I've been at this for five years or so, and even though I only breed 20 or so females a year, and I don't breed the high-end balls, I do ok, bringing in close to what I make at my day job. I still, however, have a day job though.
Look at it this way; lets say you don't want to spend every waking moment cleaning, feeding and watering snakes, so you decide to produce 40 clutches of 6 average eggs per clutch; that's 240 eggs of mojaves or spiders (~$600 morphs) half of your eggs (120) will be worth $600 each ($72000)and the other half will be worth roughly $40 on average per hatchling (assuming you keep nothing) ($4800). That's close to $80000 minus expenses for paper towels, rats, heating, racks, and start-up, you'll clear $65000 to $70000/annum. Is that enough for you to stay home? You'll certainly have enough time to still work with that limited number of snakes...
I think the millionaires in this business made their "big" money up until a few years ago. Now with the prices of balls actually at a more sustainable price, it's certainly evened the field out.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

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