Can You Make Money Keeping Snakes in 2016? Farming Prospects and Profit Analysis
Artificial snake farming has also become a good way for farmer friends and laid-off workers to escape poverty and get rich, and investing in snake farming is also a good entrepreneurial project, because the snake market is very good right now, with demand exceeding supply year after year. Wild snakes are becoming fewer and fewer, and not only are snakes never hard to sell, there are even many snake dealers scrambling for goods. So can you actually make money keeping snakes in 2016? Let's take a look together below!
Market Prospects for Snake Farming
The prospects for snake farming are very good; at least for about 10 years or so the price of snakes will not change too much. From the SARS period to now, snake prices have risen year after year, the market has demand exceeding supply, and on top of that, due to indiscriminate hunting and killing, the number of wild snakes has dropped sharply. So snake farming has become very sought after. At present, the supply of meat snakes in places such as Guangdong, Guangxi and Hong Kong, China is already hard to satisfy, let alone anywhere else.
The processing of snake products is still at a very primitive stage of development. The reason snake products have not been fully developed is precisely the best reflection of a market where demand exceeds supply. Common species farmed in the south include cobras, water snakes (Ptyas), king ratsnakes and so on, with most sales going to Guangzhou. Many bosses come right to the door to buy them. There is no need to worry about not being able to sell them.
Table snakes are edible species outside the scope of national legal protection, and their nutritional value and taste are enough to rival protected snake species such as the sharp-snouted pit viper (Deinagkistrodon acutus). Under the premise that the state strongly protects rare and venomous snakes, table snakes are sure to sell well on the market and become substitutes for the above snake species. In addition, table snakes are all non-venomous or mildly venomous species, so they will not bring accidental personal injury to the farmer. Farming table snakes both protects rare snake species and satisfies market demand, while also bringing high profits to the farmer. Farmed snakes can also be sold to factories to extract snake gall and make medicine.
Economic Benefits of Snake Farming
Successful experts say: raise one snake well, and it beats raising one pig. Because wild snake species are dwindling day by day, while snake prices on the market rise steadily year after year. Moreover, snake prices vary greatly throughout the year; in winter they are about 2-3 times higher than in ordinary seasons, and prices in early autumn and late autumn are not the same either. Taking one female snake as an example, it breeds 12-19 young each year, and up to 30 at most. If sold as small snake hatchlings, each is worth about 10 yuan. If the bred young snakes are raised for one year, you can get more than 4-10 jin of snake meat, and selling at the lowest market price, you can profit more than 100-250 yuan.
Snake venom is priceless, worth several times or even more than ten times its weight in gold. But to whom is such expensive snake venom sold? Where is its market? For ordinary people, that is a mysterious field. A reporter came to our country's largest distribution center for Chinese medicinal materials, the Bozhou Chinese medicinal materials market in Anhui Province, and after interviewing found that this market, described as all-encompassing, simply does not sell snake venom at all.
In addition, the economic benefits of snake farming also depend on output per unit and production costs. If you can use fairly reasonable feeding methods and techniques, reduce expenses, make reasonable material reserves, and reduce long-term tie-up of funds, all of these are effective ways to improve economic benefits.
Market Prospects for Snake Venom
Dried venom from the five-paced pit viper (Deinagkistrodon acutus); a bottle of snake venom like this weighs about 250 grams and is worth 200,000 US dollars. Why is snake venom so expensive? And why is it also a scarce product on the market? Because venomous snakes are not something just anyone can raise; it requires very solid technical skills: venom extraction, hatching, and you also have to master temperature and humidity. It is not like growing vegetables, which anyone can plant.
After investigation it was found that although China began using snake venom very early on, snake venom is a highly toxic product and still cannot be sold on the medicinal materials market. So far China has not formed a complete and standardized snake venom market, and more of it can only be traded privately. The snake venom market is thus shrouded in a mysterious veil.
But the value of snakes is not only snake venom; snakes can be said to be treasures from head to tail. At the Bozhou medicinal materials market in Anhui, besides snake venom, there are dried snakes, snake gall, snake powder and other medicinal materials in abundance.
Points to Note in Snake Farming
1. To invest in snake farming, you first need reliable snake farming technology. Friends without this technology should do more research, discuss and verify with experienced experts, and learn snake farming techniques. Never rush blindly into it without any technical foundation. Some friends buy some breeding snakes, snake eggs or snake hatchlings to try raising at home; this approach is doomed to fail.
2. It is best to invest funds in stages and in batches; this will turn danger into safety and achieve the expected good results. For beginners in snake farming, the investment can be large or small, and there is still no clear fixed figure for funding. It is recommended to decide according to your own economic capacity, and it is best to act within your means, developing gradually from small to large, striving to grow and strengthen steadily, and by all means avoid trying to get fat in one bite, causing the tragic outcome of losing your whole "snake" capital.
3. Choosing the species to farm: snake farming enthusiasts located in the south should investigate the snake trading markets in their local area and surrounding counties and cities, and choose snake species with broad circulation and relatively high consumption. Because the southern climate is suitable and the temperature does not vary too much across the four seasons, it is the native place of many snake species, so both venomous and non-venomous snakes can be farmed artificially. Although the choices are not that broad, you must follow the market, determining species by market and sales channels. Never farm blindly and randomly, causing the "farce" of succeeding at snake farming but making no money, only making a "snake farmer" for nothing. At present, the snake species that are relatively easy to farm in the south include the king ratsnake (Elaphe carinata), the cobra and the water snake (Ptyas). But currently, apart from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and Yunnan, other places are not suitable for farming water snakes (Ptyas). He Guochang, a snake farming master at China Snake Farming Network, through many years of observation and study, found that water snake (Ptyas) farming is relatively unsuitable in the Hunan, Jiangxi and Hubei areas.
4. But snake farming enthusiasts located in the north are not as lucky and casual as southerners when it comes to snake farming. It can be said that the choices for snake farming in the north are both strong and narrow. This is formed because of the constraints of the north's unique three major conditions: climate, geography and environment. Therefore, venomous snakes (except pit vipers) cannot be farmed, unless there are very advanced laboratories and rearing conditions. Farmers should not be misled by snake farming advertisements in certain newspapers and periodicals or by privately and illegally printed tabloids, saying things like farming venomous snakes requires little investment, brings quick results, is easy to raise, has no risk, and yields huge profits from a small outlay, and so on. They are just waiting for you to jump into the "beautiful trap" they have carefully woven, and after lining their own pockets they will flee. The ones who suffer and are cheated are still the snake farmers. The north is more suitable for farming the king ratsnake (Elaphe carinata).
5. Farmers in the north must also be especially cautious when choosing non-venomous snakes. Farmers in the three northeastern provinces cannot farm snake species distributed in provinces (regions) such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Fujian, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui and Taiwan, China, because the distance is too far and regional differences are relatively large. Snake farmers in other provinces (regions) must also think twice before acting when choosing snake species. It is best to first introduce a small number for trial farming, and by no means introduce large batches in bulk, so as to avoid unnecessary economic losses and dampen enthusiasm and confidence in snake farming.
6. Mastering the correct principle for choosing snakes is actually very simple: first understand the living habits of the snake you intend to farm, see whether its food source can be fully solved, and whether the conditions for getting through summer and overwintering can be met. If any one of these three is lacking, snake farming will not go very smoothly. Therefore, you must create the required rearing conditions well; only then can artificial snake farming be guaranteed to succeed.
7. Therefore, even someone raising snakes for the first time can succeed and will surely earn their first pot of gold.
8. When learning snake farming techniques, you should also choose a legitimate snake farm and learn mature techniques.
9. When purchasing breeding snakes, snake eggs and snake hatchlings, pay attention to variety and quality; only this way can you ensure you have excellent snake seed stock.
Summary: At present, snake farming does look very profitable, but snake farming is a job with a very high technical content. If the snakes are kept too spread out, you cannot recover costs; if kept too densely, they easily get sick (especially pneumonia). Temperature and humidity both have to be precisely controlled. So do not farm blindly; first learn the techniques with dedication, then make your choice based on your actual situation. Quite a few farmers use quail, chicken eggs and male chick hatchlings from chicken farms as snake feed, and sell their products at 250 yuan per kilogram into markets such as Hubei, Jiangsu and Shanghai. In 2013 alone they sold more than 800 kilograms of artificially fed snakes, with an annual output value of more than 200,000 yuan. After deducting all cost items, they earned a net profit of more than 120,000 yuan in one year. At the same time, although snake venom and medicinal materials fetch high prices on the market, the farming benefits are also quite considerable. At the same time, venomous snake farming is also a special industry with relatively high risk, and it also has very high requirements for farming technology. So if you want to make your fortune by raising venomous snakes, you really do have to act within your means.