It is all supply and demand. There currently happens to be a

strong demand for unique and rare mutations of ball pythons.

That's good for us breeders. Will most people ever sell a

$38,000 snake?? No they will not. But the nice thing is that

you don't need to sell babies for very much to make this a nice

business (...or to support your hobby). If you could sell babies

of a particular more common morph for say $500 apiece, you'd be

making probably $1500-3000 per clutch. Assume that you spend

$200 per year caring for each snake you have...that's a very

nice return (every year or two), especially if you've got 5, 10,

20, or more of them...



Generally, a breeder can break even on just about any mutation

after 1-4 clutches, and that is assuming they sell the babies

for significantly less than the breeder animal they originally

purchased. If it was a male they bought, that male could produce

between 0-5 or more clutches in the first year it is bred!

It can then go on to breed the next 5-25 years, so you can see

that it doesn't take much to make your money back and then some.



As long as you can keep your animals healthy and breed them,

you will make money. Everyone has different reasons for being

involved with ball pythons (or animals in general), but I believe

that the majority of people truly enjoy the animals.



In my opinion, anyone that buys a ball python for more then a

couple thousand dollars is buying it because a)they believe they

can make a nice monetary return on their purchase (and there is

absolutely NOTHING wrong with that), and b)usually because they

find that mutation appealing. Sure, there could be people with

more money than they know what to do with, that like to collect

expensive and rare things, and they may buy a $100,000 ball

python, but don't expect to see any posts from them here on KS...



Regards,

Chris Simone

www.SimoneReptiles.com

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