For me, I wanted to start small but with a handful of morphs that I like, coupled with a few that I believe are and will continue to be good sellers. I figured that to get a real good initial start it would take at the very least $5000. I was lucky enough to have a close friend that really liked the idea and thought it sounded like a good investment. He wanted nothing to do with the actual snake portion of the whole thing, he was only interested in investing financially, investing in me and my passion, and seeing what happens with the small hopes of maybe seeing a return on his investment somewhere down the road. So we started a limited partnership and my friend contributed the majority of the initial funds to get it off the ground, while I run and oversee the entire operation.

I took $1000 to put towards equipment, supplies, the first years supply of feeders, just anything and everything I could think of to get it rolling. Because every decision I make is budget oriented, I ended up spending less than the $1000 on equipment and supplies. Cutting corners by making my own racks and such. I took $4000 and planned to use that for my future breeding clan. I ended up spending $3900 on 6 snakes and I had already purchased a Mojave for $200 before all this began so I have 7 potential breeders. So I started with $5000 and currently have close to $400 left in my account for emergencies and what not. I am also continuously putting funds back into the account as they are available, $10 here, $20 there. I always make sure there is at least a few hundred in the account.

This would not have been a possibility for me on this level without an investor. Before my friend came on board I was going to start with my one male Mojave and maybe get a female normal and possibly a female Mojave. I was going to give it a shot regardless, it just simply would have taken me much longer to reach a level that I felt was going to offer the most chance at success. So although it is 100% possible to start a breeding project on the smallest level with only maybe 1-2 k, maybe less, I think if you want a real good shot at success faster, as far as seeing a return on investment, you will need to make more of a substantial initial monetary investment. And even then the possibility still remains that you end up in the red and stay there. Because to me success has as much to do with making the right decisions on the journey as how much $ you throw at it. I know it's a long shot, but if you can find someone that you trust,that believes in you, and is capable of and willing to throw a good chunk of change into the fire for a gamble, I would suggest going into a partnership to get a good jump start on it. If not and you don't personally have that kind of cash to throw around, then you will just have to start small with a few of the lower dollar snakes that you enjoy working with and climb your way up slowly. It's an investment in time as much as anything.

On another note, my comments are based on the idea that you intend to make something of a profit doing this. So ask yourself how you measure success in this particular endeavor. If you simply want to produce a healthy clutch of baby ball pythons then this most definitely can be done for very little money and you will be successful at it. For me it's both. Because of that I will be successful in one respect or another, no matter how it turns out. Hope some of this helps. I'm still on the bottom trying to make something of it so take my comments for what they are worth.