Economics of Breeding Questions

[Gloryhound]

I'm rather new to the reptile world (Got my Cal King only about 2 months ago) and as such I know very little about breeding, but I had a few basic questions about the actual economics of breeding.

How did most of you get started with breeding? What is the typical start-up cost of a breeding project for a new breeder? What sort of day jobs do breeders have? How does one start out as a breeder - which is to say where do you start selling at? How much money does one actually make with breeding that is profit (I understand this varies based on how much one spends on certain animals, but still general answers would be greatly appreciated)? Is this more of a hobby than an actual money-making process for most breeders?

I'm quickly falling in love with reptiles in general, and I doubt I would ever be able to afford breeding, however I'm fascinated by people that do breed. Having an entire rack full of reptiles would be so amazing, not to mention those who have entire rooms dedicated to breeding programs!

I know I jumped around a lot in this post, but hopefully I got my point across well enough. I just don't know hardly anything about breeding reptiles, and I would really appreciate how breeders manage it!

Let me look through my reciepts here. Hmmm... A little over $17,000.00 invested last year between snake purchases, rats, racks, rat food, water bowls, T-stats, incubator, blah blah blah.

Lets look in the incubator right now, nope still empty. Lets look through the sales reciepts we have to date. hmmm... Yea about $95.00 worth of rats sold, nope no snakes.

But we have one girl glowing and I think at least two more girls will go this year at least. 18 babies this year if we are lucky and we will hold back about half of those. Do to what we had ready to go this year we will be lucky to average $200.00 per baby we sell. Thats 9 times 200 for $1800.00. So we will be lucky to make back ten percent of last years losses.

On the bright side we do have a lot of nice looking ball pythons and just got two blood pythons!

I love trying to be a breeder!