How did you get started?
What did you have equipment-wise when you started?
Are you still working on the species, you started with?
What are some of the biggest down falls you've faced in the beginning?
Any advice for those just starting up?
Any other information that you want to share?
The bulk of this will pertain to chelonians. I will speak on some other reptiles afterwards.
I (and my father) put Testudo pens, box turtle pens, and aquatic turtle pens together using landscape timbers for the barriers when I was a little boy. I had my first turtles (domestically) when I was around five. I found my first tortoise (overseas) when I was around six. I bred box turtles (or, more accurately, they bred for me) a couple years later and the tortoises started not long after. I think common snapping turtles first bred for me when I was in my pre-teen years. Other aquatic turtle species here and there,
Little to nothing. Indoors, heating & lighting elements, tanks, filters, substrates, and that sort of basic stuff. Outdoors, planted pens with lots of hiding areas or sight barrier features for terrestrials and mostly baby pools for aquatics. As I became more advanced, my capital outlay has become more extensive.
Mostly not. I do still work with Hermann's tortoises, but to a far less extensive degree (it is, in my opinion, one of the best if not
the best species for hardiness, attractiveness, manageable size, personality, and ease of keeping). I am not working with Russians, Greeks, or marginated tortoises at present. I have not worked with box turtles or snapping turtles in a long while aside from one-offs or rescue-style efforts. I used to work with a lot of species of turtles and now I work with few. I used to work with Testudo species of tortoises exclusively, and now I lightly work with Testudo and mostly work with larger non-brumating species. I have traveled a decent chunk of the planet and have directly observed many species in their natural habitats, too.
I actually had fewer downfalls earlier on relative to now. Maintenance was low due to agreement between species and my climate at the time and because I emphasized outdoor keeping. My animals were not particularly expensive. If something were to happen, it would not have "broken" me financially despite being a child. Nowadays, I deal with more valuable stuff overall compared to in my childhood. An accidental death or some sort of loss is far more financially damaging. Also, since I had transitioned more to species that brought challenges to keeping in what was until recently a colder climate with a legitimate/genuine winter, maintenance for approximately half the year was indoors and very draining for me in terms of my time, emotional energy, and in terms of costs. Were I less stubborn, I could have kept ~90% brumating Testudo species and ~10% tropical species when I lived in MO instead of the other way around. It would have made life easier. On the flipside, certain animals of higher offspring values simply exist on the tropical side of the line, so one has to choose the balance between ease of management and financial return that suits one best.
My advice for someone getting in is to identify what one is seeking to achieve and what are the best ways to achieve it. If one wants to breed for the sake of the experience itself, then I would say to go for ease of care and ease of breeding success with an affordable species one likes on an emotional level. Keep it simple. Keep the pair or group large enough to work and small enough to keep the burden on the keeper low. If one is going for financial return, one should be more shrewd with decisions and should seriously research and observe the market beforehand. Chart out your anticipated costs. Then double them. Do not count on reproduction at any particular time. Seasons get skipped randomly. Consider veterinary care. Determine what is worth getting done versus "calling it". This may or may not be different for a breeder versus a pet owner and it also depends on financial and medical realities. Figure out what you can manage if your main income stream goes in the toilet. Try to avoid things which are hot in the market, but depreciate rapidly. Be careful with dominant traits in the morph markets for various animals. Recessives have a tendency to depreciate slower. Combination morphs are harder to hit the statistical outcomes for. Combination recessive morphs synergize these phenomena. You want what you make to be harder to reproduce if you want to reduce the rate of erosion of the price for it. In a "be where your enemy is not" sort of way, be where your competition is not. Offer a service, quality, or product that differentiates you from the next person if you can. If there is a glut in supply for a particular product, I do not recommend investing heavily in that space. Better to be one of a half-dozen or dozen breeders for something in the entire country than one of hundreds. If you can work in an angle that is polygenic and bloodline-dependent, even better, as you can command a superior price based on nuances on the spectrum of quality that are more difficult for competitors to emulate. Love what you do and what you work with, but recognize going in that what you enjoy may wax and wane with regard to the feeling of enjoyment versus laborious drudgery once you become deeply involved or invested. There are highs and lows.
I also tried my hand at working with ball python morphs and leopard gecko morphs. I personally did not find enjoyment working with the serpents. They were very pretty, but they did not stimulate me. Their market is mostly saturated, so the combo morph and recessive tips I gave earlier apply very strongly here. If I wanted to get into them again, I would probably get either a double/triple recessive 1.1 pair, 1.2 trio, or 1.3 quad and acquire no further and ride it out. For leopard geckos, the market was likewise very deeply saturated. If I got in again, I would work with double+ recessives
with an extra polygenic/bloodline-influenced factor involved if dealing with morphs and/or simply work with pure subspecies. It is possible to make money with these things, but I would not expect to do more than break even until established. I would keep projects small and only keep back extremely exceptional offspring if at all once my groups were well-refined. Seek out cost-cutting measures that do not sacrifice quality of care. Work on efficient feeding and cleaning routines to save your time.
Do not follow anyone's dogma. Chart your own course. If you fail to succeed, you cannot go back and pin it on the mouthpiece you may have taken poor advice from. Nobody pays you back for your losses.
keeping it very very small these days