Why do you breed reptiles if not for the money?

I know the title may be a bit misleading but I couldn't think of a better way to articulate what I was asking. I myself plan to breed hognoses starting next year because I find them absolutely fascinating with their personalities and the morphs are stunning. I'm not going in with the mindset that I'm going to be making thousands of dollars even though I have a great number of combos that could produce snows or supercondas. I actually don't see myself making a profit in the 1st season but MAYBE break even on what I've spent on the hogs, feeders, housing, etc and that's dependent on how many we decide to keep as hold backs.

We've talked about breeding ball pythons as well but the market is so saturated that we go back and forth over whether that would be a hobby that would be more cost and time consuming than what it would be worth. Ideally, everyone would like to be in the green, not the red but it's a hobby and we're looking forward to being able to say we produced this or that and share the final result with others while also teaching people.


What makes you continue to breed year after year regardless of whether you have a pair or a dozen pairs?

I breed ball pythons definitely don't do it for the money
I do so because there are snakes that i want that i can not justify paying thousands of dollars for so i make them
I also do it to offset the cost of my collection (I am in the green for the first time, since i started breeding, this year)
also simply because i love to see those babies piping, and as of yet i have not produced anything i didn't sell

For the Women of course.

Beyond just liking the animals, it is like running my own private laboratory. This is enjoyable to me. Unlike my job, I can proceed at whatever pace I think is prudent without deadlines and customer pressures. I have also taken a different direction than a lot of other breeders. Many of my projects focus on improving the animal as it relates to being a pet which goes far beyond producing morphs. This has caused me to deep dive into the animal behaviors and the biology that controls them. The more I study the more a realize we don't really know a lot about these animals. I am currently in way over my head since I have not studied biology since high school and am an engineer by trade, but I am gradually consuming the material and learning. I love having problems to solve and trying to understand the "why" of things.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

For the Women of course.

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ROFL. Guitars and motorcycles produce much better results in that arena.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

ROFL. Guitars and motorcycles produce much better results in that arena.

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Yea but I cant build guitars and spent all my bike money on a Pied male years ago..

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

For the Women of course.

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How's that working for you?


I started breeding snake to produce what I could not afford or should I say justify spending on, back when I started (the reason I started) Pied were 10K so breeding to get my dream snake was the only viable option.

I still breed to produce animals I really want ad the rest is sold, I never thought there would me any money to be made, I thought I would be lucky if I broke even and would have been fine to have a collection paying for itself, it just happened to make money.

But I will always breed for myself first (I am my first customer) :gj:

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Originally Posted by Deborah

How's that working for you?

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Why do you think I'm still breeding. :(

Ball pythons and reticulated pythons - for fun and to create morphs I couldn't afford to purchase otherwise.

Savu pythons and locality boas - because the wild populations are threatened in their native environments.

Why breed? To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And hear the lamentations of their women.

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Originally Posted by MasonC2K

Why breed? To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And hear the lamentations of their women.

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Ah.. Genghis Khan, one of the most prolific "breeders" to ever live.

For the men, of course.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

Ah.. Genghis Khan, one of the most prolific "breeders" to ever live.

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Also... Conan the Barbarian
:D

Because they are beautiful

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

ROFL. Guitars and motorcycles produce much better results in that arena.

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truth!!!! being a hockey player didn't hurt back in my single days ;)

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Originally Posted by andrewross8705

I know the title may be a bit misleading but I couldn't think of a better way to articulate what I was asking. I myself plan to breed hognoses starting next year because I find them absolutely fascinating with their personalities and the morphs are stunning. I'm not going in with the mindset that I'm going to be making thousands of dollars even though I have a great number of combos that could produce snows or supercondas. I actually don't see myself making a profit in the 1st season but MAYBE break even on what I've spent on the hogs, feeders, housing, etc and that's dependent on how many we decide to keep as hold backs.

We've talked about breeding ball pythons as well but the market is so saturated that we go back and forth over whether that would be a hobby that would be more cost and time consuming than what it would be worth. Ideally, everyone would like to be in the green, not the red but it's a hobby and we're looking forward to being able to say we produced this or that and share the final result with others while also teaching people.


What makes you continue to breed year after year regardless of whether you have a pair or a dozen pairs?

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Thanks for starting this thread. Ever since getting back into the hobby I've always had breeding in the back of my mind. And it's funny that you mention breeding hognose and cite their fascinating behaviors and the oversaturation of BPs as your primary reasons for choosing to breed hognose. These are the exact two reasons that breeding hognose over BPs has been creeping into my head since adopting my first hognose recently.

If I were to breed eventually (still a few years out, if I decide to go that route) I would be doing it as a hobby and with no plans to eventually quit my job and breed for a living.

So that brings me to a question: As somebody who would be breeding for hobby and not planning to keep more than maybe a holdback or two, how does somebody go about selling off the babies? I would be prepared to house the babies until they sold, but wouldn't want to keep them all as forever pets and would want to sell most of them simply to make room and cover expenses. I personally would be leery of buying from a first time breeder with no reputation, so I would imagine it may take a while to sell the babies.

Again, thanks for starting this thread, I'm interested in seeing more replies.

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

Thanks for starting this thread. Ever since getting back into the hobby I've always had breeding in the back of my mind. And it's funny that you mention breeding hognose and cite their fascinating behaviors and the oversaturation of BPs as your primary reasons for choosing to breed hognose. These are the exact two reasons that breeding hognose over BPs has been creeping into my head since adopting my first hognose recently.

If I were to breed eventually (still a few years out, if I decide to go that route) I would be doing it as a hobby and with no plans to eventually quit my job and breed for a living.

So that brings me to a question: As somebody who would be breeding for hobby and not planning to keep more than maybe a holdback or two, how does somebody go about selling off the babies? I would be prepared to house the babies until they sold, but wouldn't want to keep them all as forever pets and would want to sell most of them simply to make room and cover expenses. I personally would be leery of buying from a first time breeder with no reputation, so I would imagine it may take a while to sell the babies.

Again, thanks for starting this thread, I'm interested in seeing more replies.

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You can try here. People know you here.
You can try morphmarket and undercut everyone else.
You can wholesale.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

For the Women of course.

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Beat me to it. lol.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

You can try here. People know you here.
You can try morphmarket and undercut everyone else.
You can wholesale.

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All good suggestions. I honestly didn't think of trying here. And figured morphmarket, but was concerned about lack of reputation and experience, so selling might just take more time, increasing my expenses. I hadn't thought wholesale either.
Anyway, still a lot to learn and study before making any decisions. I'm thinking I'm at least two years out, and it's still just a thought...

Thank you, as always.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

You can try here. People know you here.
You can try morphmarket and undercut everyone else.
You can wholesale.

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I was about to suggest 1 and 2 but not the undercutting. I'm not sure how I feel about wholesale knowing it's just going to someone who will flip the snake but that's the cost of doing business I suppose. You can also look at shows but those will cost you money and you may not sell a single snake. Kingsnake and MorphMarket are good places, just make sure the buyer checks out so you aren't scammed out of a snake and money. Not sure how well undercutting would work or if it would come back to bite you.

For us, we're sticking to online, no shows because the local show here is a hit or miss. We'll be advertising on social media as well. I've purchased a hog that was a bit more than the other based on his pattern when he was a hatchling and it was a risk. Thankfully, it paid off and he's a stunner as an axanthic.

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Originally Posted by andrewross8705

I was about to suggest 1 and 2 but not the undercutting. I'm not sure how I feel about wholesale knowing it's just going to someone who will flip the snake but that's the cost of doing business I suppose. You can also look at shows but those will cost you money and you may not sell a single snake. Kingsnake and MorphMarket are good places, just make sure the buyer checks out so you aren't scammed out of a snake and money. Not sure how well undercutting would work or if it would come back to bite you.

For us, we're sticking to online, no shows because the local show here is a hit or miss. We'll be advertising on social media as well. I've purchased a hog that was a bit more than the other based on his pattern when he was a hatchling and it was a risk. Thankfully, it paid off and he's a stunner as an axanthic.

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I don't like to undercut either however if you retail and you do not have a rep you either need to have a far better product than the other guy or a better price for the same product.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

I don't like to undercut either however if you retail and you do not have a rep you either need to have a far better product than the other guy or a better price for the same product.

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Touche. I didn't take that into account.

I tried breeding a pair for a few months to produce some BEL's. The female ended up not laying with me, and I assumed she was totally skipping this year since it was getting late, and I didn't want to wait another 6 months for her to lay. (I sold her due to her not switching to f/t) Then literally a month and a half after I sold her, SHE LAID HER CLUTCH. It had 9 healthy eggs! I saw photos.

The person I sold her to was keeping in touch with me, but unfortunately he apparently lied originally telling me he was an experienced breeder. Turns out after she already had her clutch, he didn't even have an incubator. I believe he forgot what he originally lied about in his excitement, and was all like "a buddy breeder of mine is going to hook me up with an incubator".... lol. I replied "oh you've never bred before?" and he saw the message and didn't reply until like 2 days later, and finally was sheepishly like "I have bred before". Rolls my eyes.

So I have no idea how the clutch is doing now, a week later, probably totally gone to waste. :( Just such a waste when I think about it.

anyway

I wanted to breed, just because I wanted the experience of seeing them pipping and taking a million photos of that! And I wanted the experience of having a bunch of baby snakes around and naming each of them. I'm a fan of creative marketing/creating online presence, and doing that for a small breeding hobby sounded fun too. I had three friends and a few followers who wanted a baby from the clutch.

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

I wanted to breed, just because I wanted the experience of seeing them pipping and taking a million photos of that! And I wanted the experience of having a bunch of baby snakes around and naming each of them. I'm a fan of creative marketing/creating online presence, and doing that for a small breeding hobby sounded fun too. I had three friends and a few followers who wanted a baby from the clutch.

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This is similar to why I wanted to start breeding in addition to what others have said, produce the morphs you want. It never occurred to me that is one of the primary reasons. I love the snow hognoses and can't wait to start producing them. That and I also want to take a million pictures of the 1st clutch and hatchling out of the egg so I can say "I produced this! This little thing was the result of my hard work!" then I'll probably come off my excitement high and crash harder than a kid on birthday cake.

My 1st reptile was a leopard gecko and I've always been fascinated by them and when I 1st thought about breeding them the mack snow morph was still brand new to the community and the price tag on some were in the thousands. Then surgery happened so it was put on the back burner. Breeding the leos isn't feasible but hognoses is. My family thinks every snake I have can be bred and will make money. I don't want to turn this into a full time job because then the risk of burnout sets in and that's just too much. Side hobby that possibly makes some money? Fantastic. Hobby? Absolutely.

I love how the genetics work and find it fascinating. I like to produce what I keep and sell the rest off or give them to friends. Defiantly money is not the priority right now, but some day it may play more of a part.

For the most part I breed to create living art. Every single snake is unique and beautiful in its own way. Also I plan on trying to do some trades to acquire new snakes in my collection. The ones I do sell, I do not sell for profit, but to merely fund my collection/hobby for expansion

The excitement, the challenge, and the experience. Everyone here should know what it is like to get their first pet reptile, for me I get that feeling with every new gecko, every snake, every clutch, every hatch, and every sale that goes smoothly knowing my effort brings that feeling to the next person. Getting paid is nice but is not in the forefront of my mind, I suppose if it were I am behind on posting available animals. I really post animals two or three times a year.

I'm actually planning on breeding for the money LOL. The money will help support the snake business and help to buy more racks and more animals and expand my collection. I'm hoping to support my retirement by selling a few snakes on the side. I also sell grass hay and raise and sell Black Angus cattle, thinking about buying tractors and skid steers / Bobcats to fix up and sell for some bucks too. I'm about four years away from retirement so I'm always looking for things that fit into the farm / ranch life that can bring in a few bucks. Right now my cattle are paying for all my snakes and supplies LOL.

The reason I want to breed is simple. I love my animals. A lot of the reasons others have stated apply too, but that's the most important one. There are morphs that I want, but can't justify the price of. And I'd love to offest my costs, though I'm far from that. Making money would be great, but I doubt I'll ever make a living, let alone a fortune. That's not important. I just want to enjoy my snakes without having to worry about using them to pay the bills, so I don't plan on ever being more than a hobbyist.


I love every snake in my collection. Looking at them brightens up my day and I want to share that with others. The only thing better than being able to care for my animals is knowing that others will have just as much fun caring for the ones I decide to sell. And of course it's always amazing to create new life. Who doesn't love tiny little baby animals? It's just important to plan ahead so you know what to do with the babies. I've had pretty good luck selling locally and on morphmarket so far.

I only breed corn snakes, I love the snakes, the challenge and excitement of hatching eggs, the cool morphs. Everything about it but the selling.I hate selling, I dont do people very well, they frustrate me.The people that want all this info and pictures and then dont show up, the lowballers, the ones who want it for free and then expect you to deliver it to them... This is my last year breeding the corns. I dont do it for the money although if I can make enough to pay for feeders Im happy.

People complain about seeing nothing but ball pythons at reptile shows and on breeder's sites. I complain about it too, but mom always taught me not complain about something if I didn't have a solution. I haven't bred my Baird's rat snakes yet but next year will be the first time. I know that's not the most uncommon species of snake but it's a little different to some people. I will use the money from those babies to then pick up another interesting species that people don't see as often as I think they should. I'm probably gonna go with either Green rat snakes or some thing else people don't see all the time.