Opinions On Breeding Male Normal BCI (Aberrant) From A Business Standpoint?

[CloudtheBoa]

Breeding kills animals, so before breeding you need to be aware of that and be ready to lose any animals you breed. Even males can become injured or killed in any number of ways, but females are especially in danger of injury or death because they're gravid. Overfeeding can complicate things even further, so if you haven't been overly strict in your feeding regimen, the female could be put into danger when bred. Fatty liver disease is several times more likely in a gravid female, as the stress and time off of food can aggravate the condition.


Do you have money for vet bills in the case something goes wrong? Do you have the budget to spend potential thousands in vet costs on each individual snake in the case something goes wrong with the breeding, any of the babies need health care, etc.? Males can bust hemipenes, which will oftentimes leave them as useless breeders since their dominant side is usually the side affected. Males can become crushed or otherwise attacked by the female. Females can become eggbound, or otherwise become unhealthy from her gravidity. Babies can come out with conditions like hardened yolks, infected eyes (fairly common in albino boas), or other random ailments. These snakes will need veterinary care. The more animals you add to your collection, the higher the chances are that you'll encounter a health issue or a parasite infestation. Are you financially ready to deal with this?


Aberrant normals are quite common in boas, so you're not looking to make a lot of money from a normal breeding. Even if your female has a codom morph, your babies are still not going to be worth much. Unless they've been bred for quality over generations, the average hypo runs about $100-175 on average. These morphs are just so common, and most people aren't putting in the work to make the morph better, instead churning out low-quality ugly offspring (as ugly as a boa could ever be anyway).


If you plan on making breeding a full time venture of your's, then I'm sure you've already weighed these options.


You don't necessarily have to breed the poss super ghost to a normal to prove her out, as long as the male doesn't have hypo in him you'll be able to tell.




As far as the rat breeding, I used to breed my rats outside in a lean-to shed without any sort of heating. They bred and survived just fine. I never lost a litter or a rat to the cold, and never had any illnesses. The key was offering plenty of bedding and keeping them out of the wind. I do also live in NC, so it's *usually* not any colder than 10-20F during the winter, but we did have one winter of at least -10F, and the rats powered right on through it. Not sure if that is average for rats or not, or how advisable it is just my experience with them. I'm not sure if rats kept in the stereotypical breeding racks will have the resources to allow them to survive that. I had 3 rats to a 6' enclosure with 8" of bedding, so that could have given them an advantage.


I also have 12 snakes, and their yearly cost isn't really very high for feeding. If I bought all of the year's food at once I'm looking at about $380 for everyone (or $31.67/month), but I normally buy 6-8 month's worth of food at a time for right around $300. This is ordering bulk on websites like Big Cheese or Perfect Prey. I do also keep my snakes' prey sizes small and space out feedings, so I'm not feeding as much food as most other keepers. I don't have a single snake eating weekly right now, most are eating every 2-3 weeks, and will be eating monthly as adults.




I'm not sure why you think substrate will impact a snake's ability to explore, unless you're housing your snakes in enclosures that are too short to be ethical. With 2'+ height enclosures a few inches of substrate isn't going to make a difference in the snake's available space. As far as cleaning, just pick up urates/feces and any surrounding bedding and that should get most or all of it, absorbent beddings should keep everything from spreading too much. With the moss, I doubt the humidity would last more than a day with a lot of airflow.