The article linked to was an interesting read, but I see some fundamental problems with the calculations used to come up with the eventual profitability. The main reason why the venture proved to lose money was due to the decline in value of the original snakes. Obviously we all know that our morphs will drop in value, however, he specifically states that the NexGen animal he's using in the plan is a theoretical Recessive morph. This morph drops in value from 2500 to 100 in 6 years. Sorry, don't buy that for a recessive gene animal. How long has pied been around, 13 years? You see any $100 pieds at your local show. What about albino, they've been around for a damn long time, still around $400. I'm not saying they aren't going to decline in value, but assuming that every morph will drop by half each year until being near the price of a normal seems extreme. If you use all of the same figures, but assume that the animals drop in value by 40% each year until getting around $500 then dropping 25% each year, which seems to be a more accurate representation of recessives (though still a more aggressive decline than has been historically demonstrated by the popular recessive morphs) then it actually shows a slight profit overall. Not to mention this plan assumes that at no point will the breeder ever attempt to introduce double gene morphs, which greatly increases the pricing, especially with recessive gene animals. Who breeds only one morph endlessly without introducing other combinations?
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