The purchase of lone or extra females..

I do have a question, though. In your experience, Rich, of the 'fertile' eggs laid each year, approximately what ratio actually hatches, and approximately what ratio of the hatchers actually survive to be sold?

Well, I don't think I can answer that accurately. For the last few years, although I keep all of the figures on a spreadsheet, when things get hot and heavy with animals hatching out, I really can't keep up with the data entry stuff. Some clutches will hatch out, have nothing inspiring in them, and I'll dump the entire clutch into a bag to go out to a wholesaler I'm packing a shipment for. And invariably I don't mark down the card as to how many hatched and that skews the numbers on the spreadsheet.

A seat of the pants estimate is that about 80 percent will hatch from the apparently good eggs that were laid.

Now keeping track of the hatchlings themselves is a lost cause. I used to do that and keep every ID number in a database so I could track back its lineage as well have a record of what happened to each and every animal. But that database hasn't been updated since 1995 when I started producing so many animals that I had to choose between doing the data entry or taking care of the animals. I probably still have every card for every animal I have made up cards on since then (which have been limited to only the animals I kept as breeding stock), but they are scattered in every nook and cranny you can think of. It would be a monumental task to find all those cards, key in the data, and bring my inventory up to date with all of the ancestry data. I keep fooling myself thinking that someday I will get around to doing that, but the numbers of animals around here are constantly increasing, which means less time and even more data that should be processed.

As I was pondering this new info. I realized that too! After all that is the way nature works, it's never predictable.

Rich, I also agree with Bippy. I have been reading and researching almost continuosly and all I ever heard was that you don't need more than 1 male to 2-3 females. I for one am very thankful for the information in this thread, and you would be opening a lot of eyes if it was on your site.


Thanks for sharing!!

Colleen

here's another one but with royals.bought 1.2 cb, grew on breeding time came around,nothing no sign of mating,nothing,cut along story short, brought in second male,who started mating straight away, sudenly woke up the first male,you then mated with the females on and of all winter.

*************SilverTongue will become famous and quite rich creating Viagra for cornsnakes!!!!***************

I have the very same problem with my bearded dragons... EVERYBODY wants the females and the males don't sell nearly as well as females. So... the price of female bearded dragons are MUCH higher than the males. And as mentioned earlier by someone: SUPPLY & DEMAND. If they want those females, as most of them do... They will pay a higher price for them. I would also buy in pairs if that was all that was available to me. But, like someone else said... they would also go somewhere else in a heartbeat, like to a reptile show or a smaller breeder! We all know the truth here... everyone is trying to make a buck and everyone wants some kind of deal. Not a bad thing, just human nature I guess. I say, raise the prices of those females! If you sell them seperate at one price, give a price break if they buy the pair. Many of them will buy the pair if they "think" they are getting a deal that way. It's not being sneaky, it just makes common sense. In the area of popular lizards, that is the norm. Higher priced females and, a cut in price on the pair. That was my $.02

I suppose doing something like 2.3 or 2.4 wouldn't be a bad idea, especially if you have multi-het males and females that have various het traits. The possibilities are endless, but I'm sure we've all gotten the point that 1.x isn't a good idea at all. So many choices, so little money!


Peter

Rich,

As others have stated, the info you are providing is quite valuable to us neophytes. Obviously breeding is not unlike gambling, because no matter how safely you place your bets, there is always a random element. This randomness provides a large aspect of the enjoyment for breeders, commerical or hobbyist alike, I'd think. Then of course, as you point out it can also result in a folded hand and forfeit of your bet. The need to hedge one's bets will be more urgent for the businessperson than the hobbyist.

My vision for my corn breeding projects is manyfold: perform selective breeding to obtain "custom" background coloration and saddle design for one, also to produce a few "high demand" designer morphs, and of course - support myself. When all is said and done, I'll have spent close to $5000.00 on corn snakes but I should have in excess of 20 males and 20 females. Even with a near 1:1 ratio however, some of my projects ARE going to be major gambles... for example my lavender blood so far consists of only:

2001 male hypo lav
2002 female hypo lav

So, by 2004 I might know if these two will breed with each other; if my bet pays off, their first clutch could pay for theit investment. On the other hand, if I can only get the male to breed I'd be looking at somewhere around 2008 or later before I can be breeding hypo lavs and I think it'd take even longer if the female was the only breeder in the pair (unless I coulf get her to double clutch from two mates, right?) One fortunate thing in my specific circumstance, is that if neither of them breed I'll still be very happy with a beautiful pair of Sepenco HypLavs as my plan only accounts for income when a happy customer gets their order and not a moment sooner. So yes, it's definately a gamble, but I haven't rules out finding a hyplav stud or acquiring more lav or hyplav blood over the next couple years....

You want to talk risky, so far I have only one 2002 female pewter, and one 2002 male bloodred lined up. I don't see myself selling these lines this decade Especially considering I'm wanting to play with the bloodred genes in my selective breeding projects, so when I finally get offspring most or all of it will be held back.

About the only thing that's a fairly safe bet for me so far is a reasonable number of hatchlings ranging from normal through okeetee and miami next summer. Honestly though, that's for the best - being a neophyte I'd be kicking myself if my novice husbandry caused me to lose eggs or hatchlings frrom my more expensive bloodlines.

Anyway, I'm probably rambling here, and the kids are asking for their second serving today...

^Curtis

One of these days I need to put up an 'about SerpenCo' page on my site. There are so many flashe sites out there that can make anyone look like they have been doing this forever. This can be misleading to people thinking that becoming a commercial herp breeder is a walk in the park and a sure thing.

I have people contact me every year looking to buy groups of animals with the goal of breeding them several years later, and relying on that income so they can quit their day job and do this full time.

I started out breeding corns around 1978. The reason I did that was different from most people. Somewhere I read that one sure way to determine if animals in captivity are well acclimated was if they will successfully breed in the unnatural surroundings they are being kept in. So heck, I was curious to know if my corn snakes were happy with the way I've been treating them. Oh yeah! They were apparently VERY happy!

Around that time, I didn't have a clue that there was anyone else in the world really much interesting in snakes. The thought of people actually buying them from me was foreign. Repugnant, actually, as I felt it would be 'dirty' to sell them. But there was a local pet shop owner that upon hearing my attitude said something that changed my point of view. He said "Rich, there is nothing wrong about people wanting to pay you money for something you are good at." So with that in mind, I put a couple ads in the local paper, sold to a couple of pet shops, and eventually discovered there were quite a few people out there with the same interest I had. Next thing I knew, I had people calling me up, and upon hearing that I didn't have anything for sale, to please put them on a list so they could buy from me next year. Now there was a novel idea! People actually lining up to BUY snakes from me.

One thing led to another, and next thing I knew I was sending out lists to people of expected hatchlings. Things got out of hand when I started getting price list requests from all over the WORLD. You mean people actually had an interest in snakes in other countries? Most of the snakes I was selling were winding up going to a semi-local guy by the name of Larry Rouch who would buy up most of my stock. This was fine with me, but of course, the numbers I was producing continued to increase until I passed the point where he could absorb most of them.

Anyway, by 1985 I was thinking that Rich Zuchowski, Private Breeder, just didn't cut it anymore, so that is when the name 'SerpenCo' was born. I wanted a name that would be instantly recognizable by people interested in serpents, but yet I could order supplies from some hardware or tool company and not have to explain why I have this crazy notion about breeding *snakes* to everyone I talk to.

It wasn't until this past year, October as a matter of fact, that I finally quit my day job to do this full time. Even then, if it hadn't been for a change in upper management at my job doing programming for the State of Florida and the new boss telling my direct boss that my telecommuting had to end, I would probably still be working there today. Killing myself trying to hold down two full time jobs.

So the point of this long dissertation is to point out that I had no intention of becoming a professional corn snake breeder. To the contrary. This became a business in spite of me, not because of me. Customers have always come to me to buy my animals. I am NOT a salesman and would flop badly if I had to chase down prospective customers and try to SELL them my snakes. At shows, I put the snakes out on the tables in their deli cups and people pick up what they want and pay for them. People BUY lots of snakes from me, but I can't recall ever really SELLING anything.

Oh yeah, back to the point: I have been doing this for about 24 years now (1978 - 2002). It is ONLY now, after all this time that I felt that there is an outside chance that I can make a fair living at doing this full time. And I'm still scared to death thinking that my entire source of income relies on the romantic interludes of a bunch of corn snakes. So much could go wrong, and so many things could sink me almost over night. But I'm 52 years old, and I was put in the position of having to choose between my safe and secure state job, of giving up something I have done for far too long to even think of giving up. No, my choice was a no-brainer to me, but some people would think I actually have no brain and chose the wrong one. Ask me 10 years from now and I'll let you know if I did or not.

DO NOT plan on starting out with this, making a name for yourself that will be a household name in a couple of years, and you will be able to quit your day job and do this full time. At least not if you like to have money available to buy things other than necessities to keep your business afloat. Also, get all of the vacations you can RIGHT NOW, because once you reach the point to where you have enough animals to actually make a business of it, vacations will be history. Connie and I used to take vacations at three weeks at a time, twice a year. Hah! Now, our idea of a vacation is that pleasant Saturday night between two day shows when all of the animals we brought with us are locked up in a room somewhere and we CAN'T get in there to clean and feed them.

Heck, guess I really rambled on here, huh? Got to close this down and get some work done before the day drags on too much longer............

Pardon any errors, but I'm not going to proofread this one.....

For many years, I struggled to convince people to buy in pairs. I just ended up with either unhappy customers or a bunch of males at the end of the year, some of which had to be sold a sale prices or held for WAY too long. But why shouldn't the customer get EXACTLY what they want, as long as they are willing to pay for it? Supply and demand suggests that if males are less in demand and females more so, then they should be priced accordingly. Since they hatch roughly 50/50 and most people want 1.2 or 1.3 - 2.4 or 2.6 groups, it's obvious what will be in short supply.

Somebody asked about missed single female sales. What about the missed pair sales at the end of the year when I have only males left? People are beginning to realize that it will be harder to pair up the single male later, so sometimes they pass on the single males unless they just want a pet.

I think it would be a logical policy to give people what they want and also be fair to the breeder, who wants to avoid being stuck with extra males.

About the sticky problems: I usually will allow "pairs" of 2 different types (say okeetees and sunglows, etc) at the pair price IF the customer allows me to choose which one will be the female. Then I can "even out" whichever type is running more ahead on males or females. Abd if somebody buys a male at the normal pair price and wants a female later the same year, I usually give it to them at the pair price. But sometimes I gave them the male at a discount - then I can't do it. Each is a case by case basis. I feel I try to be as fair as possible.

If somebody has a better, more fair suggestion, I would love to hear it and will certainly consider it.

Thanks, Rich, for bringing this problem to public attention.

I'm not sure if this would help your situation but I thought that by buying from both you and Kathy( or Don S.) that I would then have completely unrelated snakes. After talking with Kathy I realized that you guys swap alot so the male I get from Kathy and the female I get from you may be more closely related than if I had asked either of you for a pair from different clutches! I'm pretty new to all this so maybe it's one of those "common knowledge" things that I just hadn't heard yet, but there are several posts in this thread refering to unrelated pairs. (I have also heard this numerous times on the different forums.)

If I'm way off base then just ignore me and tell me to keep my newbe ideas to myself!LOL Just a thought anyway!

Colleen