Jul 26 2009
Work At Home Based Business Idea #1 - Own a Snake Farm
For my first work at home based business idea I thought I would start with something really off the wall — Owning a Snake Farm. A snake farm? Yes. There are actually quite a few people who make their living or supplement it by breeding snakes for sale to zoos or mostly to collectors and the pet industry. Not just snakes, other reptiles and amphibians too. And some even make to the tune of million dollars a year doing it. Just goes to show you can make money with just about anything if you set your mind to it, and add in a little luck. And this you can do as a home based business, although it helps to live in the country or to have plenty of extra space at your home. It is a perfect enterprise if you want to live in the country on a couple of acres, but since many herps are small, it is something you can do even from a crowded tiny Manhattan apartment.
Lets start with some vocabulary. Scientists who study reptiles and amphibians are called herpetologists. And hobbyists who like to keep and breed snakes are called herpetoculturists. Both groups like to go herping - or hunting for reptiles in the wild. And both will go road cruising - driving at dusk or night to find snakes that are attracted to the warm pavement. Animals produced by herpetoculturists are called captive-bred, as opposed to wild caught, and are preferable both because it avoids pulling new animals out of their natural habitat, but also because captive-bred individuals tend to thrive more in captivity, breed better in captivity, and make better more docile pets. And herps are lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs, salamanders, tortoises, alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and toads.
Breeding stock is acquired either by collecting it, or more preferably, from other collectors, thus avoiding doing environmental damage and putting a strain on wild populations. One male can typically be used to breed multiple females, so females are typically worth much more. Often you can buy adult animals at a premium price, but normally you buy hatchlings and raise them up for two to three years or more before you can breed them.
Housing your animals ranges from outdoor pens for tortoises and lizards to aquariums to plastic sweater boxes for snakes. Even gallon jars and smaller plastic containers for some species.
Feed is usually greens for tortoises, mice and rats for snakes, and crickets and mealworms for lizards, although there are a lot of other feeds given. You can buy live crickets and frozen mice to feed your snakes thru the mail or on the internet online even.
So to do this business - well first you need to love herps and herping. Then you need capital for caging your animals and buying initial breeding stock. Then it is just a matter of gaining experience and soaking up as much as you can from herpetoculture sights on the internet. Most species lay eggs and you will need an incubator. A microscope is good for monitoring for disease and parasites in your snakes. There are many herpetoculture sites on the internet that can help you learn the business, search today.com and google for the keywords herpetoculture, herps, herpetology, reptile breeding, etc.
Remember it is farming. Like any farmer, some years you can have a bumper crop, and other years your herp farming efforts might produce very little. A disease could get in to your collection and wipe you out, just as locust plagues of old could destroy a farmers whole crop. So you need to plan for the unexpected, and keep back a lot of savings.
Herps can be shipped sometimes thru the mail, but usually by plane, so you can sell them over the internet - either retail or to wholesalers who then retail them out. This means you do not need a pet shop or to be located near retail outlets.
So how is that for an exotic work from home based business? Hope you enjoyed it, hope it makes you think outside the box about work at home based business opportunities. Happy snake farming!
