Debating getting rid of everything...

[Skiploder]

Interesting point of view.

About me - I have loved snakes since I was a little guy. I started catching them and bringing them home. I got out of them around 12 years old. Then I picked up 2 ball pythons about 3 years ago. That led me to get an albino burm - which I enjoy more than any of my other snakes and a RTB. These 4 snakes I got because the people who owned them couldn't take care of them. I didn't spend big money to buy high end morphs, I rescued them. The balls had terrible mites, were underfed and not kept properly. The burm was mean and never handled, underfed and also kept poorly. The poor RTB was lucky to be alive. The people who had it were beyond stupid. She got fed a small rat every other month and sat in a room with no heat, no water, no substrate in a 10 gallon tank and was 3 years old. Since then I have also rescued an adult male tiger retic. I like to help the animals.

Then the ball python bug got me. I spent time on forums and saw the possibilities. I didn't dive in too fast really, Over 2 years, I collected 32 snakes. Some may say that is too fast, but I just bought the ingredients for what I wanted to make.

I thought the hobby would at least come close to paying for itself. I was hoping for the results of the breeding to pay for food for the year at least. I wanted to make the snakes I wanted for my collection and sell the rest to fund some of it. In hindsight, that was a pretty foolish decision I guess. My ROI has been next to nothing, and I just don't know if I can justify continuing to spend money on such a crap shoot. Playing genetics god is fun in its own way, but I'm not sure if its fun enough. I would love to produce some of the awesome snakes I have seen, but it is such a miserably slow hobby. I have always been one for instant gratification and honestly I have a hard time with the idea of a project that could take 5 years.

Its not so much about the money. I know I will never get my money back out of them if I sell them, and probably still wont if I keep them. I guess its more about the time.

I really enjoy interacting with my 2 big snakes - the burm and retic. They are so personable. The ball pythons aren't nearly as active, and though some may argue this, I don't think anywhere near as intelligent. So I guess when all is said and done, I won't get rid of my big snakes, but I just don't know if I should hold out for some cool stuff to happen with the balls or if I am wasting my time.

Can you go into more detail as to what "cool stuff" happening with your balls entails? More personality? Breeding? What........?

I'll ASSume after reading what was highlighted, that the balls were more of a money-making venture than anything else........