# Unwanted snakes?



## gregjones (Sep 14, 2008)

With snakes being as awesome as they are I can imagine any enthusiast with enough time and space will want to try breeding them. Especially with all the royal morphs that are possible.

If a royal lays 4 - 6 eggs per year (I assume they can't lay more than once a year) and a keeper is trying out, let's say 2 females, that's up to 12 potential royals a year!

Now lets say thousands of people around the country are trying this, that's a lot of snakes!

My question is: where do they all go? If a breeder can't sell or even give them away, it's going to be expensive to feed, house and heat so many snakes and I can't imagine there's enough demand to sell so many royals!

The reason is, I would like to try breeding in a few years when I have my own place, but I would like to know what I'm getting myself in to! And I especially wouldn't want to start breeding if there are already too many breeders around!


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## snake5007 (Apr 13, 2008)

grantjames said:


> My question is: where do they all go? If a breeder can't sell or even give them away, it's going to be expensive to feed, house and heat so many snakes and I can't imagine there's enough demand to sell so many royals!





You have to make sure you have the resources to care for the babies right through their lives, because selling them isn't guaranteed. I don't really breed for money. (it does come in handy though, lol.) I breed mainly for more snakes to add to breeding projects (morphs, locales etc.) or to possibly trade for new bloodlines or species. I'm also fascinated with the whole process, it's very rewarding whether you sell the offspring or not.


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## jadeteacup (Jul 18, 2008)

my personal view is that if you go into it for the money, then its no longer fun.. or exciting.. Royal Morphs are going from one leap to another.. with new morphs being discovered every year, i find them awesome, I have a royal, normal... but hes still my fav.. 

and dont forget, people buy snakes and come into the hobby all the time, so its not like ur selling to the same people all the time.. 

but please dont take breeding as a money project, do it for the enjoyment .. maybe we will get round to showing our exotic animals like they do cats and dogs.. would be great to see wot professional breeders are breeding each year.. just for the fun of the whole project..


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## smith86king (Oct 12, 2008)

agree totaly with jadeteacup it shud be done for the enjoyment of the hobby even if your left with 6 little royals then you can have go at breeding them in a couple of years!


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## snakeman85 (Dec 9, 2007)

You also have to think about the number of cf babies bought each year. If we breed more cb then there will be less demand for cf.

thanks, Paul


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

grantjames said:


> Where do they all go? If a breeder can't sell or even give them away, it's going to be expensive to feed, house and heat so many snakes and I can't imagine there's enough demand to sell so many royals!


To be honest, since a lot of the "normals" will go to pet shops and the like... there's more demand than you might think when Little Billy's royal python dies after a couple of weeks because of severely inadequate housing practices. Billy's parents may just buy him a new one.

Thousands of captive-farmed babies come in every year. What happens to all of them? A fair number of them will die - of parasites, of "I bought a cheap snake, what do I want to spend £60 on proper cage equipment for"... attrition is a real thing for any pet snake.

A big breeder who can't shift their normals will either wholesale them to shops... or, in some cases, I would not be surprised if they are humanely euthanised and used to feed snake-eating reptiles.


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