Should you really breed? Are you sure it is a good idea?

[Godzilla78]

In the world of ball pythons there are morphs, hundreds, maybe thousands of morphs and morph combos. So MANY new owners decide they want to get more than one snake, because they like other morphs and want more. That is fine, as long as you can afford the time and money to properly care for them.

Then while shopping for the new morphs they want, they notice some of the prices on these morphs and they think to themselves...."wow, I could just buy some of these and breed em' and MULTIPLY my money investment! Awesome, I am going to breed!!!" Or they think,"I cannot afford this high end combo recessive morph I want, but if I breed cheap snake A to cheap snake B, I could get one of those expensive ones I like!"

So they sit down and type a new forum post, " Hey guys, I have such and such a morph, and I as thinking to pair it to such and such! The genetic calculator says I will get such and such, such and such morph hatchlings!!! Awesome.

However, often they have not thoroughly thought this through, meaning that they haven't considered the large amount of money, time and effort involved. Nor have they considered the business and marketing strategies to sell these hatchlings once they are born!

It seems there are two main reasons that newbies want to breed:

1) They want to "make" a morph they like.
JUST BUY IT! Why take tons of time, buy two parents, go through the work (and money) of reproducing and hatch 6-10 eggs just to get ONE MORPH you like? Then what do you do with the other 5-9 eggs?
You want a pastel piebald? Just buy one! It is more expensive to try to hit the odds with a pastel het pied, and a normal het pied, than it is to just buy one. You have to buy 2 adult snakes, or two hatchlings and raise them to adulthood, and even then the odds suck (⅛ chance of each egg being a pastel pied) and you have to take care of multiple snakes for years, just to get the morph you want.

2) They think it is profitable automatically. When you do serious accounting research on snake breeding, you find that the majority of breeders actually end up with a LOSS. That is right, they LOSE money. Cost of enclosures, thermostats, heating equipment, rodents, substrate, possibly even vet bills...just to hopefully sell some baby snakes (IF they are even in demand morphs, which a LOT of morphs these day are too plentiful and/or do not have the demand.)

See a good article on reptile breeding financial accounting here: http://www.ballpythonbreeder.com/201...on-investment/