Possibly Breeding Burms. Prices and advice?

[Riv]

Hey guys, im an aspiring ball python breeder, and im contemplating breeding a clutch or two of burms as well. Unfortunately I have no idea of how theyre priced in general, much less the price of Hets and visuals. I got my Juvenile female normal for $60 on craigslist, but the guy told me I was paying a fraction of what she was worth. I didnt have any sort of referance point to go off so I just nodded smiled and said awesome XD.

Anyway, Im considering adopting a signifigantly older (POSSIBLE) male Albino also from craigslist, and im not sure what the going rate is for them, so I dont know what to send the guy as an offer(either by himself or with enclosure). Im also wondering how I should price the 100% Het albino hatchlings I would be producing. Google was very not helpful.

I am aware that breeding larger snakes is a different ball game, and takes another set of knowledge and skill. Ive done a lot of research and I do think I am up to the task. I am also aware that burmese pythons can be incredibly difficult to sell at times do to the law preventing them from crossing state lines, and I am prepared to keep any and all burmese pythons I produce until finding them a suitible home with responsible owners. I breed my own food scource, and have the knowhow and space to make size appropriate enclosures.

What im really looking for is any tips you more experienced breeders would have for a fledgling such as myself, and a basic rundown on prices so I dont undersell my hatchlings, or cheat anyone out of their money unknowingly. Thanks for reading guys. Im glad to have everyone here on BP.net as such an amazing rescource of information and perspective.

[C&H Exotic Morphs]

As far as pricing goes your best bet will be browsing the classified sections of Kingsnake, Fauna and others.

And as you stated, with the addition of Burms to the Lacey Act it could be alot more difficult for you to sell babies since you can't ship or transport them across state lines.

[MarkS]

As far as prices go they're completely up in the air right now. As in all things, price is going to be determined by demand and supply. But now supply can only happen on a local level instead of a national one so it depends on what the demand in your state is. Personally I don't plan on breeding my burms for several years if at all, I'm going to take kind of a 'wait and see' attitude right now. They still make great pets and I enjoy keeping them, they don't have to be bred.

[heathers*bps]

We sell our albinos for $100-$125 and hets are $60. But to be quite honest, we probably won't be breeding burms for much longer. There are actually a lot of people breeding burms in PA so the demand for them has definitely gone down. It sucks that I can't sell someone a burm cause they live 15 minutes down the road from me, since they are in MD.

[Riv]

hm.. thats really unfortunate. I mean, I get that they are an invasive species and the line needs to be drawn somewhere to prevent them from continuing on, but the real line of where they will stop isnt going to be drawn by how the pet burms are regulated. Its going to be determined by how far north the wild burms are capable of surviving(I think I read as far north as the DC area, though it wouldnt be enjoyable for them) Burms are still going to be smuggled to different states if is a fantastic genetic variant that cant be found in the buyers home state legally, and none of that changes the fact that the ones being sold 8/10 times will be caged their entire lives. No one that worked so hard to get one would release it into the wild. Especially after having paid a the G's for it. As far as im concerned however much of this country they can survive and thrive in already belongs to them, but it does have limits, once all of the habitable space is too crowded they may just start cannibalizing, and start regulating their own numbers. I really dont see how limiting where the pet burms go does much of anything but give the less logical and more prone to fear a better nights sleep because SOMETHING is being done. All they are doing is killing burms in the pet trade. Eventually because everyone has stopped breeding the little sweethearts we know and love, no one will be able to find pet burms anymore, leaving ONLY the wild ones no one appreciates.

Its really unfortunate im coming into this at the end of burm breedings life span. I think I im going to have one clutch. They'll probably all be normals or hets, but I dont mind. I'm sure ill be able to find homes for all of them eventually, and then I'll contently Love my normal(and hopefully albino XD) into their old age and give up hope of ever getting a blue eyed leucistic. I swear. The man stomps on anything and everything fun. Education, and better regulation would make this so much better. If they were simply to require anyone that owns a large constrictor to become liscensed, and have to share the specifics of their large constrictor collection regularly, anyone who lost a snake, or set one loose could be held accountable for that, near immediately(I suppose in the event of death you would take photos of the body to prove that it had passed away and not dissapeared from your care.). If you got fined for it and it was a sure thing you would be held accountable people would think about it a lot more before persuing a large constrictor, and take better care to make sure there werent any escapes. It would no longer be worth it to badly jerry rig a cage out of the supplies in your back yard. I dunno, I guess im a little late here. Not much to be done now I suppose.

[MMReptiles]

I've done some work with this species this season. Today I traded off the last of my burmese pythons. I originally got into them for the niche market it would have created. You can look at your market in 2 ways:

1. You're one of the few people breeding, you set the prices, people who want them still have to come to you, they can't just order online anymore. If you're the only one around (like I was), than you set the bar.

2. No one importing/exporting = less demand, no one wants them. No serious breeder wants to work with the species anymore. There's no point. No one wants to hold back 95% of a clutch (if they are lucky to sell 5%), and be stuck with them and not be able to get in new morphs/genetics, unless you have infinite space and deep pockets, there's no reason for it.

Sadly, I found the following true with this species: your hets will be worth nothing more than your normal burms. Fact is, every single one of my buyers (except my one today) simply wanted pets. They didn't care about hets, paperwork, anything, as long as it looks pretty. Normal burms, have nearly zero real demand. You can probably vend them off at $50 each locally as pets, maybe sell some to stores, but that's about it. The real decent money comes in (in my opinion) are albinos. People LOVE albino burms, green, granite, laby, normal doesn't matter to them. A big yellow/white snake is exciting, and a lot of people will pick them up as pets. I found a niche here. People wanting a big snake can just buy an albino retic for $300-400, I offered all mine at $200. It's a hard sell, but people still want them, and will still pay the price to have their big pet.

It's a gamble, a gamble I decided to step away from in favor of retics. I know a lot of people feel this way. This is the first season with the ban in effect. We don't fully understand what it will do to the species. Demand might rise again, it might continue to fall who knows. I can say- there's a lot of speculation that this may get repealed and have them removed from the Lacey act.. If this is the case, the people who held onto high end morphs and picked them up cheap off CL and such- might be sitting on a potential gold mine..

[Navy]

I've done some work with this species this season. Today I traded off the last of my burmese pythons. I originally got into them for the niche market it would have created. You can look at your market in 2 ways:

1. You're one of the few people breeding, you set the prices, people who want them still have to come to you, they can't just order online anymore. If you're the only one around (like I was), than you set the bar.

2. No one importing/exporting = less demand, no one wants them. No serious breeder wants to work with the species anymore. There's no point. No one wants to hold back 95% of a clutch (if they are lucky to sell 5%), and be stuck with them and not be able to get in new morphs/genetics, unless you have infinite space and deep pockets, there's no reason for it.

Sadly, I found the following true with this species: your hets will be worth nothing more than your normal burms. Fact is, every single one of my buyers (except my one today) simply wanted pets. They didn't care about hets, paperwork, anything, as long as it looks pretty. Normal burms, have nearly zero real demand. You can probably vend them off at $50 each locally as pets, maybe sell some to stores, but that's about it. The real decent money comes in (in my opinion) are albinos. People LOVE albino burms, green, granite, laby, normal doesn't matter to them. A big yellow/white snake is exciting, and a lot of people will pick them up as pets. I found a niche here. People wanting a big snake can just buy an albino retic for $300-400, I offered all mine at $200. It's a hard sell, but people still want them, and will still pay the price to have their big pet.

It's a gamble, a gamble I decided to step away from in favor of retics. I know a lot of people feel this way. This is the first season with the ban in effect. We don't fully understand what it will do to the species. Demand might rise again, it might continue to fall who knows. I can say- there's a lot of speculation that this may get repealed and have them removed from the Lacey act.. If this is the case, the people who held onto high end morphs and picked them up cheap off CL and such- might be sitting on a potential gold mine..

It really depends on where you live, I want to breed retics, but I live in a small retirement town where people have very little interest in snakes let along LARGE snakes.
Since you can't transport them, if you live in a place where the demand isn't high, you're going to have trouble selling the babies, you'll be feeding a ton of babies that if you don't sell, will grow quickly, and will cost you even more to feed and house.

To me, the most profitable way to breed burms is if you have a way to transport them all across the state at reptile shows.

[Riv]

Personally I doubt that the demand will rise much of anywhere unless they are removed from the lacey act. They make too many babies and are too difficult to sell wgen srctioned by state like this. No one will find it worth their time. Are retic's also part of the lacey act? If so I can only imagine that carpet pythons and boas will be grow in poularity and be the next best thing to large constrictors in the pet trade. This all just makes me sad. = (

[Navy]

Personally I doubt that the demand will rise much of anywhere unless they are removed from the lacey act. They make too many babies and are too difficult to sell wgen srctioned by state like this. No one will find it worth their time. Are retic's also part of the lacey act? If so I can only imagine that carpet pythons and boas will be grow in poularity and be the next best thing to large constrictors in the pet trade. This all just makes me sad. = (

No, but they're next, I'm actually really surprised onhow anaconda's were banned, and retics weren't. I use retics as an example because burmese pythons are banned in florida anyway but I can see the possibility of them being banned next extremely high. personally I would hold off on breeding any large python because you never know what law will come next

[Denial]

First off the captive breeding of burmese pythons will NEVER die. There are quite a few people in this hobby that will not let that happen. Also please dont forget we are still fighting the lacey act. So try to think positive that we will overcome all this because if we loose you can kiss retics,greens, and boas goodbye to. We are still very much looking forward to breeding burmese pythons and hope to produce double het caramel labyrinths , hypo labyrinths, pearl labyrinths, hypo het labyrinths next season.