# £5300 budget to become a snake breeder....



## SilvaToGold (Jan 1, 2014)

What am i looking to spend to start off? I found a 10x33ltr breeding rack for £600 and was planning to start there, £100-200 for an incubator, 5 males and 5 female ball pythons, price varies obv. what do I need to spend to get started, is this all okay or do I need more.?


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## Ryanbrown89 (Aug 10, 2013)

To be honest mate I wouldn't bother save your money spend I don't 1500 buy one decent male and two three decent females and breed that one male to all three females and do it slowly and don't rush into things, snakes prices drop so fast it's ridiculous for eg last august I bought a coral glow for 2500 just over a month later I believe do to unforeseen circumstances I had to sell him sold him for 1200 I lost 1300 in month+ (I learnt my lesson)word of the wise start small if you hatch a clutch and make money great then spend that money on better morphs there's no money in snake breeding unless you been at it for a long time and have a lot of snakes and have multi genes otherwise don't waste your money you will be disappointed and won't see a return on that for a longggggg time


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## Jastheace141 (Sep 24, 2009)

160 for a proven female, 250 for a proven male morph, praying lots they want to mate. This also makes you a snake breeder. Don't need to spend £1000's, you will be hard pushed to ever get the money back


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## RickDangerous (Jul 12, 2012)

I'm not being funny but if u dont know what a thermostat or humidity is, you are in no way ready to spend £5300 and set yourself up as a breeder. I think you'd be best off at least attempting to get your head around the basics first!! The VPI book on ball pythons is about £70 if you have money to burn.Pythons of the world vol 2 by David and Tracey Barker. Id get stuck into that before u splash out thousands! : victory:


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## craigy88 (Oct 22, 2013)

to be honest bud. you should definitely learn the basics about keeping royals before you spend any money. but when you do you should definitely think about buying 1 3 gene male along with 3 2/3 gene females. and work from there. or maybe consider working with the recessive genes. I.E your albino's or pieds. they hold their value much better than your basic royals as well ....


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## necrow (Aug 23, 2013)

P.S why are they selling proven's  My guess is never proven, maybe baron or gay but nor proven in most cases - If you love snakes then learn about them - enjoy them but never think to create a business from them, it's alter hard, live stock a precarious stock to handle and many are already setup far far infront of everyone else


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## Far2lively (Sep 8, 2012)

Wonder if the royal market will ever just crash or fade out, there's thousands of morphs how many more can be created?? We will have glow in the dark royals soon lol


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Far2lively said:


> Wonder if the royal market will ever just crash or fade out, there's thousands of morphs how many more can be created?? We will have glow in the dark royals soon lol


The royal market died along time ago. If it was still thriving why are there so many adverts with people selling collections of royals? Look at the prices. Morphs that were selling for thousands a year or two ago are now sold for hundreds. Most morphs are dominant so quickly reproduced.

There are thousands of species of snake, the fascination with one species in hundreds of man made mutations is something I still struggle to understand.


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## HC Exotics (May 21, 2013)

The reason there are so many royal keepers trying to sell their collections as they were only trying to make money in the first place and now the prices are tumbling they trying to get rid and at least recoup some of their money. Me? I am loving it, so many to choose from and seriously low prices, I just keep them as I like them and its a hobby, my hobby,not how much I can make etc. Like rats deserting a sinking ship :lol2:


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## Far2lively (Sep 8, 2012)

I think the burm breeders are going to be creating some crazy looking snakes soon, I'm my opinion they are the new royals  


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## bothrops (Jan 7, 2007)

Far2lively said:


> I think the burm breeders are going to be creating some crazy looking snakes soon, I'm my opinion they are the new royals
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


although there are certainly some interesting combos on the horizon, burms will never be in the same league as royals.

First is the obvious issue of adult size - a breeding pair of burms take up a hell of a lot more room than a breeding pair of royals, and many people are put off burms by their adult size which means a reduced final market.

Secondly is the large clutch sizes. These mean that the prices fall far quicker than those of royals (which even with their small clutch sizes fall pretty quickly).


Of course it's a little more complicated than that as the second point is tempered slightly by the first (i.e. lower numbers of people keeping and breeding means potential for lower supply meaning prices remain a little higher for longer, particularly with recessives such as caramel), but if you look at the co-dom hypo, that's gone from thousands to hundreds of pounds in only a couple of years...


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## necrow (Aug 23, 2013)

One of the problems with Burms is, cross states sales, over seas shipping control, certain bans on snakes of this type - They all go to reducing sales. 

Although in saying that the Retic has flown for a good few years and produced some stunning Reps @@


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## necrow (Aug 23, 2013)

P.S I want some Retics, but can ne house them to their requirements ;(


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## Far2lively (Sep 8, 2012)

Surely they can introduce dwarf burm morphs?? That won't reach such impressive sizes?? That would be pretty cool!! 


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## Scoffa (Nov 23, 2006)

I can't see a way forward for snake breeding, it's been and is being done to death. We've had corns, carpets, royals, retics, burms, and a few others to a lesser degree. Everybody wants to breed but why not just be a keeper?


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## Far2lively (Sep 8, 2012)

Scoffa said:


> I can't see a way forward for snake breeding, it's been and is being done to death. We've had corns, carpets, royals, retics, burms, and a few others to a lesser degree. Everybody wants to breed but why not just be a keeper?



Because then more people could keep Burms as they would be half the size  imagine a dwarf ivory burm!! 


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## Celisuis (Jul 5, 2011)

Scoffa said:


> I can't see a way forward for snake breeding, it's been and is being done to death. We've had corns, carpets, royals, retics, burms, and a few others to a lesser degree. Everybody wants to breed but why not just be a keeper?


I'm a keeper who also breeds.

First and foremost, my snakes and all my animals are pets. 

They only breed if I'm happy for them to breed.

I keep burms right now, and will be getting retics this year.

Without breeders, our hobby wouldn't be where it's at today.


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## lee anderson (Oct 13, 2009)

necrow said:


> P.S I want some Retics, but can ne house them to their requirements ;(


they do super dwarfs and dwarfs


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## necrow (Aug 23, 2013)

It be have to be the full monty for me Lee, although I know of the dwarf morph I just love the Big Retics ;-)


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## lee anderson (Oct 13, 2009)

i no what your saying there is something about the normal size ones the way they act


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Scoffa said:


> I can't see a way forward for snake breeding, it's been and is being done to death. We've had corns, carpets, royals, retics, burms, and a few others to a lesser degree. Everybody wants to breed but why not just be a keeper?


So if this way of thinking was adopted by most breeders then the hobby will end in less than 20 years! Without breeding there will be no new hobbyists and snakes will cease to exist in captivity. What is needed is sensible and responsible breeding.


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## the-reptile-mafia (Jan 4, 2008)

Scoffa said:


> I can't see a way forward for snake breeding, it's been and is being done to death. We've had corns, carpets, royals, retics, burms, and a few others to a lesser degree. Everybody wants to breed but why not just be a keeper?


 I very much agree with this, however the vast majority of breeders are breeding fancy "morphs". If even half of these breeders were breeding the less common "normal type" species that everyone wants to keep but not many can due to their expense then it would be a very different scene. I personally plan to get into reptile breeding once i have my own space and a viable income, but i know i wont be venturing into genetics and fancy colour patterns, I'll be sticking with the less common species that I like and trying to increase their availability and decrease the demand on WC captives:2thumb:


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## Hybridpythonsuk (Apr 22, 2013)

Great thread guy's, the questions on most people's lips are being discussed and answered! Yes the snake market's have dropped massively but many years ago they had risen just as quickly... supply and demand simples


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## TheMetaphysicalNinja (Aug 18, 2009)

Breed for fun, not for money, imo. 

If you like the animals and want to share that, MAYBE make a little on the side, but mainly just want the experience of hatchlings/rearing and all that jazz, then go for it because you wont regret it. If you want to blow a ridiculous amount of money (say... £5300...) and never see it returned and have loads of animals that are just money in plastic boxes... well, buy some boxes and stick that £5300 in them.


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## Far2lively (Sep 8, 2012)

TheMetaphysicalNinja said:


> Breed for fun, not for money, imo.
> 
> If you like the animals and want to share that, MAYBE make a little on the side, but mainly just want the experience of hatchlings/rearing and all that jazz, then go for it because you wont regret it. If you want to blow a ridiculous amount of money (say... £5300...) and never see it returned and have loads of animals that are just money in plastic boxes... well, buy some boxes and stick that £5300 in them.



If he wanted to breed for fun he would buy two normals, I think any breeder that says they do it for the experience is talking s**t.


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## HC Exotics (May 21, 2013)

I cant work out why "the hobby" is everyone as a whole. Prices wont affect me as "MY" hobby of royals is mine, nobody elses so how much joe blogs is selling his snakes for is totally irrelevant to me. Its the mass producers that have caused the over saturation of animals but they seem to be selling up at quite a rate now so things could slow down a bit.


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## Mitch636 (Mar 26, 2013)

Far2lively said:


> If he wanted to breed for fun he would buy two normals, I think any breeder that says they do it for the experience is talking s**t.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Agreed. I've seen snake "keepers" chuck them around like they're nothing. They don't care for the individual snakes and are only out to line their pockets.


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## the-reptile-mafia (Jan 4, 2008)

Mitch636 said:


> Agreed. I've seen snake "keepers" chuck them around like they're nothing. They don't care for the individual snakes and are only out to line their pockets.


Like when you watch snakebytes or something like that, they rarely handle their snakes in an acceptable manner, they just whip it out, sling it around and chuck it back!


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## KingElf (Sep 23, 2013)

use your £5300 add to it and build up to put a deposit on a property , much better investment : victory:


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## Fishes (Jan 8, 2012)

*Breeding*

In my opinion the main reason most of us breed our snakes is to produce something new or something we couldn't afford or justify the cost of in the first place. Any monies made from the sale of the rest of the clutch go towards the maintenance of the ones we decide to keep. Look at pics of the morph or species you want to produce and plan it out. Some people take years to produce the goal snake. I have a little project and three years in and I have locks for the first time this month. Fingers still crossed.
Good luck.... but don't spend 5k


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## craigy88 (Oct 22, 2013)

Fishes said:


> In my opinion the main reason most of us breed our snakes is to produce something new or something we couldn't afford or justify the cost of in the first place. Any monies made from the sale of the rest of the clutch go towards the maintenance of the ones we decide to keep. Look at pics of the morph or species you want to produce and plan it out. Some people take years to produce the goal snake. I have a little project and three years in and I have locks for the first time this month. Fingers still crossed.
> Good luck.... but don't spend 5k


this is why I started buying more snakes. I only owned 1 single wild type female for a couple of years. I bought her because I liked the idea of keeping snakes. they are very low maintenance and can look very nice in my lounge doing next to nothing. I now own 8 royals and in 3 years time or so I will hopefully make what is know on WOBP as a GABIJA. its a fire, pinstripe, phantom. looks awesome in the picture and I cant wait to hopefully breed 1 of my own. I also recently purchased a pair of het albino's. I know I will not make thousands from the babies if I ever get any but to breed my first albino would also be pretty cool. I am breeding my few snakes purely in the hope of making a morph for my own eyes. not to sell for hundreds/thousands. maybe more people should breed for these reasons ...


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## Snake Island Reptiles (Feb 6, 2014)

Dont breed snakes ... if u do i have some u can have (baby's for free...)


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## HC Exotics (May 21, 2013)

Snake Island Reptiles said:


> Dont breed snakes ... if u do i have some u can have (baby's for free...)


 Cool, can I have any Leopard Clowns, Lightening Pieds or Super Enchi's you have spare.:2thumb:


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