So, first of all, a lot of what people are saying here is absolutely incorrect.

The “adopt-don't-shop" folks will do anything to shame you for even conceiving the idea of breeding. I mean, there are so many dogs out there that need a home, right?

So, you go to the animal shelter and look for your next furever friend. Unfortunately, the majority of dog breeds are mixed with pitbulls and typically come from backgrounds of abuse and neglect. Not always, but often enough.

When you adopt, you don't get the animal's health history, breeding pedigree, or potentially health concerns. It's a crap shoot.

Pound dogs can be absolutely amazing and that's fine. I'm glad people care. But some people want to buy a breed they know and trust. They want to feel confident that their next member of the family is everything that they wanted.

Next, you have breeders who focus on champion breeds with a laser focus on “breed standards.” Many of these breeders breed a specific trait, like gait, bone structure, show quality, etc.

This is an incredibly competitive market. Not to mention, in my opinion, stuck up. Which means it's a niche market with a lot of specialization. The only people making profits are the ones who own true champion dogs. No problem for me. But I'm not that guy.

Then there are pet quality dog breeders who are seeking to produce a healthy, long living dog who will go to good families and get well cared for. These are not “back yard breeders.”

The adoption communists and the high society champion breeders aren't fans of these breeders because they don't conform to their way of life. If you're either of those folks, don't breed.

The most profitable breeds are those who have a good reputation for the people that you want to sell to. Typically, as a pet dog breeder, those are the majority of people looking for a happy, healthy dog.

In this case, profit is based on your investment. I would recommend breeding from the AKC most popular breeds list. Most Popular Dog Breeds of 2018 (2019) – American Kennel Club

These are the breeds people will want to buy. If you're going to be an ethical breeder - and you don't deserve to breed if you're not - look at breeds that are well known for being long-living, healthy, fun dogs.

Your Sire and your Dam should be completely unrelated. Look at their pedigree and make sure there is NO line breeding. Inbred dogs invariably throw litters with health problems.

Breeding dogs should be tested according to the AKC and OFA standards. They should be certified as healthy dogs with no known hereditary diseases or defects.

Once you have your dogs and they've been tested and certified, you have to wait until the Dam is fully grown (usually 18 months). If she's not full size, it's likely that the litter will cause health issues in her during gestation and birthing. If her hips are too small, she and her litter are likely to die.

Profit comes from balancing healthy dogs who are well cared for and taking good care of the Dam and puppies during gestation and birth.

Your breed should be a dog whose puppies sell for good money. The litter size and selling price should counterbalance the cost of caring for the animals.

My dogs are my pets. Their family and I take very good care of them. I don't show, and I don't sell to anyone I don't feel comfortable with owning a dog. I have a screening process to make sure that people are ethical, loving people who want to own a dog they love.

I spend about $6,000 or more per year on a breeding pair. The Dam throws 6 to 14 puppies and I sell for $1800 for fully registered, health tested dogs with their shots, deworming, and even potty trained, for the most part.

Do the math. 6 puppies at $1800 makes $10,800. As long as it costs less to take care of the dogs, I made a profit.

This year I had 2 Dams throw litters of 8 and 12. And a third dam threw 11 puppies five months ago. If you add that all up, I made a decent profit, get to live with 5 of my favorite dogs, and rest well knowing that healthy puppies went to good homes.

So, do your research and don't go in blind and you'll do well.

Yes, after about twenty-five years of 10–12-hour days and no annual vacations. Just lock two dogs in the garage and have a litter of cheap puppies. Or have acres of dogs in wire cages off the ground with no human contact - puppy mills.

What kind of facility will you have wire crates in the backyard?

What quality of dog must or puppies from a thought out breeding program?

Will you breed for quality or breed for bucks?

How well can you deal with a dead newborn puppy? On average, a puppy will die every other litter. On occasions, the entire litter will come out as blacklist mush.

My number one argument against ‘backyard breeders’ is ignorance.

You don’t know the dozens of things that can go wrong and kill your pet.

Do you know when to birth naturally?

When to have a cesarean delivery?

Do you know how to predict the exact whelping date?

Have you heard the term whelping?

What test predicts the whelping?

If a puppy is born only a few days early, it will not survive. A few days later and the puppy is black mush. Are you up for that?

Do you know how to treat mastitis? Do you even know what it is?

Anyone who can put two dogs in a garage can be a backyard breeder. To be a breeder of quality dogs takes years and money.

Lastly, on the purely social level, when was the last time you and one of your veterinarians ate together. Notice I said, “one of your veterinarians?” Breeding requires many different veterinary specialties.

My sincere advice, go to a few dog shows (most local shows are free to the public). Look over the dogs. talk to the handlers. learn about the ones you like.

Actually the answer is both “YES” & “NO". Let me show you. YES, only if you have a number of Females, bot just 1 or 2 or 3.

There are two types of breeders, a responsible breeder and a puppy miller

A responsible breeder is one who will ensure his animals are kept in a very hygienic environment, take care of the health, serve good quality food , take care of their regular exercising and above all give them a lot of attention & love. A responsible breeder doesn't have a huge number of dogs, just maybe 6–7 because it's only then that he/she could give each one equal time Here's something you should relate to a responsible breeder:

1. Breeding a female not before 15 - 18 months minimum.
2. Get Health Test such as CBC, KFT, LFT, X-RAY'S Elbow and Hips, Eye Tests. Sadly we don't have the DNA testing facilities in our country.
3. Raising the litter (puppies) in a very clean, hygienic whelping area and this is tiring, sleepless nights. Keeping records such as weekly weight, illness and medication given if any. Cleaning the puppies regularly. Giving them good quality food (at 28 days, it's a 4 time feed in a day). Socializing of the puppies is very important with the mother and other animals so that they are not frightened of sound such a loud car horn, whistle of a pressure cooker, Vaccum cleaner. They have to interact with family and friends. Then come the De-worming and Vaccines before the puppy is sent with the new pet parent.
4. Register puppies with KCI.
5. Not to place their puppies before 8 weeks or 60 days. Why.. Refer point number 3.
6. Ideally a female should not be bred more than 3 times within a span of 5 years. Every time she gives birth, the mother should be given at least one year rest. The mother should be neutered after her last litter is born that is 3rd litter.
7. Either the female/s or the male/s should never be kept locked 27x7 in a cage or chained.

A Puppy Miller is just the opposite. Now when you compare, you will find a female being bred in her every season. Out go the health tests, care, good quality food etc etc. The number of puppies a single female giving birth every year, having a number of females to breed, is where these people earn money.

Breeding is not joining two dogs together. There's more. You should have knowledge of the breed etc.

So my dear friend if you want to become a responsible breeder, understand the money you earn is re-invested in your animals.

“Quite obviously.”

Let’s do some math.

A well-bred purebred these days costs about $2000. You should really wait until she is 2 years old to breed her, and I estimate that even my pet dog costs me about $1000/year to properly care for.

So, before I can think about breeding her first litter, I am $4000 in the hole.

If I’m going to do this in a way that doesn’t make me a bad person, I have done proper health testing ($500–1000+ depending on breed) and had her temperament, type, and soundness formally evaluated (usually through formal testing and titling in various venues, conservatively another $1000 for training, travel, entry fees, etc).

So now we’ve spent $6000 and can finally breed a litter. Either I own my own male (another $6000) or I pay a stud fee to use the male of another breeder (probably around $2000).

I’ve now spent $8000–12,000 before I get my first litter. We’ll average to $10,000 for ease of calculations.

Average litter size is 5–6 puppies. Each of them will need probably ~300+ of food, vaccinations, and other supplies before they can go to their new homes.

So if n is the number of puppies, I need to charge at least $\frac{10,000+300n}{n}$per puppy just to break even on my documented expenses. For the average litter size of 5–6 puppies, that is breaking even charging around $2000 per puppy.

If you breed her every two years for a total of three times (accruing expenses for upkeep each year + paying a stud fee each time (or maintaining your stud dog), then the formula for what to charge becomes

$\frac{18,000+300n}{n}$

Assuming that average litter size of 5–6 again, we can charge as little as $1300–1500 and still barely break even.

That’s BEFORE there are any emergencies - no c-sections, no hernia repairs, no kennel cough infections, no ear infections, no cases where the mum or pups ate something that they shouldn’t.

BUT WAIT, are you just going to euthanize this dog after her last litter is weaned? The average dog lives to be 11, so we need to add another 5 years’ expenses on that (unless you want to admit that you would just kill her or dump her?).

$\frac{23,000+300n}{n}$

Oh, and you want to be MAKING MONEY, so I assume that we should charge you for your labor as well? Most estimate that you should be dedicating at least an hour a day to your dog’s care - 365*11*7.25 (minimum wage) - that’s around $30,000 of work not even counting the extra time needed caring for a litter.

$\frac{53,000+300n}{n}$

That means that to be making minimum wage breeding dogs, you need to be charging at least $3000–4000 per puppy or you need to be seriously cutting corners in care (i.e. skipping health testing, regular vet visits, etc). In other words, don’t quit your day job!

The only ethical breeders making any decent living from this aren’t doing it selling puppies, but instead are breeders who also are trainers and who sell valuable trained working dogs. For example, instead of charging $2000 for a puppy, they put in an hour a day of intensive training on every pup in the litter for a year and then sell the “started” or “fully trained” dogs for $10,000–20,000+. After calculating it as your full-time job, you still aren’t making a ton (you can make more with many 4-year college degrees) but you can make ends meet.

Bees! Bees require very little maintenance compared to other domesticated species, you don’t have to keep an eye on them when they collect pollen, so you’re free to do something else while they’re at it, and they do pretty much all the work for you. On a good season, you can expect about $600 profit per beehive after all the expenses have been paid out.

If I can breed a animal, which would become the next uber pet, I would pick the smallest deer of all, the Malaysian Mouse deer.

How would you like, my dear, a deer as small as a rabbit, dainty hooves, big bright eyes. A Bambi in your house.

This is no mouse, dear. It is a mouse deer. (Tragulus kanchil)

I breed dogs occasionally. I have a litter every two years or so to make sure we always have a good team of sheepdogs here at our farm.

I have always been skeptical of the concept of breeding dogs for a living. I am a professional sheep farmer and I can barely scrape by although I breed animals that feed themselves out in my fields most of the year, need minimal individual intervention and that are suited for living in large numbers. I couldn’t imagine how you could make a living out of breeding dogs, an animal that needs individual attention and preparation for being part of a community and a family.

When we had our first litter my husband and I (we both have extensive business experience) crunched the numbers and my suspicion was confirmed: if you’re making a profit breeding dogs, you’re not doing it right; if you’re doing it right, you’re not making a profit.

It’s very simple math: divide the salary you want per month by the sales price per puppy minus taxes and your costs, to get the number of puppies one person needs to churn out per month to make a living.

Now take the number of hours one person is expecting to work per month, deduct time spent ordering food, doing overhead company paperwork and administration, managing the facilities, buyers, etc, and divide by number of animals in their care, puppies + moms, and you get the number of hours available per animal. That’s not many minutes, is it…?

No matter how we tried, we just couldn’t get the numbers to add up. To make a living out of breeding dogs, you need to breed a LOT of puppies and spend minimal time and money per dog. No matter how we counted, we couldn’t see it be a viable business without making very substantial compromises with regards to for example:

• allowing the mother a rich life with enough time between each litter
• picking the best father
• health testing of the parents
• veterinary care for the mother before, during and after pregnancy
• registration of parents and puppies
• cleanliness and quality of the puppy environment
• quality of the food and deworming for pups and mother
• vet visits with vaccinations, vet certificate, chip and passport for each puppy
• socialisation and exposure of puppies to different sounds, people and environments
• screening of buyers
• support to buyers before and after sales
• follow-up of the puppies in their new homes…

In our experience, if you want to do right by the mother and each pup, not treat the mother as a uterus and the pups as mass-produced production units, you can cover your costs, more or less, but only if you don’t count your time.

To me, breeding dogs therefor must necessarily be a labour of love, a side activity that we do because we enjoy it and/or as part of a larger plan (in our case: managing our farm).

Below: a few of the weekly videos I prepared for the puppy buyers of our last litter so they could see the puppies’ development before they were old enough to be picked up.

Dog breeding, if done correctly, will not net you a profit. Notice I said done correctly. I am not a breeder. I know enough to know that I have no business breeding and most people who want to don’t either.

That means that you are not just picking two unaltered dogs and throwing them together willy nilly. Additionally, breeding should only be done for the love and improvement of the breed.

You should have two dogs who have each proven themselves in show and conform to the breed standards.

Preferably these are two dogs who also have excellent temperaments as well—you do not want to breed dogs who are skittish, agresssive, etc.

You would need to know the dogs pedigree and have parents/grandparents that are also of sound temperament and ideally have been shown.

You will need to have genetic testing performed to be sure that neither is a carrier of serious genetic defects that could be passed on to puppies—hip dysplasia, deafness, blindness, etc.

You do not want puppy buyers coming back and suing you after you gave them a health guarantee.

You need to test for sexually transmitted diseases like brucellosis.

If you own a female you need to pay the stud fee.

You will have an increased food bill because a pregnant bitch needs more food and vitamins than a non pregnant bitch.

You need to be prepared to fork over some money in case something goes wrong with birth and there needs to be a c section or assistance from a vet for any number of complications.

You need to be prepared to take time off from work to care for your laboring dog.

Once pups are born, you need to be prepared to care for any or all of them if for whatever reason the bitch rejects them, or if they are suffering from fading puppy syndrome. Young puppies need to be fed about every two hours. Hope you have plenty of PTO saved.

You should have homes lined up BEFORE pups are born, and preferably even before a breeding. You are responsible for creating the lives so you should be prepared to take any and all puppies back if it doesn’t work out in the new home. Do not contribute to the shelter problem.

You need to feed and care for pups up to eight weeks of age—they can not go before that no matter how tired you are getting of having puppies making messes and forcing you to buy more food.

You will need to take them to the vet and pay for their first set of shots prior to eight weeks.

Still think you’re going to strike it rich or make a salary breeding?

BTW, I have two rescue dogs—13years old and my youngest is 9 months.Both came to me as eight week old puppies.

I strongly support rescue over breeding .

… I wrote this many, many years ago, and I hope it kind of gives you an idea about the potential profits to be made breeding reptiles:

Plenty of people see amazing price tags on fancy reptiles, and see this as a get-rich-quick scheme. Surely it must be easy – get a male of this, a female of that, put ‘em together and you can quit your day job, right?

What does it cost to start a reptile breeding project?

When starting up a breeding project, you’ve got two major expenditures – buying your breeding stock, and setting up appropriate space and equipment to house it. The figures below are based on the rough market prices in 2010 (be aware these prices change!) of setting up a trio of royal pythons – who tend to attract the folks interested in making a fast profit because of their small size combined with high price tags. The royals below have been chosen with compatible genetic traits in mind (ball pythons for those of you in the USA):

Initial breeding stock:

• Lesser Platinum royal python, 2010 male: £350 – £450
• Mojave royal python, 2010 female: £300 – £400
• Pinstripe royal python, 2010 female: £300-£400

Assuming you can find a local breeder who’s willing to make a bit of a deal, you might expect to spend £1000 or so obtaining your breeding stock. You’ve got a breeding plan – you know that you can produce morphs in the first generation of breeding and that you even have a chance at combination morphs – blue-eyed leucistic and kingpin. Not a bad plan at all…. but you won’t be able to breed anything for at least two years, and possibly three, depending on how fast your girls grow. It makes sense, if you’re wanting to breed royals, to pick up a couple of adult normal females at the same time, so that they’ll be ready to breed when your male is. The average price of adult female royals is around £10 per 100 grams – so a 1500 gram female is likely to cost around £150. Again, shopping around can help, and since your male is not likely to be ready to breed until his second winter (Winter 2011 in our example), you could save a few pennies by buying females in the 900 gram range. They should be of good size by the time your male is ready to go.

So far you’ve spent around £1200 buying breeding stock.

But before you bring the snakes home, you need appropriate caging and heating. If you don’t provide the appropriate conditions for your snakes, they won’t feed, grow or breed – and since you’re planning to breed them to make money selling the babies, it’s in your interests to make sure they’re in the best physical condition possible. Many breeders of royal pythons will keep them in racking systems set up with one heating source, like heat cable, and one thermostat to control it; this saves on some of the costs of setting it up separately, but the room itself must be kept warm enough for the animals if you use this method as heat cable and heat mats are not effective at heating the air – your snakes need a comfortable background heat as well as a warmer basking spot.

Initial Heating Costs:

• Pulse proportional or Dimming thermostat with day/night settings (helps for conditioning to breed): £50-£80
• Heat cable – 10 to 25 metres (remember the first metre is unheated!): £25 – £40

The cost of running this is going to be £10-£20 per month (depending on the wattage of your heat cable), adding up to £120-£200 per year.

You’ll also need a shelving unit or other racking system – these are highly individual, and a bit of forward planning can resolve problems later. Building a rack bigger than you need and that accounts for hatchlings as well as your own breeding stock will save you trouble – although it’ll be more expensive initially to build, especially if you purchase the spare tubs at the same time. Plan on spending £150-£300 even if you build it yourself.

So in addition to your breeding stock, you’ve also spent £325 setting up their caging, for a total of £1525.

Costs of keeping a breeding reptile collection

Now you’re in Year 1. You’ve got two normal females who’ll be ready to breed in Year 2, with your Lesser Platinum male; you’ve also got a Mojave and a Pinstripe female who will be ready to breed in Year 3 with your Lesser Platinum male.

What that means is that you’re feeding 5 snakes. If you’re buying in bulk you might be buying 100 pups – around £20-£25 – to cover the first couple of months of feeds for the babies… with any luck all three baby royals will be ready to move onto rat fuzzies at the end of that. Then you’ve probably got eight feeds of fuzzies (good luck finding THOSE in bulk – but that’s another £22-£27) before you can move to weaned rats at £30-£40 for 50 (and 100 will last you around 8 months, the remainder of the year). You’ve also got to feed your adults, who may eat the weaned rats, or may need larger prey at higher prices.

Year 1′s feeding costs may be around £200 (don’t forget to count shipping in that – prices in shops may be higher still). Don’t forget the costs of running the heating equipment, either.

Outgoings for Year 1: £1925

Incoming for Year 1: £0

Balance: -£1925

In year two, you’ll be buying bigger prey for everyone, and hopefully they won’t be needing to be fed quite so often, but it is still likely to be £300+ to feed all five of them over the year.

Outstanding debt from Year 1: - £1925

Outgoings for Year 2: £500

Incoming for Year 2: £0

Balance: -£1925

Unexpected reptile costs

Hopefully you get a couple of clutches of eggs in year 2 – they’re unlikely to be combo morphs at that point, since you probably didn’t buy any double-gene animals for the price you paid. Say you get three clutches from three of your adult females – the others didn’t take, either because the male was too young or it just didn’t work out. Nice average number of eggs, call it 18 in total. Half of them – if you’re lucky and the odds gods are playing fair – could be visual morphs. Nice pinstripe or spider or lesser or something. But … well, in the last two years, the prices have dropped from what you bought yours for. Plenty of people making ‘em now – including people with the same idea you had – so there’s more supply and therefore the demand is for lower pricing.

But wait, there’s more.

Don’t count on every single morph baby eating first go – or for the next ten feeds. I hate throwing away uneaten defrost rats. And even if they’re only going to sell to trade for £10-£20, you still have to feed the normals, too.

Then there’s finding buyers. Do you deliver (costs you money, and not everyone will be willing to pay for it!) or do you wait until you can find a local buyer?

So where’s my reptile breeding profit?

So you’re probably looking at an outlay of £8000 or more for your first two years of having morph royals with the intent to breed them…. and your nine low-end morph eggs – if they all successfully hatch and start feeding and you can make an average of £400 per baby (and that’s optimistic) – may make you £3500 if you’re lucky. That’s still running WELL in the red…. you won’t see running in the black for another couple of years.

Sure, £3500 in the hand LOOKS like profit…. but what you’ve got is “I’ve clawed back £3500 of what I’ve spent already, I still have £4000 or more to go before I’ve made back what I spent in the first two years.”

And, for that matter, something I wrote up back in 2007ish, after a nightmare year with a breeding group of leopard geckos.

And the ability to profit by small scale breeding of low-end geckos is... in my experience at least... negligible.

Here's a sort of profit/loss statement for my project thus far (prices are what I remember, and might not be completely accurate):

(Amounts in bold are what I paid out, amounts in italic bold are what I've gotten back.)

Year 1
1 4X4X2 viv = - £60 (mostly home built)

1 27X11 heat mat = - £20

1 mat stat = - £25

2 patternless "females" who turned out to be males = - £70

2 11X17 heat mats = -£40

Another mat stat = -£25

Building 2 36 X 18 X 18 vivs = -£40

1 blizzard female = -£35

1 albino female = -£30

1 hypo female = -£25

1 super hypo tangerine adult female = -£75

Vet bills for Blizzard female (died of sand impaction) = £100+

Sale of SHTCT female (female-aggressive) =£45

1 Super hypo Tangerine het patternless hatchling born, retained for breeding.

All other eggs infertile/failed - females too young.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Results year 1:

£500 paid out NOT including feeding costs.

Year 2
Bought breeding pair of het blazing blizzards, Ray Hine = £225

Normal female obtained from Ray Hine = £0

Bought pre-built vivarium stack for space reasons = £350

1 Hypo tangerine het patternless hatchling born, retained for breeding.
All other eggs failed. Changed incubation methods for year 3.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Results year 2:

£575 paid out NOT including feeding costs.

Year 3
1 snake eyed blizzard female bought = £45

1.0 hypo traded for a baby corn = £0

1.2 normal/hypo het blizzard poss albino sold = £45

0.2 normal/hypo/aberrant het blizzard poss albino sold = £30

0.8 normal+hypo and 1 albino sold to local shop = £80 store credit

0.4 normal/hypo donated to Bishop Burton college = £0

1.2 normal/hypo het blizzard poss albino sold = £20

0.3 babies (blazing blizzard, aberrant and albino) retained for breeding.

Some hatchlings euthanised as non-feeders due to developmental issues relating to heat spike in incubation.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Results year 3:

£130 taken in - does not include feeding costs.

Year 4
Bred to a "loaner" male owned by a friend = Agreed that profits will be split.

Built hatchling rack and incubator = £40 (Friend paid £40 also)
Vet bills for Albino Celaeno (purchased year 1, died with egg binding from freak three-egg clutch) = £45

Vet bills for SHT Keid (born year 1, died with egg binding from freak three-egg clutch) = £15

No eggs fertile from ANY female - the year is a total wash.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Results year 4:

£100 not including feeding costs

.... and you can bet I'm not breeding geckos next year. After losing my two favourite females.... I just don't want to do it again.

Good luck if you want to make money doing it.

How do you make a small fortune breeding reptiles? Start with a big one.

Oh. One last thing. If you include the feeding, electricity and other little 'incidental' costs (and I'm sure I've forgotten one of the patternless boys' trip to the vet for an abcess in his eyelid AND vet trips for an egg-bound gecko who lived - probably adding £200 to the total) it comes out closer to £2700 in the last four years. Who says this is an expensive hobby.... uhh.. me!

And the losses aren't just financial:

That year, I bred to a new male. And we had two adult breeding females who were in good condition prior to breeding go downhill, cost a bundle in vet bills and then die eggbound with three-egg clutches. Both of them were my favourite females, animals that were great to handle and could be handed to anyone, no matter how young or infirm, and would settle in their hands. Two females that can't be replaced.

To top it all off... all the eggs in the incubator, even from those two females, were infertile. Everyone else has stopped laying, and I suspect the boy I used was just too young.

So that year I didn't even break even - I didn't have any offspring to sell at all, which means that all the feed is out of my pocket (oh, and don't discount electricity costs) ...

And next year, because they were my favourite two girls... I won't be breeding geckos at all. Maybe 2009 - after everyone's had a year off to build up and I lose the bad taste in my mouth from losing two pets I loved; and maybe I won't breed geckos again at all. I don't know at this point.

Don't tell yourself you'll make money breeding reptiles unless you're willing to put a lot of money into it in the first place AND you have the ability to 'absorb' losses to boot.

Lastly….

And don't get me started on how difficult it is to sell little normals... even known hets don't sell very well.

Realistically speaking there are only three ways to make money from selling baby reptiles that you've bred yourself:

1. Wholesale - AKA “Battery Farming”. Work with dozens to hundreds of females, use the cheapest rack systems you can build and sell your babies almost straight out of the egg wholesale to shops or dealers. You won't make much on any given baby, but you'll come out ahead because you're not keeping them longer than you have to - and you didn't have to spend much to get your original animals because you weren't working towards special morphs either.

2. Jump the First Wave. This one needs LOTS of money to work. Buy in the "latest morph" in the first wave - when you're talking hundreds to thousands per animal - and be one of the first people to breed the animals in the UK. Expensive outlay, but fast return. You've got to be in the first wave to manage it, though - otherwise, your investment loses value very quickly as everyone ELSE gets their own.

3. Genetic Experimentation. No, not literally! Get animals of several different morphs - or animals with known hets that will make fantastic combination morphs. This one takes time and patience - that first "high end" animal, you might be TEMPTED to sell it... but you need to keep it so that the following year (or later) you can use THAT to breed back to the parent and produce more of them. This is my own method. Never mind stumping up a grand or more to buy, say, a Lavender Stripe corn snake - I've picked up hets that should hopefully let me make my own. And though they'll be cheapER than when I got my het pair, they're still a rare enough combination that I should be able to pay for the reptile food bill for a couple of months if I get just one.

I should probably point out that I have a full time job to support my reptile keeping/breeding hobby - there’s no way I could rely on them to pay my mortgage, seeing as they don’t really pay their own food bills.

Some of the most profitable, non-meat animals to raise is to raise animals and sell the young. Goats, sheep, cows, horses, pigs, and chickens can all be bred and raised for profit. But, if you want to raise animals and ensure that none of the offspring go for meat either, that gets a little trickier as you can’t really control what the buyers do.

You could raise dairy goats and sell the babies to other homesteaders. I do this. Quality milk goat breeds are in high demand. Likewise, you can raise chickens and sell the eggs (if you don’t consider this as using for meat). Wool sheep don’t require the slaughter of the animal to shear the sheep so that’s another option.

You can also raise and show animals. Show arenas often pay high awards to winning animals so if you can raise very good show quality animals- you can make money. That requires a certain amount of specialty knowledge. Sperm of award winning animals can be sold for AI (artificial insemination)

Out of the non-meat options raising, breaking, and selling horses is probably the most profitable. But, it requires a lot of skills and talent so you’ll want to make sure that you are prepared to do this.

Sheep are probably the easiest animal to raise not for meat of any kind because of the wool. Goats are another great option if you raise them and rent them out to clear weedy areas and other land maintenance areas.

Your approach is all wrong and tells me you look at dogs as canine cash machines. Responsible breeders got into dog breeding because they love the breed they’ve chosen and want to breed dogs that are excellent representatives of the breed. They want to breed dogs that meet the breed standard, that are trainable, that have sound minds and bodies. They don’t get into dog breeding to get rich.

Being a responsible dog breeder takes time and money. First you need to love the breed. Then you need to study the breed standards and what genetic issues are problematic in the breed. Once you find a nicely bred female whose parents AND grandparents have good show records, have good scores on hips and elbows and have tested negative for the genetic issues found in the breed (such as DM for German Shepherd Dogs or EIC for Labrador Retrievers) you can start the long journey. You train and show the dog in bench, field or other performance events so you can see if she has “what it takes” to be a breeding dog. Once that dog is 24 months old, have the hips and elbows x-rayed and scored and get the applicable genetic testing done.

This is only the start of responsible dog breeding, but gives you a quick look at what is involved in responsible breeding. Dogs are living, breathing animals and should not be treated like a commodity. If you’re not doing this responsibly, you’re not helping the dog breed that you SHOULD love and want to help.

No. It’s not to deter people from becoming dog breeders, if that’s what you meant by ‘deter others.’

It’s to justify charging $2500-$3000 per pet quality puppy(almost all puppies in every litter will be pet, not show quality, and in general, if the puppy is show quality the breeder will not sell it, so it’s basically $3000 for a pet quality puppy). Though it’s a little tough to argue that you’re not making money when you get $35,000 for one litter. That’s over half a year salary for me.

I have never seen anyone spend $35,000 a year - or part of the year - on their kennel, breeding stock, competitions, registrations, veterinary exams and food for the dogs - in many kennels the veterinary exams for puppies are very insufficient(pups should be checked for health conditions common in their breed) or non-existent. In fact, most breeders haven’t got decent kennels or fencing or much of anything. The puppies are still $2500-$3000 each.

I can’t say I’m much of a fan of most dog breeders. I’ve gone to ‘reputable’ breeders over the last 20 years and gotten nothing but unsound dogs. I’m not planning on going back to those breeders. It’s been a completely miserable experience, even though I wanted dogs just as pets.

I had Deerhounds from a wonderful breeder, both were incredibly sound and lived to 14, and that’s a giant breed that is not supposed to live so long. They were wonderfully healthy and had fantastic temperaments as well.

I think it’s wrong to breed dogs that are unbalanced (big front end, tiny hind end), prone to bloat (excessively deep, narrow chest), built to be unsound (very straight hind legs which are prone to hip dysplasia, injury and long term wear and tear), and breeding dogs with obvious genetic disorders like very high rates of cancer or bloat or other disorders. All the traits are getting too exaggerated and dogs are being bred despite having the disorders listed above and other disorders as well.

The insistence from some breeders that male pet quality dogs should not be neutered if they are ‘normal eyed’ or other such nonsense is also way, way beyond the pale. Pet quality dogs need to be spayed or neutered without exception. If the breed now finds ‘normal eyes’ to be such a rare commodity that they would not neuter a male with a half dozen other obvious faults, that’s their fault and no one else’s.

Breeding butterflies for release at weddings is inexpensive, rewarding, seasonal work.

As long as you capture the adults to lay the eggs from your local area and release the offspring in the local area, you won't mess with genetics (shipping out of your region might be bad for genetics) and by soaking the eggs in a 0.05 bleach solution for a minute or two before they hatch you can get rid of any parent-transmitted diseases. You can buy a commercially made caterpillar “cookie dough”, which is a dough made of soy flour, some other whole grain or bean flours, fiber, phytosterol, minerals, and vitamins powder-based commercial diet and supplement that with host plant leaves and get most species of butterflies’ caterpillars to grow well in captivity.

You will not successfully make a butterfly diet from scratch at home without extensive study and reading.

Once you get adult butterflies you can probably breed them for a couple Generations before you get too much inbreeding and need to get fresh stock, it's a good idea to be capturing adult females who are laying eggs and collect eggs from multiple females throughout the season.The space needed is not great, but you will need soft mesh butterfly cages that you can keep in a cooler area of your house so the adults live longer.

You will also need to rig up sugar water feeders and rotten fruit feeders for your butterfly adults with either lights on them to attract the butterflies down to the dish, or near the top of the cage so the butterflies, who prefer to stay up high, will eat and survive for a long adult life span of several weeks.

If you are a failed farmer and thinking of running a puppy mill, you will find that it is a profitable business. You keep the dogs locked in cages so that they cannot get out and injure themselves. You do not provide any health care (including any genetic testing) because it will eat into your profits. You feed the dogs cheap food, keep dogs pregnant all of the time so that you can get two litters out of each female every year, and concentrate on small breeds because they eat less, take less room, and are easier to keep in cages. Those puppy mills that concentrate on the small hybrids (Malshi, Pug crosses, etc) really do well.

Some puppy mills will also concentrate on the “hybrid” dog breeds, like Labradoodles, because they are also profitable. They may eat more and take more room but the new owners are willing to pay more. The new owners pay a lot more when they find out that the puppy´s parents were never checked for hip dysplasia and retinal diseases. (If there is an ethical Labradoodle breeder on this site I would appreciate your comment and would be glad to edit this to include your reply.)

But if you want to be an ethical breeder? What a money drain! The dogs are not bred until mature, dogs are never bred twice a year so that they can rest between litters, they are screened for any genetic diseases that the breed is prone to, dogs are taken to the vet if sick, and most importantly, the breeder will not sell to pet shops and will take dogs back if things do not work out at their new homes. Ethical breeders do not make much or lose money, but they do what they do because they care about the dogs.

So no, it is not just to deter others. It is an effort to keep people from going out and starting a puppy mill though.

If animals are your passion — the field that makes you want to get up and do something — then you can certainly achieve this balance. The typical job working with animals brings in about $55,775, according to 2015 U.S. Census data. Aside from a veterinarian career, there are a variety of jobs working with animals that also pay decent wages. These jobs bring in close to that median income or even higher.

Here are 12 jobs working with animals that could pay the bills:

1. Groomer

• Median salary: $21,260
• Salary range: $17,160 to $34,780
• Minimum qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent

Groomers help pets look their best by cleaning them and trimming fur. Those who make the highest salary earn more than $34,000 a year. Groomers who work in Hawaii, California and Rhode Island typically make the most money.

How to become one: Animal caretakers must have at least a high school diploma. Most training takes place on the job, but some choose to study at a grooming school. Employers generally prefer candidates to have some experience working with animals. If you want to care for animals in a zoo, you will likely be required to have a bachelor’s degree in animal science, biology or a similar field.

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2. Kennel attendant, pet sitter and dog walker

• Median salary: $21,260
• Salary range: $17,160 to $34,780
• Minimum qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent

Kennel attendants, pet sitters and dog walkers care for pets while owners are traveling or unavailable. The highest-paid workers usually earn up to $34,780 a year. Those who work in states including Hawaii, California and Rhode Island usually earn the most.

How to become one: Generally, most kennel attendants, pet sitters and dog walkers must a obtain a minimum of a high school diploma. They learn additional skills on the job. Most employers prefer candidates to have previous experience taking care of pets. Those who work in kennels or shelters can learn more about the job by taking classes through the Humane Society of the United States and the American Humane Association. Pet sitters can obtain additional education through the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. The organization offers courses, such as caring for parrots, dogs and dealing with pet behavioral issues.

3. Veterinary assistant

• Median salary: $24,360
• Salary range: $18,060 to $36,690
• Minimum qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent

Veterinary assistants work in a clinic or animal hospitals, helping veterinarians care for animals. They are responsible for helping veterinarians with routine tasks. The best-paid veterinarian assistants earn $36,690 a year. Those who work in states such as Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine tend to earn the most.

How to become one: If you want to become a veterinary assistant, you should at least have a high school diploma. It also doesn’t hurt to love animals. Most veterinary assistants learn their trade on the job. Certification isn’t required, but it may help you get promoted or obtain an advanced position.

4. Laboratory animal caretaker

• Median salary: $24,360
• Salary range: $18,060 to $36,690
• Minimum qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent

Laboratory animal caretakers work in labs with animal scientists, biologists or veterinarians. They feed, care for and monitor the well-being of lab animals. The best-paid laboratory animal caretakers can earn as much as $36,690 a year. Those who work in states such as Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine, earn the most.

How to become one: Laboratory animal caretakers are required to at least have a high school diploma. Most laboratory animal caretakers learn their trade through on-the-job training. Certification isn’t required to become a laboratory animal caretaker, but some employers prefer it. Having a certification could also help you get promoted or obtain an advanced position.

5. Trainer

• Median salary: $26,610
• Salary range: $18,160 to $57,170
• Minimum qualifications: no formal education requirements

Animal trainers are responsible for training animals for tasks, such as riding, performance, obedience or assisting the disabled. They also help animals become more comfortable with human interaction. The highest-paid animal trainers can earn an annual salary of up to $57,170. Those who work in states such as Minnesota, New York and California can make the most money.

How to become one: There are no formal education requirements to become an animal trainer. Those who work in the animal-training field usually receive on-the-job training. In addition, animal trainers can receive education through organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States.

6. Veterinary technicians

• Median salary: $31,800
• Salary range: $21,890 to $47,410
• Minimum qualifications: an associate degree

Veterinary technicians perform medical testing with the supervision of a licensed veterinarian. They help diagnose an animal’s injury or illness. Veterinary technicians who are in the 90th percentile of earners take home an annual salary of more than $47,000. Those who work in states such as Alaska, Massachusetts and New York earn the most.

How to become one: Those who desire to become veterinary technicians are required to complete a college-level program with the American Veterinary Medical Association. Candidates must enroll in either a two- or four-year program. Technicians are required to pass an exam and become registered, licensed or certified, depending on the state where they are employed.

7. Animal control worker

• Median salary: $33,450
• Salary range: $20,830 to $53,190
• Minimum qualifications: varies by location

Animal control workers help ensure the proper treatment of animals, investigate cases of mistreatment, and locate abandoned animals. Those who are among the top earners can make more than $53,000 a year. Animal control workers who work in states, such as Nevada, California and Washington, earn the most.

How to become one: Animal control workers are required to have a minimum of a high school diploma or the equivalent. Additional training usually takes place on the job. The National Animal Care & Control Association offers training programs. In addition, some states require certification in animal control.

8. Conservation and forest technicians

• Median salary: $35,430
• Salary range: $25,430 to $54,860
• Minimum qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent

Conservation and forest workers keep track of wildlife, gather data, suppress forest fires and work to improve the health of forests. The top earners make more than $54,000 a year. Those who work in states such as Massachusetts, New York and Georgia earn the most.

How to become one: A valid driver’s license and a high school diploma are the minimum requirements to become a forest and conservation worker. Most workers receive on-the-job training, such as the proper procedure for planting or thinning trees. They also learn how to safely operate and maintain forestry equipment. Some employers prefer candidates to have an associate degree in forestry technology or a related field. Programs should be accredited by the Society of American Foresters. In addition, some states require that employees receive training and sometimes obtain a license in the appropriate use of commercial pesticides.

9. Breeder

• Median salary: $39,380
• Salary range: $20,430 to $75,210
• Minimum qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent

Breeders select and breed animals according to characteristics and genealogy. The top earners make more than $75,000 a year. Those who work in Ohio, South Dakota and Kentucky earn the most.

How to become one: Animal breeders are required to have a minimum of a high school education. In addition, breeders learn their skill through short-term on-the-job training. Those who want to breed zoo animals are required to have a bachelor’s degree in veterinary science and, depending on one’s career goals, postgraduate study in zoology.

10. Biological technician

• Median salary: $41,650
• Salary range: $26,610 to $69,180
• Minimum qualifications: bachelor’s degree

Biological technicians help medical scientists in the laboratory. They are responsible for the setup, operation, and maintenance of laboratory equipment. They also monitor experiments. The top earners make more than $69,000 a year. Those who work in states, such as California, Connecticut and Massachusetts earn the most.

How to become one: Biological technicians generally need a bachelor’s degree in biology or a similar field. Technicians must also acquire laboratory experience. In addition, it’s important to take computer classes because laboratories have computers and other high-tech equipment.

11. Zoologists and wildlife biologists

• Median salary: $59,680
• Salary range: $39,180 to $97,390
• Minimum qualifications: bachelor’s degree

Zoologists and wildlife biologists study animals and wildlife and how they interact with their environment. The top earners make more than $100,000 a year. Those who work in states such as Maryland, Connecticut and Rhode Island earn the most money.

How to become one: A bachelor’s degree is necessary for those seeking entry-level positions. A master’s degree is usually required for advanced or scientific positions. Those who want to lead independent research or work at a university must have a doctoral degree.

12. Conservation land managers

• Median salary: $60,220
• Salary range: $37,380 to $91,830
• Minimum qualifications: bachelor’s degree

Conservation land managers work with conservation groups, landowners or other entities to protect specific wildlife and land. The top earners tend to make more than $90,000. Those who work in states such as Alaska, Rhode Island and New Jersey make the most money.

How to become one: Conservation land managers must obtain a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, preferably in natural resource management. In addition, experience can be gained through internships and volunteer work. Some states require those desiring to become foresters to obtain a license.

Animal husbandry (I can speak for dairy farming alone as that’s my life) is a business, based on morals and human values. It is a clear model of independent survival.

it benefits animal lovers like me to be with my beloved animals and enjoy their love and affection. While taking care of them and myself from the outputs they provide. In my case milk being the main produce and other supplementary products like cow dung and cow urine. I make it a point to treat my cattle with utmost care and ensure their offsprings are well fed before I take my share (remainder of the milk). In my case it is very beneficial mentally and physically. I cannot tell the same about economic benefit. As it varies based on various factors like cow’s health, calf age, calf health and many more. But, I can vouch that I have never run my farm on losses. Which means the economic profit is also good. I always believe that my cattle pay me for serving them and not the way other dairy people think. It is a great profession for animal lovers and a very fulfilling job.

I hope I have answered to the point.

thank you for the A2A

We have a saying- If you make money, you aren’t doing it right.

Breeding dogs as a Reputable Breeder means making a commitment to research health and longevity in bloodlines, test the parents for all inherited disorders for their breed, prove Breed Standard in the ring. This is not cheap. Then when you have done this, you pair your dogs to enhance the future of your breed. Before breeding, the bitch and dog is vaccinated, wormed and tested for Brucellosis. You confirm pregnancy with an US, set up a whelping box that can be used many times, as well as disinfected, buy whelping supplies, and wait 63 days for the pups to arrive. On day 55 you have an xray done to count heads so you know how many pups to expect- sometimes you get more because a couple are hiding. Then on day 63, you spend the hours cleaning, weighing and charting pups arriving. If all goes well, you will breeze through until weaning. If the Bitch develops mastitis or Pyo, you have a BIG Vet bill, as well as hungry pups you must now feed. Bedding must be washed at least twice a day, pee pads put down frequently, puppy mush made and fed, toys provided. Vaccinations and worming done, Vet checks made before they go to their new homes. By then the $4000 for a show pup or $2000 for a pet has been used up caring for them. The reason you breed is to continue a specific blood line, or to provide your next show dog from your lines. Not to make money. its always about improving, and caring about the Breed.

Not if you are doing it correctly. Aside from the normal Veterinarian care, food, etc. you will have stud fees or will need to buy a male. Your Bit-h will need a medical checkup prior to being mated, special food and perhaps vitamins during pregnancy, another visit to the Vet near her due date and if needed a Veterinarian to attend the births if a C-section seems likely or if it is an extremely large litter. The puppies will need to see the Veterinarian to assure that they are in good health, they may need to be tested for congenital issues in some breeds, they will require their first immunization and possibly deworming. Being a responsible breeder is time consuming and expensive.

Edit: I forgot the fees to register the litter and then an additional fee to register each puppy (usually the buyer pays for the individual registration).

Please do not do this. Shelters are overflowing all over the Western world with unwanted bunnies. The last thing the world needs is more breeding for profit.

Its also expensive to breed and keep rabbits. If you want to be an ethical, respectable breeder, you need rabbits with good bloodlines. Nobody is going to pay a high price for mixed breed rabbits with no pedigree, the same way nobody is going to pay a backyard dog breeder top dollar for a puppy. If you sell them to a pet store, you might get $10 per bunny, probably even less than that. Selling them directly, you might get people willing to pay you $25 or $30 per bunny, and you might break even once you factor in food, shelter, supplies, and veterinary care for your breeding rabbits and the babies, which can't leave their mother until they are at least 8 weeks old and need alfalfa hay where adults need Timothy. Rabbits can't live and thrive on air. (It's also an expense of time to care for multiple rabbits.)

Just please don't. Get a job if you need money. Thousands of rabbits are euthanized in shelters every year because there are already more rabbits out there than people looking for them. This is largely because of backyard breeding by people looking to make easy money.

My wife and I raised many animals for many years and chickens, geese and rabbits are an option. Firstly, geese are grazers and need no more than a few varieties of grass to feed them, but they also need a pond in which to swim. Our pond held about 1 200 litres of water and was emptied and cleaned about once every two weeks. The water and goose dropping from the pond went to the compost heap, which fed the chickens. Some of the water from the pond was diverted to the lucern (alfalfa) patch that helped to feed the rabbits. We also had a pumpkin patch and another for sweet potatoes, which also fed the rabbits. We gave the rabbits both the sweet potatoes and their vines.

The chickens practically live on the compost heap, scratching and eating the myriad insects that breed there and they make forays into the lucern and grass patches for greenery.

Most people do not realise that a properly bred chicken has red meat, not the anaemic white meat found in mass-produced, caged chickens and their eggs have golden yolks, not yellow. This is due to the variety of insects and fresh greenery they eat when permitted to be properly free range and not caged for any length of time. They can be provided with nest boxes in which to lay the eggs, which is much more convenient than having to scour the compost heap to find them.

Roaches are among the fastest for their size.

A female can lay a brood of egs every month for 10 months ina row. She lays around 16 eggs per case.

They are extremely resiliant and can live a week without their head, and only ydie because they can’t drink water in that state.

They reach sexual maturity quickly and are very sneaky. You need to manage a roach problem very early on or it will get out of control quickly.

God help you if you have german cockroaches. They are the most difficult type of roach here in the US.

There’s a whole science to treating your house too. Make sure to read a few articles. Buying roach traps at the store often isn’t enough.

It is possible to do so but requires luck as much as choice of animal. For example tortoises sell for a high price (£150 per animal) in the U.K. but take around 6 years for even the gender to be easily determined, ball pythons fluctuate in price and basically requires a rare morph or new morph to turn a profit and even then the price drops fast. I will use my current ball python as an example, I have a phantom morph ball python and she is a single gene female i.e. She has 1 gene that changes the colour slightly. Her morph was first produced in 2005, when I got her in march 2016 as she hatched in 2015 she cost £50 in 10 years the value of her morph had dropped to barely above that of a wild morph ball python. There are some designer morphs that cost a lot more but basically the new morphs are where the money is and even then it drops fast. You need to do extensive research into whatever your planning to breed. I know that if I breed ball pythons I most likely will not make much if any profit unless I am extremely lucky and have a brand new morph. If you look up the scaleless ball python morph via YouTube as the guy that developed the process has videos about them might help, beating in mind it took him years to get a new morph ready and sell them. 3–4 years for a new morph before you can start breeding ball pythons and 5–6 for tortoises. Even then it's not guaranteed you get what you want.

Summary; you basically need a serious amount of luck, money and have to be able to show you really know what your talking about.

Um, no.

Let’s crunch some numbers and see why.

For a breakdown on responsible breeding with health testing, etc., look here:

Katie Bjorkman

· 4y

Why do people say dog breeding isn't profitable? It quite obviously is. Is it just to deter others?

“Quite obviously.” Let’s do some math. A well-bred purebred these days costs about $2000. You should really wait until she is 2 years old to breed her, and I estimate that even my pet dog costs me about $1000/year to properly care for. So, before I can think about breeding her first litter, I am $4000 in the hole. If I’m going to do this in a way that doesn’t make me a bad person, I have done proper health testing ($500–1000+ depending on breed) and had her temperament, type, and soundness formally evaluated (usually through formal testing and titling in various venues, conservatively another $1000 for training, travel, entry fees, etc). So now we’ve spent $6000 and can finally breed a litter. Either I own my own male (another $6000) or I pay a stud fee to use the male of another breeder (probably around $2000). I’ve now spent $8000–12,000 before I get my first litter. We’ll average to $10,000 for ease of calculations. Average litter size is 5–6 puppies. Each of them will need probably ~300+ of food, vaccinations, and other supplies before they can go to their new homes. So if n is the number of puppies, I need to charge at least \frac{10,000+300n}{n} per puppy just to break even on my documented expenses. For the average litter size of 5–6 puppies, that is breaking even charging around $2000 per puppy. If you breed her every two years for a total of three times (accruing expenses for upkeep each year + paying a stud fee each time (or maintaining your stud dog), then the formula for what to charge becomes \frac{18,000+300n}{n} Assuming that average litter size of 5–6 again, we can charge as little as $1300–1500 and still barely break even. That’s BEFORE there are any emergencies - no c-sections, no hernia repairs, no kennel cough infections, no ear infections, no cases where the mum or pups ate something that they shouldn’t. BUT WAIT, are you just going to euthanize this dog after her last litter is weaned? The average dog lives to be 11, so we need to add another 5 years’ expenses on that (unless you want to admit that you would just kill her or dump her?). \frac{23,000+300n}{n} Oh, and you want to be MAKING MONEY, so I assume that we should charge you for your labor as well? Most estimate that you should be dedicating at least an hour a day to your dog’s care - 365*11*7.25 (minimum wage) - that’s around $30,000 of work not even counting the extra time needed caring for a litter. \frac{53,000+300n}{n} That means that to be making minimum wage breeding dogs, you need to be charging at least $3000–4000 per puppy or you need to be seriously cutting corners in care (i.e. skipping health testing, regular vet visits, etc). In other words, don’t quit your day job! The only ethical breeders making any decent living from this aren’t doing it selling puppies, but instead are breeders who also are trainers and who sell valuable trained working dogs. For example, instead of charging $2000 for a puppy, they put in an hour a day of intensive training on every pup in the litter for a year and then sell the “started” or “fully trained” dogs for $10,000–20,000+. After calculating it as your full-time job, you still aren’t making a ton (you can make more with many 4-year college degrees) but you can make ends meet.

But even the not-responsible breeders that aren’t showing/titling or health-testing aren’t making much money!

Let’s start by saying that even an average pet dog costs about $1000/year to keep fed, basically vetted, etc. And that experts recommend not less than 1 hour of dedicated time per dog, per day, to keep them happy and healthy.

We’ll go from there and say that, if dog-breeding is your full-time gig, you can have a maximum of 7 dogs (that makes $7000 a year in expenses and you’re working 49 hours a week with the dogs).

Even if we pretend that you got those 7 dogs for free, that exactly one is a stud dog, and that when they are too old to breed you immediately find them alternative homes and they don’t continue to cost for upkeep. If each female is having a litter every-other year, average litter size of 6, and if you are selling the puppies so that you make $1000 above and beyond the puppy shots, food, etc., on each puppy, then you’d make a whopping total of $6\times 1000\times 3-7000=\$11,000$per year.

That’s… not a lot of money for your more-than-full-time gig, is it?

Okay, but what if we say that some of that hour-a-day care time would be shared - two dogs getting walked at the same time, etc. Then we could double the number of females to 12 instead of 6, work $13\ast .5\ast 7=45.5$hours per week, and make a whopping average of $6\times 1000\times 6-13000=\$23,000$ for, again, a hard job with more than full-time hours and no vacations (paying someone to care for 13 dogs at a time is hardly cheap if you want to take even a single day off).

The only people I know of making money *breeding* dogs (that is, by the sale of young puppies that they bred) are puppy mills. They do it by providing sub-standard care to cut expenses, increase the number of dogs they have beyond what they can actually care well for, etc. Even then, if you look at information from puppy-mill busts their “profits” can’t be that much when they live in a dilapidated trailer at the end of a gravel road within smelling distance of their pole barn full of abused, neglected, dead, and dying dogs. They make a few hundred for a puppy and sell them to middleman brokers, but they’re hardly able to “live it up.”

The people who have their living in dogs aren’t making that living in puppy sales. If we took those same numbers but swapped it around so that a breeder-trainer was breeding only a litter or two a year, but then dedicating their time to training dogs for working jobs before they were sold, you can make a modest living. For example, a trained hunting dog can fetch (pun always intended) $5000–10,000, while a fully trained personal protection dog can sell for several times that.

There can also be money in boarding, grooming, training other peoples’ dogs, veterinary care, etc. So that you can make a living with dogs.

But making a living off of *puppy sales*? Yeah, the math just doesn’t work out.

Note that this is pretty much true historically as well. Folks who kept large breeding kennels back in the day were largely rich and did it as a hobby that maybe broke even. Poorer folks who needed a working dog bred one of their working dogs when they needed a new one and sold or gave away the rest - but their living was made by being a shepherd (who owned a good sheepdog they bred once or twice), for example, rather than by being a sheepdog breeder (who also kept some sheep). It isn’t until the Great Depression that you start seeing the idea of dogs being bred as a “cash crop” and it has never really worked out to make good money selling dogs - and, usually, you feel lucky to break even on puppy sales unless you are really starting to slide toward the puppy-mill side of the equation.

Not really. I live in a house with show dogs, Portuguese Water Dogs. Some beautiful champions have been born through this lineage. Although I live in the same house, these are my housemate's dogs. She's been breeding and showing for nearly 50 years, various breeds thru the years, and is a professional groomer, as well. In 2007, she also started a dog rescue and training program in the women's prison here. So she knows her stuff. Her entire life has been devoted to dogs.

To answer your question, though, professional, ethical breeding is not really all that lucrative. It's often the opposite, but usually breaks even by the time it's all said and done. And these Porty pups go for $2000 each. There are a number of tests both the dam and sire need to go through first. Hips and eyes for all breeds. Then there may be other health checks. Addison's disease occurs in Porty's, so they're usually tested for that. All kinds of certs and registrations. Then the x-rays and sonograms during the pregnancy. If there are any problems during whelping, an emergency trip to the vet is not cheap. She had a dam confirmed with at least 4 fetuses. She whelped three fine, although they were spread out in time more than they normally are. After four hours without the 4th one appearing and no contractions, she had to take the mother into the ER vet at 5am (they always seem to start whelping at midnight here). Vet gave a shot to induce labor and out the pup came. A few x-rays later they were done, everyone healthy, but had an enormous bill.

Then add in the vet checks for the pups. The 1st and 2nd rounds of shots. Deworming. The cost of registering the litter. And a plethora of other costs. If nothing majorly bad happens, and the litter is large enough, then there is some profit to be made, but I would not call it lucrative. Most quality breeders breed for the love of the breed, wanting to carry on quality dogs (meaning healthy). For example, a reputable breeder would never bred a dog with bad hips as it helps reduce the future chances of bad hips. Also add in all the vet bills and shots for the dog throughout the life of the dog. It adds up.

Puppy mills skip nearly all these items. They toss a male and female together, let them breed without any health checks. Inbreeding is very common. Basically, the philosophy of puppy mills is to "burn and turn." Pop them out as quick as possible without any regard to the health of either the dam or sire. Cheap food. And often sell them too early to simply help cut down on the cost of keeping a puppy.

Well, hope this helps answer your question.

If we are talking about a small acreage that can’t really support itself with what it produces, a farm that is only intended to produce animals which will supplement an income which is necessary to support the farm in the first place, then I’d consider sheep, cattle, or chickens… in that order.

Sheep can be labor intensive in lambing season, and are prone to predation. But there are ways to deal with both. I’d go with haired sheep rather than fleeced sheep, unless you want to shear them yourself. There has been some increased value in sheep due to an increase in Latin and Middle Eastern populations. Sheep can gain weight on anything better than bad pasture. As smaller animals they are easy to handle, transport, and keep contained. You will need net type fencing.

Beef cattle need decent pasture and good fences. Anyone having a cow should have a way to entice them into a stanchion so they can be handled when necessary. Cattle are large enough to be dangerous even when they aren’t actively seeking to hurt you. Proper management can minimize risk. Some breeds command premium prices and can be bred up through artificial insemination over several years rather than buying expensive seed stock.

If you have a market for eggs, free range chickens may be an option. Predation is a concern and there will be some feed costs involved. Tight fences to keep dogs out and housing to keep predators out at night are a necessity.

Of course all of these suggestions are based on you having the time and energy to keep up with requirements, as well as enough income to support start up costs and surprises.

1. What type of animal are you most interested in breeding? (there is a huge difference between breeding GOLD FISH vs breeding COWS or HORSES).
2. What interests, hobbies or qualifications do you possess that has given you the interest in breeding animals?
3. Do you have reliable references?
4. What is your main purpose or goal for wanting to breed animals?
5. Do you realize how much love, dedication and work it is to acquire the sire and dam (mother/father) of the animals you are intend to breed?
6. Do you have the proper facility, building or space to properly accommodate a breeding facility of a specific animal? .
7. Do you have the proper veterinary staff available who you will inevitably need to rely on for assistance to you at any point in the animal’s life and do you have the proper and appropriate financial resources to afford veterinary care which is extremely expensive?
8. Have you studied and acquainted yourself with the local city, county, state regulations and ordinances and rules where you live for conducting breeding of animals? That’s what farms are for.
9. Have you acquired the proper licensing in order to conduct this type of facility?
10. What are your ultimate plans for rehoming offspring and do you have a rock solid contractual agreement drawn up for new buyers of the offspring you produce?

Okay, I will try to explain. What you do is look for specific traits in the animal you are going to use. Say you have a really good speciman female but her head shape leaves a lot to be desired. You look for a male who is pretty much her equal in most things but has an almost perfect head. You will also check his pedigree to see if his parents passed on their good traits. With luck you will get one or two pups that possess the qualities you want without losing any of the good stuff. The plan is to keep the best for your future breeding program. This is how you not only improve on what you are doing but also ensure that you are sticking to the breed standard. This is also the same procedure used over several generations to change a breed to be better at a specific job.

MAKE? As in profit?

**leaves computer to laugh hysterically**

Breeding dogs isn’t a profitable enterprise.

Even the folks who cut ALL the corners and produce HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of puppies a year are making so little that they live in crappy double-wide trailer homes off of gravel roads.

Breeding dogs ethically costs more than you make - once you provide quality care for your breeding dogs ($1000/year average for even for just a pet dog), do proper health testing ($$), earn relevant titles or certifications ($$), pay stud fees ($$), and then properly care for the litters ($$) you are lucky to break even more often than you spend more than you make.

The money in dogs is in selling trained/started working dogs and in providing services to dog owners like boarding, doggy daycare, grooming, training, veterinary services, etc., but, even then, it is hard work with slim profit margins for almost everyone.

It could be possible if you have no care and compassion for dogs and cats. For every pet from a breeder an innocent dog or cat is put to sleep at shelters for the crime of being born. There is a huge number of animals and far less homes. Many of these pets that are killed come from breeders for any number of reasons. Many of the pets from breeders are unhealthy. I say “breeder,” a more apt word for them is murderer. They kill because of their greed and taking advantage of innocent animals. I may sound harsh but I can't be harsh enough to describe these disgusting people. I hope you can really look inside yourself and think if you want to join this group of slime. I hope you dont.