Should you or Should you not ?
September 22, 2011Some considerations and advice when investing in reptiles.
1. Think when you are choosing what you want to breed. Choose animals that you like to work with and focus on them.
2. Don't overextend your ability to properly care for the animals. Reptiles must be kept in optimum conditions to reproduce with regularity in captivity. If you have more animals than cages or food, then you will not succeed and the animals will suffer. These creature deserve your best care and it is unfair for them to be given any less. Also, you will have less breeding success if they are not in excellent health.
3. If you decide on inexpensive animals, you will only produce inexpensive animals to sell. If you breed normal ball pythons, remember they only sell for $35-$45 retail. Wholesale is even lower, so don't expect too much return on your investment. It's fun to breed reptiles, but it is wonderful when it also comes with some money to help pay for food, maybe some new cages, new projects or even a new car or house. If you want to make some real money at this, you have to invest some real money.
4. Get quality breeding stock from someone that you can trust. If it costs a little extra to buy from someone that is established and you trust, it is better to spend the extra money here. Prettier babies sell easier and sell for more. It only makes sense, if your snake is prettier, people will want it more than an ugly individual of the same type. This is a variation on the number 3. Let's say you decide to invest in a Pastel. Play it cheap and buy an ugly one, then you produce ugly babies that are hard to sell. Pay a little more and get a beautiful Pastel, you make pretty babies that are easy to sell for top dollar.
5. Patience is your most valuable asset when embarking on the reptile breeding business. I have seen too many people crash and burn, lose their money and go out of business because they lacked adequate patience. It may seem that it would be nice to shave a couple of years off and simply buy adults instead of babies. You have to ask yourself why someone would be selling an adult animal if it is breeding and doing what it is supposed to do? Many times there are adult animals offered for sale because they will not breed or are not in good health. You will greatly increase your chances for success if you buy babies and raise them yourself. It can take many years to establish a reliable breeding colony of a particular morph. Time spent here will pay dividends far in the future.
Like I said at the beginning of this. Your business can be a small or as large as you decide. I will help you get started and will always be here to answer your questions and support your efforts. We are not flippers or brokers, we are breeders that take great pride in the unique creations that hatch here. All of the Ball Pythons offered for sale here are well started, healthy, feeding and correctly sexed. We love our friends and customers and look forward to sharing our quality and passion with you.
Posted by James.