a single one. When breeding anything do it for the passion of the animals and not for the money that is involved. Be prepared to lose money and never make it back. Be prepared to have the worst odds possible and never produce what you are shooting for. Be prepared for everything that can go wrong and know that at some point in time it will go wrong. The reason I say all of that is because when you are prepared for the worst and the best ends up happening then it is a better feeling than when you feel that you are going to kill the odds, all feed right away, all are perfectly formed and sell every single baby right away and end up with horrid odds, none feed, most are deformed, and keeping them all.

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That is really good advise that many do not understand.

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A lot of people tend to forget that there are negatives and almost always only tell new people about those and ignore the negatives. I would rather know both sides and always prepare for the negatives. When I have eggs I always expect them to either go bad or to hatch severely deformed to the point I have to euthanize them all. That way when I get all healthy babies I am even happier with them and if the bad happens.... Well I was ready for it already.

Thanks for the responses, I appreciate it. Those are all very good points to keep in mind. I'm not a complete stranger to this, as I have bred animals to sell in the past, so I am aware of what can go wrong. I've learned that if it can go wrong, chances are at some point it will, it's being prepared that matters. Also, my goal is to make a profit, but believe me I am passionate about doing this, and since I was a child have had a room full of pets. Just figured it was time to try to profit on my enjoyment of owning snakes.

To be honest the vast majority of people breeding bp's never even break even and even less make any kind of profit. The best way to do that is to work with animals that are not worked with a whole lot but have a high demand. Albinos are pretty low on that list. Best bet is to get something like the bamboo or het scaleless if you actually want to make a profit.

Would those be good for just starting out though? I feel like that is way too big of an investment for my first attempt at breeding them. So do you think I will have trouble finding buyers for the more pricey albino morphs?

I think there will always be a buyer for multiple gene animals, especially recessives like an albino. But will you make enough off of an albino project to make a profit? Maybe over time, but probably not. If you want to make a profit or at least break even, I'd start off getting a couple of 2 gene or more females and begin growing them up. A mix of both pattern and color morphs. If you want to get a female albino, like i said earlier I'd go with a lavender over a regular albino. There is still a lot to do in that project. Then once they are about a 1000 grams, I'd get your project male. This will be your investment animal that you will then breed to your grown females.

Bottom line, get females and start growing them. It's not worth investing in a high end project if you don't have breedable females. I don't know what your budget is. That will really determine where to start as well.


Chris

Something to also keep in mind. Pretty sells. If you want to get into a project and sell all your babies, pick something pretty. Albinos are so common nowadays and many are unattractive. Even when multiple genes are mixed in I find it hard to care. Personally, I think the pure toffee/candy projects are going to be huge. They are pretty. And once pattern morphs start getting mixed in, watch out.


Chris

No start with albinos, some people will look at the quality of the animal alone, and others will look up if the seller has a rep and if its good/bad before making a purchase.
If you're trying to sell bamboo with no rep... a lot may be skeptical and pass on by.

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I've heard that pieds and het pieds are always good to go with because they always do well in the market. Is that true?

You can never go wrong with pieds.


Chris