making money from pythons

[Egapal]

So I have been reading a lot of different posts over the last sveral weeks and the theme seems to be that this is a hobby, and you will be lucky to break even by breeding ball pythons. Maybe I have not done enough research, but I dont see how that is possible, if a person makes wise decesions on the animals he (or she) purchases, profit should be made after the first year or two. For example, I bought 2 racks on craigslist, a 3000 gram normal female, and a breeder spider male for less than $600. I also bought 1.1 pieds and .2 het pieds, paid way more for these 4, but around $2500. One of the hets can be bred this year, so my pied project is a little ways off, but I can pick up a .1 breeder pastel for around $600 (I think) and sell two clutches of spiders, pastels, and possibly bees early next year and pay for everything (excluding pieds, I know that will take a while to pay for).

On another note, I enjoy these snakes very much, it is not just a dollar sign to me, I have a full time job, make good money, and have some disposable income. I just started a rat colony so I know I will be buying them from the store when I need them though, so my only costs from here out is rat food, an occasional rat, and electric right? I know there are possible vet visits, and clutches that dont happen, but it all seems pretty idiot proof to me? Maybe that makes me the idiot , anyway, just wanted to see what everyones thoughts were

At the end of the day the point is in your definition of "make money". In order to "make money" you need to do a lot right, get a little lucky, and put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and investment cash into it. I have read a lot of threads and my family (parents, and their parents) made a living with animals (horses). I think that the point of so many of the posts you will find is that if you are in it to make money there are far better ways to make money. Breeding snakes has to be a love of yours and something you are willing to get paid relatively little for the amount of work you put into it. I can easily make 50 to 100 dollars fixing a single computer. Why don't start my own business? Because the business is not just fixing computers. Its talking to customers about stuff they don't know. Its about keeping financials, ordering supplies, dropping off and or picking up computers. Same goes for snakes as it does for any business. There are lots of things that you need to be good at/willing to do in order to turn a profit. Can it be done? Of course. There are lots of great breeders out there as examples. Ask any of them if it was as easy as they thought it would be. I am guess every one of them would tell you it was much harder than they ever imagined. Not to mention that for every example of someone who made it there are countless others who failed. This post and the others like it aren't about discouraging people. If you have a dream by all means go for it. If you are discouraged its probably for the best though, as you need to be single minded in your pursuit of your dream to make it work.