Herp Daily Article
Do you want to be a breeder?
In part 1 of this 2 part mini-series, Garrick DeMeyer from www.crestedgecko.com and www.royalconstrictordesigns.com graciously shares with us his thoughts and advice on Ball Python breeding and the future of the industry!
CHRIS: Hello Mr. DeMeyer and thank you for giving us the opportunity to learn more about you and your business. Can you start off by giving us a little bit of a background about yourself: when and how did you get involved with the reptile industry?
GARRICK: I have been interested in reptiles and amphibians my entire life. As a child, I spent most of my Summers in the swamps and forests, finding and catching almost anything I could. This was back in the 70s and 80s. Here in WI, there really weren’t stores that sold reptiles, other than anoles. I had to get my herp fix from the wild. I did get a group of green anoles when I w as about 6. From then until I graduated high school, I probably kept over 75 species of herps- mostly lizards. My dad would buy me a couple exotic lizards like flying geckos, tokay geckos, red-headed agamas, etc. Really helped fuel the fire for me when I was a kid. Snakes weren’t allowed in the house, though. I finally talked my parents into letting me get a ball python when I was a sophomore in college. Lots of snakes came along once I got the first one in the house. When I went to college at UW-Stevens Point, I didn’t know what I wanted to get a degree in. I loved herps, but I didn’t think there were any good career choices for me. In ‘93, I went on a 3 week school trip with UWSP’s Natural Resources department to Costa Rica. During that time, I realized that I absolutely had to have a career working with reptiles. I started working towards a Biology Degree. I also got a pair of Giant Day Geckos and started to breed them. Leopard Geckos came soon after. The next year, I got a part-time job at a pet store in Wausau, WI. It was only a 40 minute drive from school, so I’d work there on the weekends and one night a week during the school year, and full-time in Summer. Working there showed me there was a market for high-quality, captive-bred herps. I started acquiring a lot of different species. I can’t even remember all the different projects I worked on- countless gecko species, chameleons, frilled lizards, bearded dragons, etc. It took me years to figure out which ones to work with- species I had a talent for, were consistent-producers, and were marketable. I did two Christmas break internships- one at the Sedwick County Zoo in Wichita, KS, and the other at the Houston Zoo. Those experiences were incredible. I learned how the pros managed large collections. I also got to work with species I never thought I’d even see including Fiji Island Iguanas! I graduated in ‘96 with a degree in biology. I also took several computer courses and small- business management. I knew there would be a lot more to running a successful reptile-breeding business than knowing how to breed reptiles! I kept working at the pet store full-time until 2000. I bascially worked on my animals all morning, then worked at the store all afternoon and evening. I had a pretty tight schedule and not a lot of free time. I hoped that wouldn’t last forever. It took a lot longer than I thought, but once I figured out what species to work with and how to market thing, things progressed very quickly. In 2003, I had pretty well filled up my house with reptiles and needed to expand. My wife Sheila and I purchased a house outside of Wausau, WI and had a facility built for us. At this point, my brother-in-law, Adam Eberle, became a partner. He does a lot with the website, uploading our video clips, sending out our newsletters, making sure things are running as smoothly as possible, and manages our finances. I also have help with the animals now. Art Turnquist manages the gecko collection and Kyle King manages our rodent colony and does a lot of the snake work. It is so nice to not have to do everything all by myself. The business just got too big for me to be completely hands on with everything. Of course, this only works if you have someone helping that really knows what they are doing! It’s hard to find that special person who will do the kind of work that needs to be done here.
An Amazing Male 2009 Killer Clown
CHRIS: How has the industry changed over the years?
GARRICK: When I really started getting into this, the internet was just starting to be used. I’d go online and search for reptile sites and pretty much just find pricelists. Nowadays, there is so much information out there. Care info, genetics info, videos, photos, etc. Nobody ever took individual photos of animals they had for sale- at least not back in the early to mid 90s. Now, I take photos of over 1000 individual animals a year. It’s crazy how much time I have to spend doing that. No matter how many photos I take, some customers want additional photos, photos using a different background, photos with something in it for size-comparison, etc. I even have people requesting videos of each animal now. All of that can take up so much of my time that it keeps me away from doing the part of this business that I love the most- working with the animals.
CHRIS: Where do you see the Ball Python industry in 5 years?
GARRICK: The Ball Python industry has had, and will have its ups and downs, but it is very healthy in my opinion. Most ball python morphs have really dropped in price over the past few years. I paid almost $18,000 for my first male spider and I now sell them for $200. That is hard to swallow when you really think about it, but I’m still really glad I did it. I’ve produced probably 200 animals from that project over the years. It’s just a case of supply and demand. Many ball morphs are very easy to reproduce, notably the dominant and co-dominant morphs. It is very easy to take one or two and turn them into dozens in just a few years. There are very few morphs now that command the same kind of money that most morphs did 5-7 years ago. However, even at lower prices, say an average of $200-500 each, they are still very profitable. A breeder just can’t make a living off of a rack or two of breeders anymore. I geared my entire ball python strategy towards producing a large number of the most popular morphs, and smaller numbers of as many others as I could. The nice thing about most of these morphs being lower-priced now is they are affordable to so many more people. I’m glad that customers can afford many of the morphs they could only dream about a few years ago. I see the ball python industry as being very healthy in the future. Some breeders will probably get out of them, because they can’t get the kind of money they could in the past, and it may not be worth it to them anymore. For me personally, I absolutely love ball pythons. Every day during the hatching season is like Christmas to me, when I can see what pops out of the incubator. I think ball pythons are still very profitable at a few hundred dollars each (less for some, more for others) and the demand for them is definitely there. We sell out every year.
Spinner Blast 2009
CHRIS: For aspiring Ball Python breeders all over the world on a tight budget: what 4 animal morphs would you suggest a person start with and why?
GARRICK: I always recommend aspiring breeders to work with what they like the best. You want to be happy with the work you are doing, so why not produce the morphs you like? Chances are, if you like a particular morph, so do a lot of other people. For ball pythons, I think the morphs that always draw people are bumblebees, piebalds, and albinos. Those are the clear-cut top three that almost everyone likes. I guess if I had to pick a fourth, I’d probably go with blue-eye leucistics, but those seem to be a little polarizing. Most people love them, but a few people get creeped-out by them for some reason. There are so many ball morphs out there, that it is really hard to narrow it down. There are many ways to start breeding ball morphs on a budget. If you have more time than money, like I did when I was starting, you can get het recessive males, breed them to normal females, hold back the female offspring (50% possible hets) and breed them back to a het male. Back when I started, het males for most morphs were about $1000 each, so even that way wasn’t too cheap. I did produce my first caramel albinos and axanthics that way, though. For dominant or co-dominant morphs, the best strategy is to get a large group of captive born normals, raise them up for a year. Then, buy some males (spiders, mojaves, lessers, pastels, etc.) to breed with them. Males mature a year faster than females, so they’ll all be ready to breed at about the same time. Once you produce babies, start holding back as many of the babies as you can afford to, and start crossing morphs to create new ones (leucistics, bumblebees, pastaves, etc.).
CHRIS: What is your favorite Ball Python morph and why?
GARRICK: All of these questions are really hard to answer, because I can’t pick just one! I guess if I had to pick a ball morph, I’d say the bumblebee. A bright, vibrant, super clean bumblebee can hold its own against pretty much any other morph, as far as I’m concerned.
CHRIS: Who have been your major influences in the industry?
GARRICK: There’s been a lot of people that have given me a lot of advice over the years. I got to visit Ron Tremper in1997. I saw my first large-scale gecko operation then. I modeled a lot of what I do after his setup and techniques. Dave and Tracy Barker welcomed me to tour their facility in 1997 as well. That was really eye-opening for me. Their facility is really top-notch. It gave me a lot of ideas about my own future facility. I also saw a lot of ball morphs in person for the first time- clowns, albinos and piebalds were extremely rare back then! Ty Park was also very influential for me. I worked at his reptile wholesale business for awhile in 1998. It was located in Chicago at the time. I only worked there for a few months, because the job was so demanding that I would have had to give up my dreams of running my own reptile breeding business if I were to stay there. There just wasn’t enough hours in the day for both. I learned a lot about how to set up a large operation, manage various breeding colonies, and fill orders, send out shipments, etc. That experience was critical for getting me to where I am now.
CHRIS: What kind of advice would you give to a young hobbyist who aspires to become a successful breeder?
GARRICK: Keep what you like and like what you keep. Don’t get into a species for the money. Work with species you enjoy. Ideally, we are all doing this because we love it. Do a lot of research on a species before investing in it. Buy top-notch caging and equipment, instead of trying to save money by purchasing inferior products. You’ll regret it later and end up buying the higher-quality products anyway. Caging, thermostats, temp-guns, and other supplies are a big expense and need to be considered when setting up a breeding project. Another important thing to remember is to have a lot of patience. I see many breeders invest in a collection, then they decide they don’t have the patience to see a project through. In terms of snake breeding, most snakes take several years. That can seem like a really long time to wait. Another piece of advice is to have patience when it comes to selling reptiles. Most of them don’t sell overnight. Some of our nicer balls can stay here for up to a year before they sell. I’m not going to slash the prices on them just to move them out quick, only to not have anything available later. Everything sells eventually. Keep your prices at a reasonable market level and you’ll come out ahead when you do sell them. The last thing I want to emphasize is quality. So many people buy their animals based on price. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I know most of my animals, especially my ball pythons, are not the cheapest out there in the market. They are super-clean, extremely healthy animals, though.
Hypo Mojave
CHRIS: Is there anything you feel that needs to be fixed in the reptile industry whether it be pricing, legislation etc.?
GARRICK: You can’t really fix pricing. It is a free-market system. Supply and demand. I always knew the prices would drop on a lot of the animals I produce. Some dropped quicker than I anticipated, but I knew it was coming. Most species/morphs level off eventually, once the demand and the price finds an equilibrium. It can fluctuate from time to time as more people get into or get out of a particular type.
The legislation issue has obviously become pretty big over the past 5 years. I highly recommend everyone to become a member of PIJAC and USARK. There is strength in numbers. If the reptile hobby/industry’s voice is loud enough, people will have to listen. We need to develop responsible reptile ownership and make sure the rest of society sees us that way. “Reptile people” are stereo-typed to some degree. We have to show everyone that we are responsible and professional and our industry and hobby is very important to us. Other people don’t have to understand why we love reptiles, but they do need to accept that we do and we have a right to.
CHRIS: Do you plan on breeding any new and groundbreaking morphs for any of the species you work with in 2010 and if so, do you mind sharing with us?
GARRICK: I don’t hide anything up here in Wisconsin and I never mind sharing what I have going on here. I don’t think we have any brand new ball python morphs coming this year, but we will be producing some pretty rare ones, such as caramel albino spiders, pastel lesser calicos, mystic potions, super mystics, crystals, albino pinstripes, and at least a couple dozen others.
Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us Mr.DeMeyer. If you would like to know more about Garrick DeMeyer please visit his respective websites at
www.crestedgecko.com
www.royalconstrictordesigns.com
He also has a very informative and entertaining Youtube channel: Thecrestedgecko . I suggest you check it out for more nuggets of wisdom!
For Part 2, Garrick DeMeyer tackles Leopard and Crested Gecko Breeding!
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