Who's Making Money Breeding Ball Pythons?

[Anatopism]

Thanks for the reply Anatopism. I'm looking for a more detailed answer of how you're losing money. Was it the morphs you bought? Rodent and housing cost?

What about everyone else? Remember that buying snakes doesn't necessarily mean you're in the red. The electric bill, rodent costs, potential vet bills, and time are the only real losses. As mentioned above, you must take into consideration the value of your snakes! If you have females, you can probably get more than you paid for when you bought em if they're mature enough!

I bought my enchi for $550. She's over 400 grams. She's NFS, but I'm sure if I said I would sell her to you for $700, at least ONE of you will want her! That's more than I put into feeding her up until today! The bigger she is, the easier I can get that price... Eventually I could sell her for 2x what I paid for her...

Since I consider breeding to be a future hobby, none of those things really matter to me. My sister buys so many toys for her dog... She gets so many fancy decorations for her fish, and she spends extra money to get the best supplies.... She buys quality food for her pets... She doesn't stop to think "wow i lost so much money paying for my pets!" because they bring her joy. Well ball pythons bring me so much joy! As long as I can afford to take care of them and give them great care, I will!

Whoever is losing money, whether it bothers you or not, could you post why/how you're losing money?

I'm sorry h00blah, I missed your response previously.


We are making money off of our animals, but we've not had enough clutches yet to outweigh the startup costs. That's not to say I don't expect to get there, it's just not yet. We only just hatched our first combo, and have a couple more higher dollar clutches on the way... but we also will focus more on holding back some animals, and any animals sold will go towards upgrading to more morphs, and fewer normals, or necessary equipment.

My answer has also slipped a little more into the red, as we are having a massive and mysterious rat die off, what will cost us quite a bit to recover from. Until I start making more money off of snakes than I am putting into them (feeding, electricity, housing, equipment, etc) I will consider myself in the red. Yes it is an investment, but we are not yet in the 'making profit' stage.

I'm not the one to consider future potential as current gains--- I feel that considering future potential as money gained now, is like going out and buying a computer with a credit card, figuring you'll pay it off with subsequent paychecks, only to have things like your car break down, or you break your finger and desperately need that money for the hospital. Money in my pocket is money in my pocket, so until we are making more than we are spending per week or per month on average, I consider our situation to be in the red.

As this is a hobby we do in fact plan on profiting from, I do not consider our current animals' dollar amounts. They are all valuable to the project, so while one morph male may be $1000, this is not spendable money unless we are planning on getting out of the hobby, or that specific project. Until we produce a better snake to replace the first and assuming we aren't keeping the snake as at pet (our Mojave girl is one that isn't going anywhere ever), the only money considered is that which exceeds the costs going in to maintain the snakes each month.