The Family Hobby by Jeremy Bryant,

I have finally launched a website for my favorite hobby, ball pythons. It features pictures of some high end ball python morphs that I am raising up to breed. The reptile industry is a booming market that not alot of people know about, unless of course you happen to be a reptile enthusiast.

This whole new addiction started, rather was re sparked from my childhood, a few years ago. I caught a little lizard, called a skink, while I was on a job site in Kansas City in early 2009. It was fairly chilly out, so this little guy was moving quite slowly. I scooped him up and put him in an empty Styrofoam Sonic cup to take home so my kids could look at him. Of course my two oldest boys were immediately enamored by the scaly quadruped, and begged to keep it, with promises to feed it and water it, and love it for ever.

Having a vast experience of collecting and keeping wild animals in my own childhood (just ask my mother lol) I readily accepted there proposal. We did a query on the big G to find out what species of reptile we were dealing with , and what its needs where.  I left it to the boys to care for this little guy now aptly named flick, for the motion its infinitely curious tongue made, knowing it would be a great learning experience for them. Flick lasted almost nine months in our care before expiring, which I later found out was an astounding amount of time, as typically a lizard from the wild expires rather quickly. My sons were crushed when we found poor flick motionless in its cage one morning. After a week of grieving, my oldest boy approached me and asked if we could get a different lizard.

After watching the responsibility he took for flick, there was no way I could say no to that request. I did however take the experience and expound on his newly growing sense of maturity and accountability by having him research the next prospective pet. And research he did. I have to admit that while he was looking, so was I. It was that day that I was introduced to the reptile industry I love so much.

A few hours later, Connor and Jakob, my two oldest sons, came back to me to present there findings. They had found the leopard gecko, and I must say they had a plan in place. I too had perused the Eublepharis macularius, and found while they looked cool, they were prone to dropping (detaching) there tails as a defense mechanism. With four kids total in my household, I knew this might not work so well. In my research, I had found the bearded dragon, a hearty, easy to maintain desert dweller that, by all reports, was one of the easiest to raise. I presented them with the idea,, we talked about the pros and cons, and finally decided that it would be the bearded dragon we would raise.

At this juncture, I need to point out that I have a slightly obsessive personality, and a true entrepreneurial spirit. That is to say that the other thing I found in my research was the amazing market there is for these particular reptiles. There is an underground breeding community that is bustling with activity, and dozens of different color variations and skin mutations witth these scaly creatures that is line bred and cross bred to make some truly beautiful bearded dragons, and it had me hooked. After about 7 months, we had a small colony of bearded dragons ranging in color from stark white, to blazing red. There were leather back dragons, translucent dragons, and hypomelanistic dragons.We actually just had our first clutch of eggs laid about 2 weeks ago, and are expecting hatchlings in about another month and a half. You may be wondering “I thought you said you had a ball python site”… I’m getting there, humor me please.

After about our 4th dragon purchase, and many hours on reptile forums and chat rooms, websites and blogs, I had a pretty good understanding of the industry, and an idea of the who’s who in the reptile industry. The next step I knew was to start frequenting local reptile shows. After all, if this was to be a business, I had to mingle with the crowd, not to mention getting to know my competition. So off we went to various reptile shows. A few a month to be exact.

Now I must say, up until this point, I had stayed clear of the snake areas of the forums I was on, specifically because I grew up with a passion for these particular animals, and because i knew ( or so I thought) that my wife would never approve of a snake in our house. See where this is going? So our first reptile show. My wife, 4 kids and I walk in, all of us with the same look on our faces…wonderment, fascination, awe. The room is at a Holiday Inn conference room, about 100 feet long, by 50 feet wide, with tables lined up around the outer wall and an inner rectangle of tables that constructed about a 6 foot wide walkway in between for the crowd to mill about. And there was every size and shape of lizard, snake, turtle tortoise, frog, insect, and scorpion one could imagine. We had a blast! My wife, man I got lucky, was even into it. I think she was trying to hide it, but you could tell she was just as intrigued our 3 boys and darling little girl.

And here is where it happened. One of the vendors offered to let my sons hold a snake. As the animal lightly coiled its tail around my sons wrist and got comfortable, my other kids crowded around him to get a turn, I just saw this look in his eyes as he glanced up at me. I saw in him the exact look and feeling I had when I was his age and held my first snake. I can’t explain it, it was like remembering a long lost friend. My wife must have seen what transpired, because that night, as I started looking around in the ball python forums, she was looking right over my shoulder.

After about a week, I sat down with her and threw the idea on the table. Would she feel comfortable with having a ball python collection in the house? Not only did she say yes, but she gave me the green light to purchase some very high end stock to start with, allowing me to get a 2 year jump on where I wanted to be with the projects I wanted to work on! Now granted saving that few years meant investing many thousands of dollars, but it also meant the possibility of yielding 10′s of thousands of dollars in a few short seasons, instead of waiting 6 or 7 years to start seeing a return.

So there you have it. Over the last few years, My wife, children and I have been collecting and raising bearded dragons and Ball pythons to breed, sell and enjoy. The venture has brought all of us very close together, allowing me to walk my children through a complete business model and have a blast while we do it. Including them in the decision making processes involved, as well as task management, and cost analysis in this adventure has led to so many “that’s my kid” moments. I love it…plus we get to play with snakes and lizards all the time. What could be better than that?

Go check out the site at ball python.

Jeremy Bryant