Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What do you guys consider to be a wise $15k investment and why?

Thanks in advance

The best way to invest $15k......don't buy snakes.
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0.0.1 Jayapura GTP
1.1 Pastel 50% het Ghost BPs
1.0 Bell Orange Ghost BP
0.1 Female het Ghost
0.4 Normal BPs
1.0 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
0.1 Dumerils Boa
0.0.1 Cali King
0.1 Apricot Pueblan Milk
1.0 Crested Gecko

Buy $14300 worth of GOLD. It should double in the next 4 years. Then buy a pair of Het Hypos, or Het Albinos for $700, and see if you produce any babies, then see if you actually can sell any. Do some trades, and eventually get some higher end animals.

Dave

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Charles Glaspie

Tanstaafl:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
An acronym created by my favorite author Robert A. Heinlein.

ROTFL, Good answer Dave

Quig

OK, so that probably was not the answer you were looking for/hoping to get.

Here is some more food for thought.

1-How many Ball pythons do you currently have?

2-How are they housed?

3-How many Balls can you house now?

4-Any plans on adding caging, if so, what and how many?

5-Have you ever bred Balls before? Do you have a set up, working incubator, or can you get one?

6-Your $15K, where did it come from, will you be paying cash, is there a loan involved, are you borrowing money from friends/family? Are you a millionaire who has money to burn?

Your answer to how to spend that money is going to depend on if you could use that $15K to start a childs College fund, do you need another car...etc.

What morphs do you like. If you are just in love with the Pastel Ball, and happen to already have 3 normal females, then by all means, buy yourself a stunning Pastel. Say you love the Lessers, and reproducing Lessers is your goal. I would say spend $2500 on a Ghost female, and a Grand on a Ghost male and breed them. Eventually, through sales or trades, you will get a Lesser. Sometimes the cheaper, longer road is the best to take. However, if you just won a $10 Million lottery, by all means, buy yourself whatever you want, and learn along the way. The problem is, if you are getting into for the money, and you see all the high dollar snakes for sale in the Classifieds, do not kid yourself, most will sell for far less than the price posted, and some will take a year to sell. Balls are not a get rich quick scheme, if you love snakes, and figure on the heating and caging and food for a normal Ball is the same as for an Albino Ball, and you figure why not try to make your hobby pay for itself, you should be ok. But, if you are in it for the money, you are going to end up with a snake money pit.

Dave

Buy what you like, with money you have to burn. If I was starting again, I love the Albino Pieds, and I would go in that direction or Hypo Spiders, Hypo Pastels, really Hypo anything. If you have $15K, put 10K away in the bank, and buy a Hypo Pair and a Spider, Pastel, or other Dom or Co Dom female.

>>What do you guys consider to be a wise $15k investment and why?

a pair of my '06 blonde pastels, a breeder female and my '06 pinstripe!

OK...either that or some recessive pairs from someone else...!
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Jeremy Conrad
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...Can't...stop...must...get...more...balls...

a ford Taurus........grey

so you can get to work........and make money?

.......whatever morph YOU personally want to breed?.....???

IF you buy from the right place you make and save money.IF you buy from the wrong place...you can say.I got my balls from......."......." ....wow........

I'd rather have an extra ball or two than a name......

..........

CV Exotics will sell you an albino or two and Ball BOutique can sell you a pair of axanthics and Pythons.com (Al Zulich) can sell you some other co-dom morphs......you'll ahve all kinds of mixes in the making then?
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you think????

To answer your queston without off topic answers. In my opinion, purchase nice pastel females being 03, 04 or 05, as many as you can. Raise them up and breed them to a nice spider male or cinnimon or both. There may be a hotter male to breed to by the time the females are raised. But as we speak a quater of the offspring will be bumblebees or pewters which is worth $10-15,000 each. Sterlingbp

You said "worth $10-15K." Is worth the price now, is worth the price when the female Pastels are old enough to breed, is worth the wishful thinking price, is worth the price it will be listed at, is worth the price it will sell for...?

Please read my post closer. I said as we speak. Like as now on currant price. Certainly the price will be lower as time goes on. Pastel females will still be a good investment for designer morphs either co- dom or simple recessive. They are one of the backbones of the base females and priced good too. How many adult females do you see for sale? Back to prices. Yes bumblebees and pewters are going to drop in price. Maybe not as fast as other morphs because they are so versitile in breeding to normal females, other morphs and are fantastic looking too. Ball Pythons will be around for a long time to come. The true breeders that has their heart in it will keep on breeding, following their business plan, providing good customer service and will be sucessful. Thanks, Sterlingbp

Good advice.
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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

Everyone is acting like you can't make money. WRONG!!! You don't even have to breed them. Just for example from the right breeder I bet you could buy near 30 female pastels with 15k cash. Keep them for half a year and put weight on them. You should be able to sell them individualy for 1000.00 - 2000.00ea. Add it up. In little time you could double or tripple your investment. It is not fail proof but nothing is and the possible return beats the hell out of anything else I know of investment wise.

Kevin

What about buying a house?

I know a few people that do make money with selling Ball Pythons, but if you are small time, and do not breed your own rodents, feeding and heating can really ad up. I spend about $2K a year on rats alone, maybe more. I wish eveyone the best, and buy and sell to your hearts content, just do not spend your $15K, realize you cannot get any eggs, cannot get your incubator set up right, cannot keep the eggs from molding, and have a "Getting out of Balls" sale a year or two later and sell everything for $10K, including your racks and all. As soon as Ball breeding turns into a business, it turns into a business, and may not be as much fun as you thought. Well, of to have some fun cleaning my thirty tub rack, and my baby rack. By the way, I just cleaned the baby rack yesterday, and some of the babies have ALREADY left me some new presents to clean up Love it or do not attempt it

Dave

Have you purchased or sold a house lately? If you have, you will notice on the MLS listings, you can see "currently available", Pending, and Sold prices. In most markets, the sold prices are the market prices, the pending prices are the market prices, and the Available prices are the wishful thinking prices, that when turn to sold prices, will be significantly lower than the asking price. With Balls, it is the same thing, you have KS classified prices, you have show prices, you have bottom line what the breeder will take for the snake prices, you have broker prices, but bottom line, if you are going to quote prices, you should quote SOLD prices, not wishful thinking prices. I am not directing this to anyone in particular, but many times, the list price is far greater than what the animal acutally sells for, and if you ad in partial trades....

Dave

I sold one female Pastel for 5k cash no B.S. less than six months ago and I am by no means a big breeder. I also sold two male Pastels for 1500.00 ea. in the last year. I am not trying to brag it up, just saying it is possible to get full market price if you take your time and don't buckle when stuff does not sell the first week.

Kevin

NICE!

hey dave off topic here, but in my area right now houses are gold mines.

two people I know that bought their houses in the last year had to bid 15K over asking price.

And they weren't the high bidders, but their ability to secure loans won them their houses.

sorry off topic rant.

TomChambers

Yeah, houses are goldmines here too, mine has gone up about $8K a month for about three years. The last three or four years has seen a crazy housing market, but here in CA, it is slowly coming to an end. Right now, houses are sitting on the market for months, where a year ago, they were selling for over asking price in days. In most areas, and in most years, people think their house is worth way more than it actually is...and that was my point.

Dave

Just for fun,

Can you buy a nice house for 15K ?

Can you make additional houses each year from your original investment in one house? If so does that only cost 15k?

Can you make a profit from your 15K investment in Ball Pythons?

Can you make money from your 15k investment in Ball Pythons that in time could be a down payment on a new house?

Can you buy a house and keep Ball Pythons in that house?

Has anyone made a consistant good income from breeding Ball Pythons?

Half full or half empty?
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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

A house is the best investment around here for 15K. You really don't even need that amount, you can use the banks money. So you get the small house on the banks money, use your 15K to buy you some cool snakes. The next year you sell the house for 15K MORE than what you paid, then you are back to even, within that year, and you haven't even bred the snakes yet! So even if they die, you are still even! This is kind of what I did with my first house.

Since the original post asked what was the best 15K investment and not what SNAKES were the best investment, I am going to have to agree with the house.

Mike C

I think people use the term investment, when they should be using the word speculation.

Bottom line, if you have a good job, and have some extra spending money/tax return/inheritance, and just want to have some fun, Balls are for you. Buy what you like, look at them daily like I do, and try to breed them to make your money back and maybe money for a nice vacation. My goal is to make back my initial monitary input, and then some, each year trying to have my hobby pay for itself, and pay some bills off, or take a vacation.

If you are unemployed, and want to borrow $20K from your parents, promising to pay them back when you make your millions in Ball Pythons, I think you may end up dissapointed and with some pissed off parents.

The key: Do not have unrealistic expectations, especially in your first year, buy females first, you can ad males later the following year, do not put Balls on your CC or take out loans to get them. Other than that, go for it!

Wow .... $15K isn't even enough for a down payment on a studio apartment around here let alone a house - they'd laugh you right out of their office.

LOL - guess it depends on where you live. Our house is worth 200% more than it was 5 years ago - now thats more than any snake will make ya in the same amount of time and we can borrow on it - can't do that with snakes.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.42.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.1 Lizard of unknown origin

I agree. Houses around here are a million plus and then they get expensive.
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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

200% in 5 years ...lol give me a break.

If you bought 5 pastel females at $3000 and one male cinnamon at $10,000 you invested $$25,000 five years ago.

Asumming that you were a crappy breeder and could only produce 5 clutches of 6 eggs in 5 years you would have 30 eggs.

25% of those are pewters (7.5 snakes) which you promptly sell at todays price of about $20,000.

So you have about $150,000 made from your innitial investment of $25,000, plus you still have 5 breeder size female pastels you can sell for about 4K apiece (20K), one breeder size cinnamon (5 K), 7.5 babie cinnamons (20K), 7.5 pastels (5K), and 7.5 normals to keep as pets.

So you have not made 200% you have made 1000% of you investment in five years...lol
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

True, and most people do not purchase a house to constantly sell it and move and sell it and move to make income. A great investment? YES. If anyone does not think that investing in Ball Pythons is a good investment then dont do it. But here is the original question, if you were going to spend money on, lets say? Ball Pythons, what would you purchase? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh back on track.

You are 100% correct! Royal Pythons are a great investment. No matter what you do, if you do it correctly and with a business sense, you can make your investment a worth while venture. If you are not willing to do what it takes and what it needs as a business? forget it.
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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

Forum, not the real estate forum. It is a specific topic forum. But perhaps the question was non Ball Python related anyway?
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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

I would buy three Pastel females at $900 each, for a total of $2700, I would buy two female Hypos for $2500 each, so I would be up to $7700, I would buy a Pied pair, just because I really like Pieds, for say $6000 for the pair, making a Cinn male purchase the next year, to breed to the Pastel females and one of the Hypo females, I would breed the Pied male to the Pied female and one Hypo female. That is round about what I would do, at least today, tomorrow, I might change my mind.

"at least today, tomorrow, I might change my mind."

rofl..yer killin meh.
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Charles Glaspie

Tanstaafl:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
An acronym created by my favorite author Robert A. Heinlein.

Obviously you have functioning brain cells. Good posts.

SNAKEBYTES

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g...

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I appreciate your comments. I have to also tell you that the Fatcat almost made me fall out of my chair. That is Hysterical.

Sincerely, Kyle
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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

I love that FatCat ... I can picture my cat doing that when he is left alone

SNAKEBYTES

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g...

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That is just classic, Gotta love that cat,

Sincerely, Kyle

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Kyle J. Stevens
Royal Variations Ltd.

Many a false step is made from standing still.

Great post Skip, and great advice. Too bad this thread got so out of whack. I hope you and Daniel are doing well. It's too bad people don't listen to people like you that know something about making wise investments. But it's their loss. Too many egos ...

SNAKEBYTES
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g...

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You've thrown out a loaded question and disappeared. You've received some interesting and generally good advice. Before I could really tell you what is wise for you, I'd need to know a great deal more about you. For starters:

1. How old are you?
2. Do you have a job?
3. What is your education level or skill set?
4. Are you married?
5. Do you have children?
6. What debts do you owe?
7. How much have you saved for retirement?
8. How many snakes do you own? have you owned?
9. How long have you owned snakes? in general? ball pythons in particular?
10. Where do you live?

Of course, you didn't come here for a lecture about personal finance. You came here to ask what kinds of ball pythons are likely to keep their value over time and be marketable.

Of those who've answered so far, I know the least about ball pythons, but I'll give you some thoughts. My premise for answering this question will be that I'm independently wealthy and have no other need for $15k but that I don't have so much money that I can piss away more than $15k. (I wish this premise were true in real life.) I'd like to end up with a profit just to prove that I could do it. Part of my personal reality is that I've owned snakes for less than six months, so the whole thing would be a learning process.

First, I'd look for some attractive, normal females who are at or almost at breeding size. The pet store near me has had some that are about that size for about $100. I'd sink $500 to $1000 into any male morph that I could find. I'd use these snakes to learn to maintain snakes in a rack system. I'd put a couple of thousand dollars into that rack system. I'd get a license so that I could sell snakes for a profit. When they reached breeding size, I'd start breeding. I've never managed snake breeding, so I'd spend a year or so just learning how to get from male and female adult to male and female adult plus healthy hatchlings.

If I my male morph had a recessive trait, my first batches of hatchlings would look like normals. Let's say that I had ten to fifteen of them. I'd save a male or two and a female or two and sell the rest as normals for about $40 to $60 each. I could probably market them among snake enthusiasts as possible hets and get more for them, but in doing so I could end up wasting a great deal of time and money feeding them all. At this point, I've probably spent $7000 of my original sum and would receive about $300 to $400 in return.

If my male were a co-dominant morph, I'd try to find some way to sell the hatchlings for more than what normals would cost, but I wouldn't try to sell them at what might be considered "market" price. If someone has a choice of buying a pastel from someone like me or someone who's been breeding for a while, that person will prefer to deal with the established breeder. Let's say that my male were a pastel. I'd consider letting the less attractive hatchlings go for $200 to $300. At that price, I might even be able to interest non-chain pet stores in selling some for me on consignment. If I did it that way, I'd probably get $1000 to $1200 in return.

I'd keep what I had and breed again at which point I'd have spent another $500 of my money plus the $300 that I made on the sale of the first batch. (If I had the pastel male, the sale of hatchlings from the first batch might cover the costs from the next year.) In the second year, I'd assume that prices for normal-looking hatchlings would be about the same. I'd bleed another $500 of my initial funds and receive about $300 in return. (If I were dealing with a pastel male, I'd assume that my return during the second year would be only $800. I think pastels are going to flood the market.)

At this point, I'd buy a pied male. I think I could afford one with the remains of my $15k, and I think they look neat. I'd continue bleeding about $400 a year for another three or four years while I built enough good breeders to start making morphs for sale. I don't know whether I'd ever truly break even on my snakes.

Ultimately, I'd write a book. I like to write, and I think I'm a pretty good writer. I think my engineering perspective on things would allow me to write a book that would be very clear and explain husbandry in a way that would be easy to understand. I'd concentrate on statistics and other measures of the snakes that I had kept. Somewhere along the line, I'd experiment with raising a number of snakes under different conditions. I'd see how those conditions affected growth and development, and I'd include that data in the book. I'd try to find published sources of information and include that information as well. I haven't yet read the NERD book, so I don't know whether I could compete with it to be the best. I'd probably try to concentrate less on morphs and sell at a lower price.

Okay, now that we've established that I really can't help you, maybe someone who knows more will answer your real question.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

I finally decided to try some BPs about a year and a half ago. So I got a couple of normal yearling '04 females from friends who had been raising them, and more c.h. '04 yearlings from Mark and Kim Bell in the early summer of '05, for a total of 24 female '04s. So I have been raising those for the last year (more or less) and they range from just under 700 gms to about 1700 gms.

This Jan., I got my first male, a really nice pastel '05 from Chris and Sheila at Gulfcoast, and he is already pushing 500 gms. now. So he will be dad to the first clutches I produce.

Because my personal favorites are pieds and and bumblebees, and because I think albinos will always be very popular, I plan to get visual males and a couple of het females of the recessives, plus a spider male for the first female pastels I produce, just as soon as I can afford them (this summer, I think). Then those males will have their own females as well as helping to "pollinate" their share of normal '04 females.

I don't know that I even want to get into it more than that. Those are my favs, and they are ones that will always be popular because of their looks, no matter what the market price. I think it will be a lot more fun to keep it to a manageable number than to go crazy and have a zillion. (That advice comes from a cornsnake breeder with WAY TOO MANY at times, lol!) I think keeping it fun and doing other things in addition to BP breeding will be more profitable (to me, anyway) in the long run.

If you started with 24 normals and acquire what you mentioned in this post, I think you'll go over the $15k investment range that was mentioned. In any case, thank you for sharing what you did. It's encouraging to hear that an experienced snake breeder followed a plan similar to what I concocted with little experience and without giving it that much thought.

I wouldn't mind having a corn snake someday simply because they are such a standard for snake keepers to own. However, all of the snakes that cause me to fall in love right now are kingsnakes.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

of $ IMHO

thats less then ive spent, and im poor as can be but emotionally i feel great about it, id love to have some of the super fancy snakes, but i get more out of bringing a $20 neglected ball back from near death and placing it with someone who will treat i well them i would just buying something to brag about
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hanging out under heat lights burns up my brain cells!!