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making money?

Kailaa

Kailaa

New member
do you find that breeding corns makes you any money in the long run?
obviously im getting into it because i love the animals and am utterly intrigued at the thought of hatching some snakes! but i was also hoping i might be able to make a few extra dollars to throw into an emergency vet fund...
 
Nope. It's one big money sinkhole for me so far. Doesn't stop me, but then I knew what I was getting into when I started. Some people can manage to make it break even or even pull in a few bucks, but certainly not right off the start.

-Kat
 
No, Breeding really doesnt make any money, If anything you would spend more that you make. And money is not the reason most people breed them. Here and there you might get some extra dollars.
 
Not for me. I have three breeding females and I don't think I cover my annual "Corn Costs" over a breeding season. I do it for the joy of it.

A few years ago, a member of the amateur reptile breeding community in the UK, formally asked the Inland Revenue whether he should be declaring the money he earned from hatchlings. The IR guy begged him not to declare it, because once calculated, the overheads were so high that he'd actually be due a rebate! Think this goes for pretty much any domestic-sized breeder.
 
the best I have done is to bring in what I spend in feeders in a year. That doesn't include the cost of the vivs, water, furnature, substrate, cost of the racks, electricity, my time, etc.

The only way that you will make money off this in excess of what you have is to become as well known and trusted as Rich, Don or Kathy, hatch out 2000 to 3000 babies a year and stay on the cutting edge of all the new morphs. Even then, you won't be guaranteed to make more than to cover your costs.
 
hmm i guess i may have made a miscalculation somewhere along the lines then
i think im gonna keep records of everything to see how it goes for me
 
This is my first year breeding and there's no possible way i can make up for what i spent this year. I didn't start to make money and i dont plan on making any along the way.
 
I'm happy if I make enough for feeders. That makes me feel like I'm 'breaking even' but when you factor in the cost of the electricity, and the amount you spend on new snakes, and the time you spend (because that is valuable too) you really have to love the hobby. The pay off is not just financial, because the feeling you get when new pippies hatch, or when you get a stubborn one to eat, or even when you sell one to a novice owner and help them get started, those are priceless.
 
Its a nice hobby.. I don't make anything, I am with Kat's sink hole..Maybe in a few years I can break even but I suspect that won't be for a few..


Even if you are producing babies, it becomes tedious and hard to find someone to buy them.. Luckily enough I am in California where we trade and sell animals to other forum members here, and I am certain in other parts of the country or world it becomes a lot harder..


With the clutch that has hatched for me and Jen this year, we might be lucky enough to recover the cost of food for Mom and Dad this last year, but not likely there too.. Give you some more food for thought..I have a trio of rootbeers up for sale @ $100, these are yearlings.. Beautiful animal, decent size, never on a maintence diet.. I won't break even at all providing I can find a buyer. Sucks to be me, because I have more time and food into them than $33 a piece.. Beats me how I am supposed to make a risidual income out of this deal.. I figure though, it is better that I hang out at home than hanging out in some low life bar spending my money getting loaded.. At least I have something to look at in the mroning that I assume will not leave any time to soon..


Thank you Bitsy for posting the link!

Regards.. Tim of T and J
 
i personally don't think any animal should ever be bred to "make money". breeding should be done to improve the species (whatever that may be) and with a tangible goal in mind. just my two cents....
 
Those selling the more expensive varieties/morphs, in the $200 to $1000+ range, even with just 4 to 8 clutches per year, surely are making more money than somebody selling snakes for $25 to $50 each, unless they have a whole barn full of those cheap snakes. The more expensive types require more of an initial investment, obviously, but that is probably where the 'real money' in breeding Corns is made. You can go to McDonald's and buy a hamburger for 59 cents or a large Coke for $1.69. They obviously make a lot more profit on one item than the other, but they sell both because they are 'complementary' goods (people looking for one thing are often looking for the other.) Likewise, Corn breeders are satisfied to barely break even on the common Corns, as long as they can make a substantial profit on the higher end varieties. There's nothing wrong with that, but we shouldn't pretend people aren't selling certain types of Corns for $500, $800, $1000 and more.
 
Everyone keeps talking about feeder costs and such, and I just have to ask, where in the heck are you getting your mice from?

A variety of online retailers sell adult mice for $.35-$.60 each. Say you have 10 adult snakes (5 breeding pairs) of various morphs.

So, $.50 per feeder @10 snakes per week is $5.

Say you have all 'cheap' morphs---amels, anerys, snows, hypos, motley, etc.

Assume that all 5 females lay clutches of 15 eggs, and all hatch out. Pretend that all eat. You feed those 3 times each at a cost of $.15 each. (15 x 5 = # of hatchlings, x 3 meals each x $.15 = $33.75 in feeder costs.

Say you sell all 75 of those hatchlings at the rock bottom price of $10 a pop.

So feeding costs are: $20 per adult animal based on a 3 month brumation, which at 10 adult snakes would be $200 a year. Hatchling feeder costs of $33.75.

So 'feeder' costs for adults and hatchlings you are selling comes out to be $233.75 for the year.

Your revenue on selling all of those snakes for $10 is $750.

$750-$233.75 = + $516.25

Don't kid yourself, there are a lot of other costs, but all you guys that keep talking about feeder costs---I just don't understand that. Are you seriously telling me that you're spending $500 a year feeding 'holdbacks'?
 
The problem with your calculation is that you are assuming these babies will all sell right after they have had three meals. Also feeders might be cheap but did you factor in the cost of getting them shipped with dry ice?
As for $10 snakes, in my case I have issues with selling some of these nice hypos and ghosts het stripe I have for $10 which I could easily do, but I know they are worth more. I am not a well known breeder, though I do have local references, so it takes me a while to sell them and I don't want to sell them cheaply - after all they are ACR preregistered, sexed, well started, and it seems a shame to let them go to some petstore or wholesaler that doesn't even care about the ACR or the gender. I'd rather hang onto them for a bit, and the pinkies do add up if you are holding out for the right buyer. Factor in the cost of things like a booth at a reptile show, online advertising, etc.
I agree it's nice to have higher end morphs and you can make more that way, if I've made any money I have invested it back into the hobby and tried to upgrade the collection I have so I'm still not seeing a profit margin. But that's not why I do it anyway :shrugs:
 
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I feed my babies every 5 days and they have had at least 8 meals at this point. I'm not buying feeders for .60 each that's for sure. I have no room for 100 pinkies that you have to order from some of the mouse suppliers and after I spend the $60 for shipping, it's still cheaper for me to buy f/t or live pinkies from my local petshop for .79 I haven't sold them all yet, so by the time I do sell them, they might have as many as 10-15 meals. Who knows. If I don't sell what I want to sell, I'll wholesale them in the end, but I doubt I'm going to make any big bucks with the corns. My Green tree pythons might net me more in the end, but they are another year away from breeding those, and I need a much better incubator unless I build my own.
 
Joe,

Nice calculation, however, what happens when you don't start with adults and you start with babies and have to raise them up? The feeder costs will start to add up...especially if you only feed one food item once a week as you will probably have to wait until year 3 to get them to breed.

There can be money to be made but with today's market it is not the easiest thing to do. Not every female will produce and not every clutch will be 15 eggs. Also, $10 a pop may still not make them go out of your hands....I had a few $10 corns at Daytona and they came home with me.
 
The way I look at it, whether or not I breed and sell my snakes I'm still going to be keeping them and spending money. So regardless if I make any money off hatchlings, that money is already spent on keeping them. So whatever money I may make from selling hatchlings I put back towards what I spent on just the hatchlings and the rest is extra spending money.
 
MegF. said:
I feed my babies every 5 days and they have had at least 8 meals at this point. I'm not buying feeders for .60 each that's for sure. I have no room for 100 pinkies that you have to order from some of the mouse suppliers and after I spend the $60 for shipping, it's still cheaper for me to buy f/t or live pinkies from my local petshop for .79 I haven't sold them all yet, so by the time I do sell them, they might have as many as 10-15 meals. Who knows. If I don't sell what I want to sell, I'll wholesale them in the end, but I doubt I'm going to make any big bucks with the corns. My Green tree pythons might net me more in the end, but they are another year away from breeding those, and I need a much better incubator unless I build my own.
Click to expand...

Meg-

Do the calculations according to what you spend per year on buying from the petstore, and then compare that with $.17 per pinkie from any of the online guys. If you have a decent collection (which I know you do) calculate it all out for the year and compare pet store $ to online $. When the former is triple the cost of f/t, add in the cost of a small chest freezer to the online order and see which one is more expensive still.

I did that calculation 2 years ago to show my g/f that spending $14 a week from the petstore compared to $5 a week to buy online would make up for a chest freezer purchase within a year. And that was when I had 15 snakes---now that the number has tripled I'd go broke trying to feed my snakes if I bought food items from a local pet store.
 
MohrSnakes said:
Joe,

Nice calculation, however, what happens when you don't start with adults and you start with babies and have to raise them up? The feeder costs will start to add up...especially if you only feed one food item once a week as you will probably have to wait until year 3 to get them to breed.

There can be money to be made but with today's market it is not the easiest thing to do. Not every female will produce and not every clutch will be 15 eggs. Also, $10 a pop may still not make them go out of your hands....I had a few $10 corns at Daytona and they came home with me.
Click to expand...

I understand start up costs can be high, and I wasn't factoring those in. I was simply stating that starting with breeding pairs and going from there (no holdbacks) I just don't understand how people have such high feeder costs, that's all.
 
this is my situation...

this is my first year breeding, and I only bred 1 pair.

11 keepers- I feed approximately 504 mice per year @ 0.95/each= $478.80CAD a year to feed them.

now I only had 23 hatchlings this year and maybe they eat 10 times each @ 0.50 a pinkie. I'm at $115.00.CAD

Hatchlings around here go for $50-65 CAD but wholesale is $20

If I sold them all wholesale I would end up with 460.00 (I would definitely not feed 10 times if they were going wholesale so we'll cut the pinky cost in half

Feeders= 536.30
- wholesale revenue -460.00
total 76.30

this year it costed me $76.30 on my pets. Not counting electricity and time, but I would have them anyway.

Also this year all I had was Normals and Aneries. So I will definitely make "Some" profit next year with snakes in the $200 range.

Now imagine if I could actually get really cheap prices on feeders. If I paid an average of 65 cents each I would have made $132.40 so probably cover the electricity for the year and the time is just time spent with my pets. This by no means covers the initial cost of my monsters but I'm sure they'll equal themselves out over the years.

I am very happy with my first year. Obviously everybody is different. By the way I have only sold 1 of my hatchlings @ $50 so I still have 22 but I'm waiting instead of wholesaling. I guess I'll see if the extra $30 is worth the wait.

Thanks for reading my ramblings....... :wavey:
 
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