03 June 2007

How to Make a $mall Fortune in Reptile$

Step One: start with a large fortune and work your way down from there.

Ok that isn't the answer people want to hear when they ask me that question, but it is the most reliable way of making a small fortune in reptiles. The more serious response is usually no more satisfying. As an aside, a quick glance at my bank account balances quite convincingly proves that I am not the person to ask about making big money. However, I have been around the "business" long enough to understand the basic route you need to take. Here it is in five easy steps; free of charge, no obligation, no books, no tapes, and no magic pills to buy.

Step One: Be on the cutting edge of something big. If you have paid any attention to online classifieds or visited even one reptile show you have probably noticed that the big money seems to be in morphs, or morphological variants. These are animals that differ in appearance from the norm. This is often due to defective genes and a degree of inbreeding. Some examples are; albinism, piebaldism, religious fundamentalism, hypomelanism, and striping. So find a reptile morph that you are sure many will want and that few (preferably no others) are working with. The closer you are to the beginning of the fad the higher the possible return on your investment.

Step Two: Now breed the hell out of it. For rural folk - I mean to others of its own kind. I don't know that there is much money to be made in human on reptile bestiality (if there was the industry leaders would likely be in either Florida, Germany, or Japan). Now, unless you happen to have a pair of mutants you are going to have to breed yours to normals and then breed back to get the genes into sellable offspring. This might take some time depending on the age of sexual maturity of the species you are working with and how many genes are involved (assuming that its appearance is hereditary) and whether the genes are dominant (maybe even incomplete or co-dominant), or recessive. Also a factor is the degree of inbreeding in your project. The more direct inbreeding you do the faster you get all the genes into offspring. But too much inbreeding is bad. Its hard to say how much inbreeding can occur in reptiles before deleterious effects are seen. With humans it is easier, if any offspring proclaim "the earth is only 6,000 years old" then you know you went too far with the inbreeding.

Step Three: Think up a name for your morph that will appeal to the average tard, but will be steadily more annoying to normal people the more they hear it. To get some ideas, check out what Corn Snake and Ball Python breeders have done. I am just waiting for someone to produce a solid dark brown Ball Pythons and sell them as Shit Balls (update: I guess they are already out there but sold as "chocolate balls", L, here's hoping someone comes up with a blue morph).

Step Four: Market your defective creation. Get some good pictures of your animals and write up a how-to on them showing that the trait is heritable and that the animals are awesome. If pictures don't show just how awesome your animals are there is always Photoshop. Make sure to use the words "investment quality" a couple of times. Now submit the article to the  trade magazines and post a version of it to your website and to online classifieds.

Step Five: Watch the money roll in. It's just that easy!

Okay, maybe its not easy, but that is the basic blueprint.

Now for the disclaimer: Any time you buy an animal with the intent to sell offspring it is a gamble. Will it eat? Will it produce viable offspring? Will anyone want them? If you are dealing with a morph you can add: is its appearance genetic and thereby heritable and is someone else working with this that I don't know about?  Also, unless you stumble across the morph in the wild or buy it from someone uninitiated in the reptile trade you are likely to pay dearly for your mutant founder stock. As they say, "it takes money to make money". Of course they also say " a fool and his money are soon parted".

Aw hell, who am I to ruin the dream? Take out that second mortgage on your house and live on ramen noodles, mac & cheese, and off brand soda so you can afford your morphs. Now get out there and join the already overcrowded field of breeders catering to the shallow interests of hobbyists.