Can I get an honest answer...

I am looking to expand my company to encompass more of my herps and other critters that I've fallen in love with since that faithful day I bought my first gecko. I currently have 3 corns, 1 albino, 1 snow and 1 hypo... is there much of a market for the corns anymore?? Would it benefit me at all, other then my joy of caring for them, and learning to breed them??

hmmm...Lavender motley corns were $1000.00 last year...lol...yeah, there is, and there is still a market for the $30.00 morph as well as the "top of the line" corn...As more and more people get into the hobby, exceptional captive bred 'introductory" animals are going to be in demand for those who want to "get their feet wet" in the hobby...Also, more and more people are turning their efforts towards higher dollar morphs, leaving a vacancy that needs good, honest breeder/hobbyists to fill...JMHO you better get an incubator ready :*)

there isnt any large amounts of money to be made, but its very fun to breed your snakes, take care of the eggs, then see those little guys all over the place. i meen you will defently make anough money to pay for there food and even anough to make additions to your breeding group. not to mention the fun of tradeing your offspring snakes to another herper fo there offsprings. there are alot of people running after a quick buck, but theres plently of people who just enjoy reptiles as a hobby. goodluck with your corns!!

I bred my first corn snakes in 1997. I actually showed a profit of $11 last year. My business did much more for me in showing a loss...bigger tax refund. But the sheer pleasure I get from keeping and breeding corns is more than worth the expense. I've been expanding my collection each year, adding more of the more expensive morphs as well as increasing the number of hatchlings I get each year. I expect my losses to start turning into actual profits in the next few years, but I don't expect to ever get rich and quit my day job. Most of my expenses go to my feeder rodents...rodent food isn't cheap. I have a surplus of rodents in my freezer, but pretty soon, my corns will eat everything I produce and I won't have to give away rodents to my snake friends anymore...they'll have to buy them...yeah! more income! Hey! 5 bucks is 5 bucks! And for 20-30 mice, that's pretty good!

I've never raised corns before this year. My eggs are on day 36 for the ones that have been cooking the longest. All three clutches were laid within a six day period. so I'm guessing that some of the first clutch might be reluctantly crawling out of their eggs when the last clutch starts to pip.

For me the fun thing is to have a hobby that is almost without cost. (unless you count time, then it will always be expensive... but isn't having a hobby ABOUT spending time doing something you like?) I have the original costs of setting up the mice and original snakes. The mice usually pay for their own food as I usually have enough mice and rats to sell in exchange for the food. So the food for the mice is about free. I also sell mice and rats to local people and make ten to twenty bucks a month in spending money. I never think of the snakes as requiring food to feed, since the mice are essentially free (and a hobby in their own right)

I'm guessing that the "low end" morphs I'll be producing this year will find their homes. Perhaps I will even find a better market for them than for expensive morphs. Next year I'll have up to 6 breeding corns and 6 breeding kings. Best I can figure that is the limit of my ability to raise mice enough to feed all those babies. Then I'll have to decide what I REALLY want to breed... which of the two types of snakes wins the contest. (it'll probably be a stalemate)

But money and time and space aside, the best thing about raising your own snakes is seeing those little heads popping out of the shell. Cute baby snakes looking around at the world for the first time!

Well, all I keep are corns, and there is still a market for them in my opinion. However, the shipping issues are what keep me from taking the big plunge and trying to do this as a full-time job.

If you can sell your corns locally, you'll be light years ahead in the game. However, even then, unless you're breeding dozens of females, it's hard to make tons of money. My animals pay for themselves and my golf, but that's about as much as I can hope for right now.