|
Conservatively, IMO you're due at least $9000 just for snake food. Here's how I arrived at that number:
You brought home 140 adult ball pythons, all underweight due to neglect. While ball pythons are known for being picky eaters, if you've ever rehabilitated an underweight neglected one then you know that they will eat every chance they get.
So, I figured they'd be eating a small rat every week, and the average price for frozen small rats online is $2 per rat. I did not include shipping in that cost.
You also did not say how many holdback snakes so I did not include them in this calculation.
For the feeding cost, you had 140 adult ball pythons at $2 per snake per week = $1120 per month. Multiply that times 8 months and you're up to $8960 just in feeders, and while you didn't have to buy the feeders because you raised them, you could have sold them to other snake owners.
Hopefully you have feeding logs so you can calculate just how many feeders your friend's snakes ate over the eight months.
You also have costs for snake substrate, electricity to run the heat tape in the racks, water (both for drinking and cleaning), cleansers and disinfectants, etc. For one or two snakes it's not a big deal, but for 140+ it adds up.
That doesn't even include what you think your time is worth.
|