Fantastic read. Well thought out, organized and explained in a straight forward manner.
I live in Costa Rica and recently have become interested in ball pythons. My immediate plans are for nothing more than to acquire a pet, giving myself the opportunity to decide if I truly enjoy the experience. However, there appear to be opportunities worth considering, as this local market is practically non-existent.
One of the topics that you mentioned which I particularly find relevant as a business person who utilizes the internet extensively, and also frustrating as a new ball python student, is the lack of properly updated and maintained websites. There are a handful of websites that I regularly return to, and yours will be added to that very short list. However, even some of the very impressive breeders/personalities/retailers often refuse to update their photos, descriptions, fix broken links, etc.
I cannot stress enough that for the general public, who may have no prior exposure or education regarding who the trustworthy, knowledgeable and respectable sources are, a properly functioning, content rich website will close the deal faster than a great reputation on the trade show circuit.
Obviously, the internet is full of scam artists and deals too good to be true, so I don’t suggest that a ‘slick’ website is or should be a potential buyer’s only criteria. But the difference between a solid, polished presentation like yours compared to some of the 1980′s era tripod pages is astonishing and should be a very important consideration for anyone considering breeding and selling to the general public.

Cheers,
Kevin Hornby

Every now and then someone will say something that causes all the red flags to go up and I know that if they take one of my animals I am condeming it to death. I do not sell to them. All of my animals sell in the long run so I don’t necessarily need to sell to the first buyer that comes along.

Thanks.

Colin Weaver

im already a well off 50 year old guy and i breed for the fun of it.

the money is not that big a deal to me and i tend to hang on to babies just for the fun of it also.

my collection has now reached a point where im producing a lot of nice snakes and im having a blast but i have a problem.

i dont know what to do with all the babies im producing. i have no desire to do the kingsnake thing and i really have no desire to do shows or a website.

the thought of wholeselling them would work for me but i dont want just anyone getting snakes i have taken very good care of.

any thoughts or advice for me?

thanks,

jim

for example i have almost 50 nice morph babies that i really dont know what

That said, I recognize the difference between what I’m doing and what a professional breeder does; I am baffled by the people that don’t treat it as a business if they go into it as such. However, I don’t think that it’s particularly tied into the fact that we’re dealing with animals, since small businesses of any stripe have a horrible track record of failing within the first 3 years.

I’m curious as to how you advise selecting what particular projects to work with; how do you determine which morphs/combos will be in demand, versus quickly reduced in value? And how do you select what species to work with? I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I find 90% of the available snakes at least interesting; I prefer a few (kingsnakes, mussuranas, reticulated pythons..3-4 others), but really, rat snakes, burmese, ball pythons, thamnophis…they’re all interesting.

I personally made my choice to focus on kingsnakes and reticulated pythons; I chose Florida kings because they seem less saturated than California Kings and more in demand than Mexican blacks (which are another favorite of mine). The reticulated pythons…well, like I said it’s a hobby for me and by God I wanted a trio so I bought a trio (1 purple tiger male, 2 lavender tiger females). I’m not focusing on them as much–3 breeders versus 12 with my kings–because they have a more limited market, and they’re much higher cost to work with.

anyway that’s my ramble. Thank god the start up cost are 90% done (I still need to buy an incubator and have a deposit on a pair of high yellow Brooks should they be produced).

I’m that typical ’10-snake breeder’ that you use in your example, and since this is my first year of actually breeding (and hopefully producing) these animals, you’ve given me much to think about and consider for this year and the future. The difference comes in that I’m still treating this as a ‘hobby’ and it’s not a needed source of income. That being said, your business model does not consider the joy one experiences when working with these animals, which plays a big role in my own approach even though it is very difficult to quantify in a dollar amount. Yes, I do name my breeder animals, handle them often and do not think of them as mere business objects, which may or may not be a big hindrance to my own success. Only time will tell. Sure I would like to make some money from the the animals that I produce and sell, at least enough to defray some of the associated costs. But for me there is much joy to be found in the journey that this has taken me, otherwise there are many other things that one could sell for profit that don’t require the daily care and attention that live animals do. At least for me at this time the enjoyment I get from working with these beautiful and interesting creatures alone has to be balanced against any loss of profit that I’m probably destined to experience.

Still your article has taught me at least one very important thing; I have better keep better records of my costs for that ugliest time of year…April 15th!

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge!

-Kerig Pope

Thanks for reading and commenting on this post.

I have been lucky enough to be the one to produce a few combos for the first time. Having been there I can say that there is no specific formula or criteria that determines what the price will be. Most breeders have small circles of peers they go to and discuss how to price things. That’s what I did. I kicked it around with a few people I trust and came up with a price that I thought someone would be willing to pay. Or at the very least, I started with a price that I thought would bring people to the table to discuss price. Animals that are completely new represent something different to each breeder. While you may not be willing to pay $2,000 for it another breeder will jump at the chance to get it for $5,000 because he has the perfect mate for it.

But… your friend is right. When something is produced for the very first time it seldom gets sold, especially if it is a male. First-time morphs that are females can and do get sold with greater frequency.

Colin

I had a rough tally of what I spent, but I wasn’t factoring a few other things. I spent about an hour writing down all my expenses, and the total came out to be about 25% more than I had thought. So basically, I have spent so far this year was the total I had expected to spend for the whole year-though the number was arbitrary. I was in the process of deciding what type of cages to order, and now that I have determined all my expenses, I can see that its more practical for me to build. Just got to buff up a bit on my carpentry skills.

A few months ago, I asked a small successful breeder what his profit margin was, and he had no idea. Even with that said, that is his sole source of income, so in his case, I think its easier to determine profitability.

I will save at least $1000 by building my own cages, while I knew this, I just thought it wasn’t worth the trouble. Thanks for writing the article. Though I am not in to ball pythons, I will definitely recommend you to people.

Lastly, I have read other articles where you and others have talked about pricing. What’s your opinion on how prices should be set? For example, you have this cool new morph and you are the only one, or at least you are one of the few who have it, how do you set the price? I have recently read that some of the big breeders just set a high price on the really new stuff not really caring if they sell it. I have no idea if this person was just giving his opinion or if it came from a reliable source.

Very interesting topic-thanks for taking the time to write it.

Thanks, Colin!