hello and welcome back to on the bucket
last time we talked about keeping snakes
as pets versus having a collection and
today I'm going to talk to you about the
cost of having a collection welcome to
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Dollard okay nice as requested by marcus
he was wondering that if I could talk
about the difference of having to pay
for one pet or couple pets versus having
to take care of a collection I have with
me here fade fade is a little bit of a
scaredy cat I didn't raise her and once
again lots of time when I get animals
that I haven't raised they are not as
chill or as tame as long as I raise
myself thanks the kind of snake that I
can hold fine and she'd never bit me but
if other people try to hold her they
probably get bit because she gets scared
they get scared and then mistakes happen
but by being calm and spending time
hanging out with her and whatever she's
gonna get more trust and chill out more
and eventually hopefully she'll tame
down quite a bit she already has snakes
are you really the greatest pet to
maintain a snake like this or even
larger and it ends up costing about a
hundred bucks a year to feed it all
depends on how many snakes are feeding
so if you think that an adult boa costs
about a hundred dollars a year to feed
and a baby boa to a year old costs
probably less than fifty about dollars a
year to feed
and then we say we have about close to
100 snakes in here I I've calculated my
costs and they're usually about 2,500 a
year just to feed them then you got a
bit of electricity the electricity isn't
bad because everything that I have is on
heat tape the only thing I'm really
using lights for is my tortoise so she
has UVB LED lights and a Qi heater so
those and then over here in my racks I
have heat cable so I just got two new
racks I got rid of the one I used to
have so you did those I just made them
tall and thinner so I could fit more or
put two big racks instead of having the
wide one and whatever then I just put in
a new rack Ted before the one thing I've
kind of felt guilty about is not giving
my leopard geckos enough space so my
leopard gecko is very soon are gonna be
upgraded from basically being in a bin
like this to being in like a nice bin
that's about three times the size so
really excited for that and I'll show
you that and I'm gonna do an episode
about building racks ooh and you see me
and my buddy John doing that so those
are things that really helps with the
cost too if you build your own racks
which is fun it's inviting my friend
over or play some music and just have
fun building snake racks and it gives
you another chance to be creative and
then after you've built one usually you
see what you've done wrong and then the
next one you build will be funner other
ways to cut down on costs I don't use
any substrate I really first like some
people do like it it does look a lot
prettier my issues with substrate well
number one is actually proudly that when
your snakes pee in the substrate it's
it's hard for you to get it all yeah you
can scoop out of poo but if the pee gets
stuck in there it's very easy for P to
be left over I have a convenience store
down the street and basically I just
went to them and
hey can I get all your newspapers so I
get the regular newspapers and the
sunday Sun the sunday Sun is like long
and it fits into the smaller homes
easily and then the regular newspaper
gets stretched out and I use about three
sheets and put them into each of the
bigger snake homes or snake racks and
that cuts the cost a ton because
basically I'm recycling newspaper and
it's cost me nothing and then I'm
helping them out because they don't have
to carry out their newspapers I go in
they have a stack ready for me and I
take them so I basically have free
substrate for all my animals it's
extremely sanitary I get to see like the
moment there's poop fresh newspaper done
it is simple and that's kind of what you
want when you have a lot of animals if
you only had like under five or under
ten I would actually go out on garbage
day and get cardboard and cut it to the
shape of the enclosure put that and that
looks a lot nicer than newspaper but
really when cleaning day comes it takes
so long to do all that that newspaper is
fine the other thing was substrate as I
have asthma so when the substrate moves
and stuff there's dust and that would
bother me also so simple is key for me
and very clean sanitary I got one room
here with close to a hundred reptiles in
it and I like if you were here smelling
it or you've been to my place
lots of people know it's like wow it
doesn't smell those are some ways that
you can save with some costs also
selling snakes can make some money too
but just to put things into perspective
because lots of people don't understand
how much it really costs the biggest
cost is not money but time that the time
that you have to spend with your animals
to make sure that you have nice clean
healthy animals the time that it takes
to clean everything that that's the
biggest car
the that's what you have to consider so
I really encourage anyone getting into
snakes to do it slowly figure out what
you wanted to do figure out how to do it
that's like basically what I've been
doing - so I've been into snakes for
about eight years now three years ago
three or four years ago I started
breeding and the first time I Brad I
just did one pair then the next year I
did three pairs then the next year I did
five pairs then this year I jumped up to
14 pairs so it's just like I've slowly
like tried and tested and seeing what
works seen if I can sell a whole litter
of Boas see if like what people like and
working on that then now working on this
to teach more people and help people
also to let people know that if you're
in Canada and you want a captive bred
snake that's gonna be super-chill I'm
here for you the cost of time is what
you have to consider the most it just
means that when you would have had free
time to do other things
now you're gonna be cleaning snake poo
so and on weekends when there's snake
shows you got to go to those snake shows
you got to meet people you have to be
able to be friendly and make connections
if you want to be able to sell anything
because they're not just going to be
bothering you hey I wanna buy this hey I
wanna buy this hey I wanna buy this like
it'd be nice in a wonderful world where
everything's perfect but that's not how
it works you have to put your time in
you have to be friendly and nice to
people you have to like people if you
don't doesn't matter if you like snakes
if you don't like people liking people
is probably more important than liking
snakes because they're the ones that
you're gonna have to deal with all the
time unless you're just looking at it
like they're your pets one big mistake
that lots of people do is buy an
expendable
put money in and buy somebody else's
collection and if you're a big-time
breeder and you already have a big
business and everything fine you could
do that that that will work for you you
already know what to do
but some people will go and buy a
collection and they go from having no
animals to all of a sudden even fifty
animals
and it gets again it goes over their
head because of a sudden now they went
from never having to care for anything
to having to take care of 50 animals and
it ends up basically frustrating them
and lots of time they don't last that
long they'll end up getting out of it
and lots of snakes will end up getting
sick and just a whole pile of bad things
happen so as I was saying like for me I
spent eight years picking snakes going
to reptile shows picking one next
reptile so picking one so slowly growing
a collection so I was taking care of
three snakes I'm taking care of eight
snakes so it's like I've slowly been
taking care of more and more so that the
load is something I'm used to something
that I like and when you've raised baby
snakes from the time they're babies to
the point where they're adults I've
literally had babies raised them watched
them have babies and raised them and
it's just like it becomes kind of like a
little family where you where you know
all of their personalities and it makes
it a lot easier for you to clean and
take care of for them because it almost
feels like you're just kind of taking
care of your family
when you just go and buy a collection
you won't have that connection to those
snakes so you'll be missing out on that
whole love and care that you'd feel for
them you just be looking at them like
your moneymakers and if they're not
making your money you're not gonna be
happy and you're just gonna waste your
time and money just to put things again
into perspective I think I've probably
spent about forty fifty thousand on
everything in this room last year I made
six thousand dollars so that wasn't that
much this year I already made probably
close to six thousand dollars just in
the last few months so but it's also
taken me eight years to actually start
profiting it wasn't until the third year
of breeding so three years ago was the
first year that I actually basically
made my costs then last year I made a
little bit of a profit and then this
year I'm making a bit more
profit so it's going to take time to
like build up your collection and get to
the point where you understand breeding
where you understand animals where you
understand how to sell them and
everything that's going to take a while
before it ends up out setting the cost
that you put into it
but even if like I look at it like if
I'm able to have my collection pay for
everything and make me a bit of money
I'm happy it's never been really my job
or that I'm gonna make all my income
breeding snakes I'm a hairdresser that's
my job and breeding snakes is something
I do for fun and I think that you'll
enjoy it the most if you do it for fun
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