It's very interesting to see this philosophy espoused by many already in the business. So the obvious question is, "why are they in it then?" Because they want to have no income and be paupers?
I suspect the reason behind this attitude is to discourage others from getting into the biz and possibly cutting into their sales. Any thoughts?
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"YOU CAN'T MAKE MONEY IN REPTILES HUH?"
addictedtoherps
Aug 03, 2003 02:10 PM
Replies (5)
meretseger
Aug 03, 2003 04:41 PM
Well... I'm doing it because I love snakes...
It's probably quite easy to make money with a large initial investment (like any business) but that's something I don't have. For hobbyists starting out with a couple of pairs of snakes and wanting to build from there, it IS going to take forever to make money.
Andy_G
Aug 03, 2003 04:43 PM
Depends on the breed and level of business you mean. Small in-the-basement type companies are just trying to regain the money they spent maintaining all of their collection for the year...some do it purely for the experience. People with special morphs of pythons that cost a lot are usually hard to breed and the prices even on these rare morphs will go lower and lower, bit by bit every year, so if you are a beginner, even if you are not, unless your collection is HUGE and you own very expensive morphs and you bred them successfully anually you are not making profit, you'll be lucky to break even.Competition really has little or nothing to do with it because we want the hobby as popular as it can be.
snakeguy88
Aug 03, 2003 06:21 PM
With a lot of species you can't...Think of all the expenses. Unless you really put out a lot of money for something prolific and rare, you will, many times, end up in a hole somehow, even if it is just not breaking even. Think about how much money you have to put into raising the snakes, and especially for people that are trying to get large breeding projects going. Also think of the competition. There are tons of basement breeders and large scale facilities out there all competing with each other for the same goal, your business. Nobody is trying to discourage you...just forewarn you. Even if you do break even or gain money, it may take you a few years and a nice bit of publicity. Andy
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone
chrish
Aug 03, 2003 07:24 PM
It's very interesting to see this philosophy espoused by many already in the business. So the obvious question is, "why are they in it then?" Because they want to have no income and be paupers?
Most of these people you are referring to aren't really "in the business". Most hobbyists (including many of those who you see with fancy web sites, etc., have other sources of income (other jobs, spouses income, etc.).
Think about what is involved. Say you are breeding a new morph of snake that is fairly prolific.
You have pay to feed and house them and then you have to consider "paying yourself". What is your time worth? Do you work for minimum wage? Multiply that $5.?? times the number of hours per week you spend feeding/cleaning cages the number of hours you spend answering phone calls/emails setting up/maintaining your web pages hours travelling and sitting at to expos. Then there is the $100-150 per table price of selling anything at the expo and the hotel rooms, meals, etc. If you don't work for minimum wage, then you have to increase to "cost" of keeping the animals.
It isn't that you can't make the hobby pay for itself, but most people who try to breed animals "for a living" end up having to suppliment their income by other means.
There are two ways to make money in the hobby. Either produce huge numbers of offspring to sell or produce fewer expensive offspring. If you plan on taking the first route, you have to produce a bunch of cheap snakes. If you go a good expo, you might be lucky to sell 100. If you sell 100 corns at $15 each you take home $1500 of which you spent $250 paying for the lodging/food/table at the expo plus the countless hours you spent raising the adults, the food, the housing etc. You end up with very little profit if you do the math.
If you go the expensive route, you have to find people to buy your $5000 babies. How many of those do you think you can sell in a year? Then the next year?
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Chris Harrison
jones
Aug 04, 2003 01:19 AM
Just wanted to point out that there is some middle ground between $15 and $5000. I tend to deal around the $150-$200 range and while it's definitely not a supporting income, judging by the last 3-4 years it will be if I want it to be in just a few more years. So you have to starve for a few years. That's what starting a small business from scrtach is all about. If I wanted to go about it more aggresively I could probably be living off of it already. However that would be a heck of a risk. Let's just say that it is possible.
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