Donna,
...It seems to me that we are not producing too many until there are enough of them available at low enough prices that there is no longer a financial incentive to collect them from the wild. I admit to being biased about this but I think that a living specimen in the wild has much greater intrinsic value than any captive born animal we produce. If breeders can produce enough animals that there is no longer a need to collect them from the wild then they have done a good thing. The fact that some of their captive born animals will die is not as important as increasing the probability that wild populations will survive. I do realize that the survival of wild populations is much more seriously effected by man and his land use than our captive breeding.
...I have owned (bought them for my daughters actually) horses and I imagine for a horse breeder it would be unthinkable to consider that an animal you produced would be mistreated but it does happen. With snakes which are much more prolific and usually much lower priced the probability of having one of them mistreated is much higher though. It seems to me that the buying and selling of snakes is much less complicated than the horse business. If you want to learn about the reptile business you could go to one of the larger reptile shows and talk to reptile dealers there. Afterwards you could do "research" about them here on the internet and get a very good idea about which ones you would want to deal with. IMO the very best way to sell snakes is to get your own table at one or more of the bigger shows and sell face to face to customers. You can usually get a much better idea about people that way than through the internet. If you priced your animals low enough you could sell all of them that you could produce at one or two of the bigger shows. If you live close enough to one of the wholesale dealers you could probably talk to them and arrange to visit their facility and could then get a very good idea about whether they are the ones you want to deal with.
...We do need more shouting and name calling in this thread LOL.
Jeff


>>>>I'm interested in learning more about how the wholesale business works - or how the buying of large lots of neonate snakes works...and thought this forum would be a good place to start. There is plenty of discussion about new people getting in, about the contrast between big name breeders and new people unknowns...etc etc. But haven't seen much about selling to wholesalers. Just their ads once in a while.
>>>>
>>>>I purchased my first boa about a year and a half ago. (I've been raising/selling/breeding/advertising exotic horses for over 10 years). So buying/selling animals is not new to me - but certain facets of this reptile business are still a mystery. I think you need to learn as much as you can about the industry as a whole in order to be successful.
>>>>
>>>>A good point was made about how domestically-bred snakes enjoy a better chance at survival than wild-born snakes. But that still doesn't make it right to over-breed and flood the market with tons of un-wanted animals. In any animal breeding situation, there is always the question, are we producing too many?

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