"Rookie Snake Guy" question

[redshepherd]

my son would LOVE to be able to earn a little money doing something like this throughout high school rather than making $8/hr pushing shopping carts in the grocery store parking lot!

I read through the thread and just would like to emphasize again that you guys may not be making big bucks with breeding BP's- after months or years of research/waiting for the female to become sexually mature or spending more money in the first place on a proven female breeder, feeding all of your adults, and even after a successful breeding, waiting for your hatchlings to sell (it's not as easy to start selling as you'd think, if you don't already have a reputation/fancy breeder website and with already so many hobby breeders out there building a rep) which may take a bit longer than planned... at best, you will break even with the money you dropped on the hobby in the beginning. More likely than not, it will be a little loss of money, unless you really drop the $$$ on the next rare and popular morph or a world's first. And even then, it's a guessing game for how long the morphs you're going for will be in fashion. Ball pythons are only a depreciating asset, and depreciating rather quickly over just a few years too, with the breeding hobby becoming more and more popular.

Pieds and BEL's (from my observation) have depreciated slower, but all in all it is a depreciating hobby nevertheless!

Breed if you love the animals and want to learn/for the experience! Because the money/lack thereof may not be worth it, if that's one's main motivation...