Breeding Loan Questions

[Wicked]

My pet bp Brutus just hit 1000g a couple weeks ago, and he's already over a year and a half old. I always get compliments on how pretty of a snake he is, and he does have three genes in him (pastel, cinnamon, butter)... so I was wondering about loaning him out to a local breeder this winter.

I did a little bit of research on the web before asking, but couldn't really find anything relating to my questions, so here are my questions for you guys--

1) If you are a breeder, would you personally be receptive to having a local pet bp on loan? Not really advertising here, just wondering about the practicality of it.

2) Would I want my pet bp on loan? I understand that there is the process of quarantine which would extend his "visit," not to mention the trust I would have to give to the breeder in order to take care of my animal.

3) Would there be complications with keeping Brutus in a free tub provided by the breeder when he is used to a big 50 gal viv?

4) How long would the process take? I would miss my little noodle boy ):

5) Most of the threads I've found discussing breeding loans discuss an equal split of the eggs produced by the pairings, but I have no intention of keeping any of the offspring produced. Would it be alright to ask for a cash "stud fee", or is that frowned upon? Could I ask for a certain percentage of the amount the produced animals are sold for? Would anyone have any idea how much I could ask for?

He really is a beautiful boy, and very healthy! No history of mites, RI's... A great feeder. In addition to passing on his good genes, I figure it would be nice to let him hook up with a lady snake for once, too, but maybe I'm just personifying the animal a little too much.

Thank you in advance!

[Sunnieskys]

I had a chuckle at a hook up with a lady snake friend. What does snake porno music sound like. Bowchicka hiss hiss? Ok I'm dying over here at myself.

I would take a loaner male for boople but I don't want to sell babies so money would be out for me...and I'm not a breeder.

[the_rotten1]

Breeding loans are risky because there's so much that could go wrong. Personally, I wouldn't do it. It's easier to just buy the snake you want.

To put it in perspective, most breeders do a 3 month quarantine. That happens before your snake even gets to meet his new lady friend. And when it's time to breed there's no guarantee the two snakes will lock. He might be away from you for an indefinite amount of time before he does, and even if there is a lock it doesn't guarantee eggs. Who is going to pay for your snake's food and care all the time he's gone? What happens if your snake gets sick or dies while he's in someone else's care? Or more likely, what if he just refuses to eat the entire time? A lot of male snakes do that while breeding. Who gets to decide when there's been too much breeding and he needs a rest?

I wouldn't go through all the trouble of putting a snake through quarantine just to breed him a few times and then give him back. I'll buy the snake I want, add him to my collection, and then I'll have all the time in the world to wait for him to lock with my girls. And if I decide to sell him later that's a whole lot better than paying a stud fee.

[cchardwick]

If I were you I'd find a local breeder and build up a relationship first. I've known people to loan out snakes, I actually have a big spider pied male that I'm not using this year, but he is so cool that I don't want to sell him. I wouldn't mind loaning him out for the season. First I'd take a look at the other guys setup and conditions, are the tubs / substrate / humidity / temps OK from your perspective? Do the tubs / tanks look dirty, is there any mold or mess? How often does he clean, is that OK with you?

If it's two breeders I'd probably have both visit the others collections and go through and look at each snake for mites, infections, etc... If both parties have excellent husbandry and quarantine set up I'm not sure you would even need to quarantine, i.e. I can guarantee I don't have any problems with my snakes, especially this spider pied male that I've had for a couple years now. You need to be on terms to the point where you would consider all of your snakes one big collection (don't lend out to strangers). As far as the details above you would need to go over all of that with the other guy. Most people I know that loan snakes decide to eventually just sell them to the guy that is borrowing. For me I'd probably just loan out my male and have the guy feed him as the rent payment LOL. And that male is big enough that you would probably only have to feed him every other week.

[PitOnTheProwl]

Any responsible breeder would quarantine. I would not risk my collection period.
That said you would be looking at 90 days at minimum plus pairing time.
I personally am not too fond of loans and wouldn't do it just because there are too many variables to consider.

[Craiga 01453]

As somebody who keeps my snakes solely as pets, I personally wouldn't loan my animals out.
A) not worth the risk
B) I would miss them and would constantly be worried about them since I couldn't be there to do my daily checks, etc...

[bcr229]

Has a breeder already approached you about using him as a stud?

None of the genes he has are rare and while he may be pretty, most breeders will have those genes in their collection as staples anyway.

[rufretic]

Not trying to be rude because I believe your male is beautiful but I agree with above and was thinking the exact same thing. Your male does not have anything special or rare that a breeder would find ‘worth’ a stud fee. The only time I see this working is when it’s good for both parties like you have a 20k rare new morph but are a collector not a breeder so any breeder would love to get that rare new morph in his collection so it would be worth it to him to pay you to stud him out and add a holdback to his own personal breeding stock. But for any combo of common morphs, there is no reason any breeder would find it worth a stud fee when they could just purchase their own breeding stock for a reasonable price.