Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have really been collecting cheap small colubrids and leopard geckoes lately. I figured the more corns, kings, rats and geckoes I add to my collection the more offspring I can get in a few years thus allowing me to fund other, more expensive projects. But alas, I am torn with an ethical dilemma. If I produce 1,000 cheap baby snakes in a season, for example and I sell all 1,000 babies cheap, what do you think happens to them? What are all of your opinions on the pet trade? True I can print up a million "care sheets", offer my email address/phone number and try to help people raise their babies but do you actually think everyone that buys a snake will use these resources? Of course there are always casualties in war and a few baby snakes should be sacrificed here and there to help put
them into the hobby which in turn cuts back on people wild collecting, ball pythons for example are still imported by the tens of thousands yet even more are bred in captivity annually. Eventually, will enough be bred that there will be no more imports? If that is true than supporting the pet trade would be a great thing. Or is it a never ending battle, until at least
there are no more wild ball pythons? I guess I am just wondering what is the best interest for the animal, I don't want to give animals human characteristics and I know animals will always die but one question still lingers. What do people do when their pet goldfish dies? They go buy another one, because they're cheap and readily available. Is the same thing happening to "pet store" snakes, geckos, etc?

One question you have to ask yourself is why your breeding. Are you doing it to make a profit? Or because you love snakes? If you are trying to make a profit out of it many of the snakes will come to an unfortunate end because they are 'cheap', and in order to make much of a profit off of them your going to have to produce a large quantity of them. Anything being sold cheap usually has a bigger chance at getting into irresponsible hands(think of iguanas). A good many of the 'cheap' species are that way because of a lot of breeding making them easily availible. If your really concered for the future of the animals then you might want to look into other ways of making money, and produce the other ones on a smaller scale so you can keep better track of who buys them. You'll also have to consider about how many babies your able to care for. In petstores with the lesser expensive reptiles I'm sure people do replace dead or missing reptiles (cheap often translates to disposable to some people).

they throw them away all the time........

from mice to horses to dogs and cats.yes.snakes too.......

most die alot faster than they should...some die within a month of going home.....

I breed and get about 700 egs a year.....and I know most will never make it to adulthood of 10 years of age.....

.....I know people are stupid.........*(some kill them in the parking lot at the herp expo where they bought it..).........
then whine back to me.that there is "something wrong with it"...........*(yea...115 degrees is a little bit warm for a snake in a car..........da--uuuh...

...........

...........wild trade will never end........here too tney rape the land every summer for eberything from beetles in the southwest,scorpions,widows,lizards,all snake species.....to Florida where everything is collected and sold..*(even from parkland where it is illegal.)....every state is prone to it......and every speices .......

.anyways..........breed alot.sell alot.if you are crazy enough to do the work....good luck..........*(I been doing it for 15 years now...it's alot of work)........

have fun.........
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Thank you for the reply. You said you sell over 700 eggs a year, are these all corns, kings, etc? How many breeders do you have to produce such a large amount. Do you think this turns a very good profit? Trust me, my motives are not profit driven. I have kept snakes for years and am now starting to get into full time breeding. Email me if you like. TraceHardin@yahoo.com