How many babies do you sell?

Hey, my boyfriend and I are starting to look into breeding. I have a 3 year old female butter who is 1345 grams this year, so I am hoping she will be up to a good weight by 2019 season. Current plan is to try to produce BELs with her, and then in a couple years also breed my younger het pied girl to a visual pied to produce piebalds.

My question is, how many babies on average do you guys produce in a season, and how many of those do you sell? We are starting small but we want an idea of the scope that we can scale up to in future years. Ultimately, I would like this hobby to at least break even if not make a little bit of side money.

I produced 74 hatchlings this season. Of those I'm keeping 4. I have like 14 left available at the moment.

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I dont think a general hatchling count would be a good judge for your future business plans. I think some of the most important factors are you have to plan and research more for how your local mark is and how you'll get your name out there as someone trustworthy with quality animals, especially if you want to produce hets. Ive produced the least amount of babies ever this year but because they're higher valued Ill come out ahead pretty decent. Id definitely make sure you have the room and food supply to feed anything you produce for atleast several months since sales can be slow at times depending on supply and demand. The BP market is so oversaturated with breeders as is so make sure this is something youre really passionate about if youve only owned one for 3 years since it's definitley a labor of love and not a get rich quick plan.

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I've heard a lot that the ball python market is "oversaturated", but haven't seen much evidence of it. It seems that there is enough demand to meet the supply of new babies. I may be wrong though, this is just based on what I see. Do you have any specific experience of why you think the market is oversaturated?

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Originally Posted by HannaKessler

I've heard a lot that the ball python market is "oversaturated", but haven't seen much evidence of it. It seems that there is enough demand to meet the supply of new babies. I may be wrong though, this is just based on what I see. Do you have any specific experience of why you think the market is oversaturated?

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the market is saturated in such a way that multi-gene animals that should be bringing decent amount of profit to a breeder are bringing almost nothing not saying you can't sell them you just don't make money I don't do it for the money I do it because there are snakes that I want and it's more fun to produce them yourself then it is to buy them

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by HannaKessler

I've heard a lot that the ball python market is "oversaturated", but haven't seen much evidence of it. It seems that there is enough demand to meet the supply of new babies. I may be wrong though, this is just based on what I see. Do you have any specific experience of why you think the market is oversaturated?

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Morphmarket currently has over 13,000 BPs listed, many that have been up for months. Just read how many other posts like this there are of people with minimal experience that plan to breed. When I vend reptile expos, just about everyone buying also breeds. Im not saying don't follow your dreams, I just hope you'll really come up with a marketing plan for babies before they're here and be able to support them if things don't go as planned.

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I see, well that is kind of why I was asking. I plan to try to vend expos as well. Do you usually sell most of what you bring?

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Originally Posted by HannaKessler

I see, well that is kind of why I was asking. I plan to try to vend expos as well. Do you usually sell most of what you bring?

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Very very very rarely when you take snakes to the Expo there's 25 other people selling snakes in an expo if you sell 5 you've done really well

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I produce between 100+ to 200 animals a year and I am sold out every year now because I am sold out every year does not mean everyone is or will be, if you want to be successful it's like any other business you MUST have a plan, you MUST know YOUR market etc

Shows are hit and miss, most of the time they are miss, you can go to a show and sell nothing again you need to know YOUR market what sells and where it sells if it does.

My experience is that you have to first prove yourself to others as a safe and reputable person to buy from. Do not think that your pied will bring as much as a pied from A big known breeder. Being new your animals will either need to be super unique or super cheap unless you plan to sit on them for a long while. Be sure to invest in a great camera and brush up on your photography skills. Use a nice background for your photos too. Once you build a reputation, you can join the big boys. When I was in, I had around 30 babies a year. I did sell all of those intended but they usually ended up either as a trade or for 25-50% less then their true value. FYI: I never bothered selling hets. People always think you might be fibbing them. Instead, I sold them as a visual whatever they were and after the sale mentioned the bonus to the new owner. This scored me a couple repeat customers.

I’ve not produced bp’s, but I used to breed my Colombian redtail boas, which produced exceptionally light offspring. I only did this for a few years, producing a single litter per year, about 20. I sold at local expos, but rarely sold everything at one show, even after I became recognizable to locals. The only boas I sold all of at one show was the year I bred my Cuban boas. There were only 3 in the litter and even back then they were not common in the area. You have to be able and willing to house and feed the offspring for an extended time.

For the local shows (Richmond VA reptile expo & Northern VA reptile expo), there are a lot of ball pythons, mostly small breeders. The animals are lovely, but the breeders are taking quite a few home at the end of the show. The last show I attended (N VA), I heard several other attendees talk about the abundance of bp’s...more than any other species there. Great selection, but a lot of competition.

I don't breed, but having gone to quite a few locally-based reptile shows (not big national expos).... it's at least 80% ball pythons. Out of all the reptiles in the world lol. So just keep that in mind. Like others mentioned, unless you're producing something really different and unique, you have a LOT of competition.

I'm a pretty small scale breeder. Until this year, I've been producing only 1 clutch per year since I started breeding in 2013. This year I tried for 2 clutches, but staggered the pairings so that the 1st clutch would hatch before the 2nd clutch was laid. All of my clutches so far have been 6-10 eggs.

I'm a bit lucky because there is a very reputable, independently owned pet store in my area that specializes in fish and reptiles. They are happy to buy all of my hatchlings at reasonable wholesale prices, so I never have to worry about getting "stuck" with unsold hatchlings. I make more money if I sell them individually on my own, but that also takes a lot more time and effort.

So far I've come nowhere near breaking even on my expenses. The cost of all of my enclosures and thermostats, the incubator, the snakes themselves, plus feeders and miscellaneous other supplies along the way...

Well, if this was a true business for me, rather than a fun hobby, I probably would have changed my methods or quit by now. But the snakes come first for me. I don't power feed (so my snakes take longer to reach breeding weight), I don't breed undersized females (I wait until they're approaching 2000g), and I don't breed females under 3 years old or more often than every 2 years.

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