Will I lose money breeding ball pythons?

[loonunit]

You will lose quite a lot of money breeding ball pythons. My parents are blown away when I tell them I sold a pied for $550. But they don't know how much that pieds' parents cost. Or how much I spend on rodents every year.

I started working with ball pythons in 2008. I started going crazy with long-term breeding projects in 2009. This was supposed to be my break-even year. But my het lavender couple didn't hatch any visuals this year, and BOTH of my black pastel x pied pairings failed to ovulate. Right now I've got a lot of hets and possible hets for pied and lavender albino, and they're all vacuuming down mice. Getting 20 hatchlings started? Surprisingly expensive!

So don't do it unless you can afford not to break even for a while.


EDIT: It might be that I'm working with pieds and lavender albinos here, which are recessive. It might be easier to break even sooner with dominant traits that produce either visuals or plain old normals. Dunno.