The Cornsnake Market

[Rorschach]

I've had a cornsnake for around 4 years now as a pet and recently was offered a very nice deal on a pair of bloodreds with the female being gravid. I am interested in making the purchase and do enjoy cornsnakes quite a bit, in fact I like them more than ball pythons so the passion is there, but should a lot of corns hatch out would I be able to sell any of them or would I have a bunch of new pets? I know it would be based on my local market and internet sales, but generally how is the cornsnake and colubrid market doing these days?

[BFE Pets]

I haven't been following the corn market much but they seem to still be popular. Just seems the prices have dropped a bit except at the pet stores lol. That being said you can always do what I used to do with my boas way back when. Try to sell them for a set period of time. Say 30 days. What ever you have left at the end of your time frame offer them to your local pet stores as a group for a whole sale price. I would often take in lots of ten normal male normal bci's and let them have the group for $300.

[Andrew21]

Corns are generally cheap. Bloodred is a very nice basic morph, and hatchlings sell for about $60. You might as well buy them, it would be a great experience and I don't think it would be that difficult to sell the babies! But you should be prepared to care for the babies for a few months at least.

[Rorschach]

Thanks for your responses. I am not too concerned with making a huge chunk of money or anything, just not really interested in having 20+ more mouths to feed forever. Of course I would hold back a couple, but would need a home for most of them. Excellent advice in this thread and I appreciate it

Also glad to find out there is some interest out there. I know they are popular, I'd go as far as saying they are my favorite species, just a bit concerned I'd end up paying dearly for taking on a project. I don't take risks much, but I suppose if I did maybe I'd be better off.

[Andrew21]

Do you know if this is her first clutch? If it is, then I would not expect 20 at all. Maybe 10-15. If you get too many eggs for you to handle, you can take the extras and put them in the freezer, then throw them away the next morning. Better to kill them in the egg than after they have hatched. Like my hatchling rack will only be big enough for 16 hatchlings, if I get 17 then 1 is going in the freezer.

[BHReptiles]

Do you know if this is her first clutch? If it is, then I would not expect 20 at all. Maybe 10-15. If you get too many eggs for you to handle, you can take the extras and put them in the freezer, then throw them away the next morning. Better to kill them in the egg than after they have hatched. Like my hatchling rack will only be big enough for 16 hatchlings, if I get 17 then 1 is going in the freezer.

I agree with everything, especially this. There's no one saying you have to hatch ALL the eggs you produce. If you only want to hatch 5 or 6, put the rest in the freezer. I agree that's it's more humane to kill them in the egg than out.

However, that said, I do think it's a great experience! Corn snakes are really cheap these days and I bet you sell them to a pet store on wholesale prices. I can't wait to breed my corn snakes next spring. I'll hopefully be putting my first breeding pair through brumation this winter (as in this upcoming December).

Good luck!

[jhitch]

I think the corn market is doing just fine.Last year was my first year breeding them and i wound up with just under a hundred.It only took me about 4 months to sell all of them and it was a very enjoyable excperience.What i did was trade the normals to a local pet store for feeder mice.

[Andrew21]

I think the corn market is doing just fine.Last year was my first year breeding them and i wound up with just under a hundred.It only took me about 4 months to sell all of them and it was a very enjoyable excperience.What i did was trade the normals to a local pet store for feeder mice.

If you don't mind, can you tell us what morphs they were, and how much you sold them for? I'm just a little curious.

[jhitch]

Nothing special we a variety of sunkkist,amel,anery and snow.More than half were mottly and we let them go between$20-$50.