Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been keeping reptiles for about 4 years now, and have had almost everything from ball pythons to savannah monitors... and I just recently purchased a columbian redtail yesterday at a reptile show. He's rougly 4 feet long.

Anyway, I'm thinking of breeding him, and possibly other types of reptiles in the future. I have never bred anything in my life.
I eventually plan to open my own reptile pet shop, but I want all of the animals that I sell there to be bred by myself, and not ordered from some other company like most pet shops do.

My question is, for all of you professional breeders out there, any ideas on how to get started? I mean, I obviously need to save up a lot of money in order to do this. How did you get started? When you first started breeding your reptiles, who did you sell the babies to? Reptile shows? Online websites? Do you think it would be too hard to only sell my own bred reptiles at my petshop?

Any input is greatly appreciated! Thanks,
Sara

Hey Sara ,

while im only a small private breeder i have known several people with there own shops.

First and foremost you will need to make yourself a buisness plan out then i would do research as to what your geopraphic area would maintain in its self, by this i mean you will need to realistcally look at what you could sale in your area if you plan on a ALL reptile shop.For breeding your own stock thats a very profitable way to get things going .But now to your question "where do we sell" unless you live in a very reptile healthy rich enviroment you will have a hard time sellingto the general public and your turn around doing so will go slow as not every buyer is going to buy that boa, python monitor etc. the internet is a more viable way to to sell for you to sell starting off. The high demands of overhead and etc in a shop will be massive you would be looking on a lowball figure for a small shop in the $3000.00 a month range that would be mainly rent/lease then your stock you will need to consider the amount of supplies etc to carry to substain your animals and for resale.then heating , water , power bills etc do lots of research before you leap ... good luck
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Buisnesses come and go everyday, what keeps you here is how you treated the customer the day before....