Thinking About Starting A Small Breeding Business

[nor_cal1980]

I really think with an investment of a few thousand dollars a person could make their money back in a year or two and here is how:
buy several normal females, breeding size can go for $100-$150
buy several low end dom/co-dom males, spider, pastel, ...
buy an albino male and 3-5 het females

you could be producing pastels, spiders, and any other dom male you have the first year, and maybe albinos and bees the second year. Could probably buy all of those snakes for under $2K, another $1K for racks, incubator, other equipment rats and anything else you need.

This wont make you rich, but with a small investment and growing slow and steady every year, I dont see why a person couldnt do this.

Thats pretty much what im doing currently. I only have three females right now and im definetly getting some more in the very near future. I have a definite outlet for all the babies that I hatch at a local reptile shop...For wholesale of course, witch is not a problem. I want to get nine more females to breed my males to. I currently have .1 normal .1 fire and .1 pinstripe and some basic co-dom males including a fire male (Black Eyed Lucy's *fingers crossed*) I would like for the rest of my females to preferably all be pastels. Everything I have now will be ready to breed next season. I build all my own rack systems, breed my own rats, and am pretty self sufficient so im sure ill at least break even, but geez....taking care of all these snakes when doing it right is alot of work...lol. Most big breeders have one day a week or whatever set aside for cleaning because they have so many animals...I clean when cleaning needs to be done. If a snake poops and pees in its tub everyday for three days in a row (doesn't usually happen) then I clean the tub every day three days in a row. But even though its alot of work I can't wait to produce my own BP's....that will be the pay off

[OhhWatALoser]

I was wondering you say your going to buy a incubator next do you recommend buying one or letting the female do it herself? I was told by my local reptile store that he produced almost 90 eggs last year and only had like 4 slugs and he lets all of his females incubate there eggs because we dont know when to add more heat or take some away like the female does whats your take on that.

anyone's report i've ever read on this says incubation yields a better hatch rate. quite a few people have tested it.

[billye1982]

Thats pretty much what im doing currently. I only have three females right now and im definetly getting some more in the very near future. I have a definite outlet for all the babies that I hatch at a local reptile shop...For wholesale of course, witch is not a problem. I want to get nine more females to breed my males to. I currently have .1 normal .1 fire and .1 pinstripe and some basic co-dom males including a fire male (Black Eyed Lucy's *fingers crossed*) I would like for the rest of my females to preferably all be pastels. Everything I have now will be ready to breed next season. I build all my own rack systems, breed my own rats, and am pretty self sufficient so im sure ill at least break even, but geez....taking care of all these snakes when doing it right is alot of work...lol. Most big breeders have one day a week or whatever set aside for cleaning because they have so many animals...I clean when cleaning needs to be done. If a snake poops and pees in its tub everyday for three days in a row (doesn't usually happen) then I clean the tub every day three days in a row. But even though its alot of work I can't wait to produce my own BP's....that will be the pay off

Pretty much the same here. I hope to have a few bumble bees, spiders, pastels, super pastels, het pieds and (fingers crossed) pieds next year for sale to offset the cost of what I have spent so far. But more than likely whatever money I make from selling something will be spent on more snakes so it will all probably be a wash !

[TrpnBils]

I had an interesting conversation with Brian from BHB about this topic a few months ago and he said something that really made me stop and think. It's not so much about the commitment factor as in "I know I'll stick with it" because everybody says that. He said it's the long-term committment during the down-times of the year that people usually bail. In his words, he has (on multiple occasions) bought someone's entire collection after they've put it all the leg work and they're "almost there" with their breeding project just because they've just hit the wall and want out...then he breeds what he buys the same year or the following year and makes doubles his profit or more.

[kylesreptiles]

Thats what I plan on doing next year, purchasing someones collection that most of the snakes are close to breeding size

[billye1982]

Thats what I plan on doing next year, purchasing someones collection that most of the snakes are close to breeding size

Let me know if you find someone with two collections for sale!

Looks like I am putting my money where my mouth is, I should be getting .5 normal proven balls next week. As of right now I should have 8 breeding females this fall, and should hatch 3 clutches of pastels, 3 clutches of spiders, one clutch of paste/spider/bumble bees, and one clutch of pieds/het pieds. That is assuming a 100% hatch rate and we all know that is a guruantee right .

[dreese88]

I understand everybody's infatuation with normal females, but to be completely honest, I'll probably never breed a normal animal, ever. The key to getting the really ridiculous 4 and 5 gene animals is to breed 2 and 3 gene females. Yea, it may take a bit longer to raise them up and may be a bit more expensive, but you can't produce the stuff you need to produce in order to make good money breeding normal females unless you have hordes of them and an army of high gene males. Someone said it the other day in the BLBC "the key to those 5 and 6 gene males is breeding badass females." Frankly, I couldn't agree more and this has always been my philosophy. Sure genetics aren't always guaranteed, but if you breed a 3 gene male to a 2 gene female, you have a lot better of a chance to get a sick morph and less of a chance to get a normal than if you breed a single gene male to a normal female...Sorry I got a bit preachy, but to be honest, I'm trying to do exactly what you're doing and I'm going through and selecting the best looking animals I can find, none of which are normals.

[billye1982]

Im would not say it is an infatuation with normal females, it is more of a cost thing. I dont think anyone would breed normal females if they could afford morphs or hets, at least I wouldnt anyway. My plan is to keep (at least) one female from each of my dom male/normal female clutches, so that in 2-3 years I can trade or sell the normals and replace them with their morph babies. And then even from there I know crazy morphs are still a ways off in the future, but with a collection of pastel, spider, spinner, ... breeding size females worth $1000 each everything will be looking up from there.

[sandersnd44]

I just recently purchased my first 2 snakes. A male pastel and a female cinnamon ( hoping for pewters when it is time). But I myself will probably never buy a normal for breeding I personally would rather save that money and put it towards a nasty looking 2 or 3 gene morph. Thus less potential for normal offspring which in my mind equals a profit loss ( most people sell off normals at whole sale price to make room for next year). The real business or money is in the high end morphs or exploring a gene more thoroughly. This process is an investment of more time then money.

[MoshBalls]

I just recently purchased my first 2 snakes. A male pastel and a female cinnamon ( hoping for pewters when it is time). But I myself will probably never buy a normal for breeding I personally would rather save that money and put it towards a nasty looking 2 or 3 gene morph. Thus less potential for normal offspring which in my mind equals a profit loss ( most people sell off normals at whole sale price to make room for next year). The real business or money is in the high end morphs or exploring a gene more thoroughly. This process is an investment of more time then money.

Normals extend the genetic pool which I think is a good thing. Also if you breed a normal to a super co-dominate male you will only get visual morphs so they are good for starting cheap and they can be good once you have some really nice multiple gene males.

Plus you can rescue a normal female which is just a great thing to do if you can.