Will I lose money breeding ball pythons?

[elbee]

Hi friends,
I had a question for you guys and gals who have taken this leap before me. Will I lose money breeding ball pythons? I'm not planning on it being a main business, just a hobby to break even and maybe a little extra. Right now I have a male pastel, albino and piebald ready to breed. My het pied female may be ready next year and my pewter the year after that. I'm planning on adding a female ivory and maybe some hypo stuff. My concern is, in 15-20 yrs will people even be buying the morphs I have? Even pieds are getting cheaper already. Will I be able to make money selling babies from a few clutches a year? After putting food into the parents and babies? I'm not worried about my cost for the initial snakes because they are my pets as well. Just thinking, any thoughts welcome. I don't plan on getting rich. I just want to break even and enjoy the ride. Watch them develop and grow. And I won't sell a snake if I am not certain as much as I can be that they will have a proper home. I hope I don't keep them all...lol.

[1nstinct]

chances are it will take you a few years before you will break even or go positive. I have not produced eggs yet, but i do plan on it taking 3+ years before i can say i broke even, but either way i dont care since it is my hobby. to answer your question, about if people will be buying the morphs years from now, look at how long albinos have been around and they still sell, as for some other morphs it depends on the quality on how quickly it could sell. Don't get ugly pastels and expect to be selling ugly babies quickly, this is a hobby where quality means a lot

[Ryan Chin]

chances are it will take you a few years before you will break even or go positive. I have not produced eggs yet, but i do plan on it taking 3+ years before i can say i broke even, but either way i dont care since it is my hobby. to answer your question, about if people will be buying the morphs years from now, look at how long albinos have been around and they still sell, as for some other morphs it depends on the quality on how quickly it could sell. Don't get ugly pastels and expect to be selling ugly babies quickly, this is a hobby where quality means a lot

Take this and make your decision.

[hondo1967]

took about 4 years to get ahead but i do it for a hobby and i really enjoy keeping my snakes

[elbee]

Oh I'm going to do it cause I will love it. Just curious about opinions.

[JaGv]

lol it takes more than a couple clutches to break even. if making money is your goal don't quit your job to breed bp's .

- - - Updated - - -

lol it takes more than a couple clutches to break even. if making money is your goal don't quit your job to breed bp's .

[reptileexperts]

If you buy into quality, you can produce quality and get a faster ROI, but if you buy into "pet" quality, you will get a lot slower ROI. The Market is good in some areas, but harsh in others. If you want to break even, you're not asking too much and should be able to break even each year with your clutches from 3-5 females, after considering the amount of food it takes to get them to size, heating them, and providing caging / substrate, etc.

Don't breed into the market though, always breed into your passion. Get animals you're excited about, and then use that passion to create amazing morph mixes that you enjoy. It's MUCH easier to sell a snake you think is the most amazing thing in the world, than trying to offer a "low quality pastel" for a bargin of a price . . .

But yes, the first 1-3 years is all about investing, after the 3rd year, you should be able to start breaking even and if you're lucky with the odds of genetics, start seeing a positive return on investment.

[Ryan Chin]

If you buy into quality, you can produce quality and get a faster ROI, but if you buy into "pet" quality, you will get a lot slower ROI. The Market is good in some areas, but harsh in others. If you want to break even, you're not asking too much and should be able to break even each year with your clutches from 3-5 females, after considering the amount of food it takes to get them to size, heating them, and providing caging / substrate, etc.

Don't breed into the market though, always breed into your passion. Get animals you're excited about, and then use that passion to create amazing morph mixes that you enjoy. It's MUCH easier to sell a snake you think is the most amazing thing in the world, than trying to offer a "low quality pastel" for a bargin of a price . . .

But yes, the first 1-3 years is all about investing, after the 3rd year, you should be able to start breaking even and if you're lucky with the odds of genetics, start seeing a positive return on investment.

Also this. There is good insight here, buying quality to start will really decrease the time it takes to make your money back. An extreme example to illustrate this would be if you bought a male banana and 2 female normals breeding size. 26k intitial investment. 25k 1.0 banana, 0.2 $300 normals, 700 on husbandry(not a a bad allowance for a 3 snake setup especially if you're a DIYer). Let's say you do a little worse than average and hit 2 banana's per clutch, you have come up roughly 60-80k in snake value depending on market and snake value.

Of course this is just off the top of my head, my number may not be spot on but you should get the picture.

The other extreme would be buying normals or low end morphs such as pastels, yellowbellies, etc. and producing those as a 1.2 trio to start with. or even morphs that may be worth a bit more lets say <500. Realistically by the time you've produced babies that you can sell and not hold back for future projects all of these morphs have depreciated to at least the 300 dollar mark or lower.

That was my mentality going into it and I started with lower end morphs because it was what I could realistically afford being in college and living on my own. I bought the ones I liked the most AND that would also be project worthy and I have no regrets.

[FIREBLADE]

There are new morphs coming up all the time like most people said invest in quality and get what you like.
To me the love of the snake and seeing what I can come up with is a good start but I also make sure I know what to do with the snakes I am breeding.
Having a good plan is a must to me anyway I enjoy the hobby and the challenge.
And I do breed my own rats still cheaper than bying them at least for me.

[elbee]

I figure about $1500 per year just to feed 10 adult snakes. Assuming they all eat a medium rat per week, 50 weeks out of the year. This is averaging rat size of course. Then water conditioner, packing paper for substrate, heat... Really I just need to justify the feeding bill per year.