I just got this bug up my butt so I need to vent and maybe get some answers. From time to time I see freshly imported rainbow boas for sale. With the classified ads chock full of folks selling babies, why would anyone want to import more adults? I can understand the fresh gene pool thing, but geez, the market is absolutley flooded with BRBs. And also, babies typically sell for between $125 and $175 right? So would it not come to stand that selling an adult would be MUCH more? like at least another $75 to $100 or so? Not the case that I've seen. Adults sell for about $200 or so, and thats it. It's almost an insult to buy an adult for 20 bucks more than a baby, turn around and breed it that year to produce a pay off of well over 1000%.
Like I said, I just need to vent about this, but am I waaaay off base here or is that pretty much how it is out there?
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Tom
TCJ Herps
"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"
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Why import?
Replies (3)
It's my experience that you are lucky if you can get an adult WC rainbow to breed in captivity before three years in captivity. Not to mention that they typically have a not-so-good attitude. I have purchased WC if they are particlarly nice or have some unique feature to them. I much prefer to buy a baby and raise it up because the time investment is about the same and I know everything about it's care from early on.
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If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier.
Mike who has replied above, has more experience than me. I have not yet purchased a WC adult, but have heard similiar timeframes about when to expect it would actually produce babies. Now that $200 snake is really about $250 to have it at your door when you include shipping. If you feed it well, keep it clean, and heat and humidify it for a conservative estimate of 24 months at weekly feeding times a conservative expected cost would be no less than $175.00 including substrate materials, electric, cleaning supplies, and your valuable time.At this point, 2 years later, you still have only a possiblity of it producing offspring, but the actual cost of the new litter is at $425 assuming you didn't purchase an enclosure. Ultimately, IMO, it comes out pretty much the same if the $$ is what you are considering. Buying the adult just doesn't allow to know the background and get the joy of observing this creature mature. I am guessing that you have greater odds in raising one from a baby to produce viable babies than buying an import to breed.
Linda
As a breeder with several animals, I would not think of bringing in a WC animal. Too many risks of bringing in other unwanted uninvited guests. WC can (and I have heard usually do?) have internal and external parasites and can have diseases that could be spread to other animals. With a WC it would be highly recommended to have a vet visit along with parasite screen of fecal matter. This could easily double the cost of the animal even if there are no parasites found.
Lastly, IMO, Wild animals belong in the wild, if there were not a market for WC animals, there would not be people catching and selling them. I know my babies somewhere back in their ancestors were wild and were produced from some number of WC animals. Captive breeding programs are eliminating the need for removing any more animals from the wild where they belong.
