How to own a reptile park?

Question

I want to open one up some day. Any ideas on how to get started on that and how much it would cost, education needed? Thanks for any info guys.

Answer 1

This is kind of a "how long is a piece of string" question. You get all kinds of reptile parks.

You have to ask yourself what sources of income you want to generate from your park, some sources of income are:
Fees from visitors
Milk venomous snakes and sell the venom
If you breed alligators and crocodiles you can sell the skins for fashion accessories and make pies with the meat
Breed snakes and lizards and sell the offspring to pet shops and visitors
If you have the proper facilities you can make money from researchers and universities
Surplus mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs and fowls bred as reptile food can be sold to petshops as well.
Wrangling reptiles for films and advertisements
A neighbourhood reptile removal service
Travelling reptile shows for schools and parties


Your start up costs are going to be land, landscaping, buildings, insurance, permits and stock. The size of the land that you need will depend on the stock you are going to keep. How much space do you need to breed saltwater crocodiles? How much space do you need for breeding food animals.

You can start a small reptile park with a piece of land and a few straight sided pits dug into the ground with water filled moats around the ground at the bottom. Landscape the islands with rocks and wood and put in some plants. Start with the reptiles found in your area so you don't have to worry too much about heating and cooling.

As you get more experience you can start looking at building a reptile house with glass terrariums for reptiles from hotter and colder areas. If you want to bring in some of the marine reptiles like the sea snakes and turtles, creating their ideal habitats will be quite expensive.

To lure more visitors you'll need some headline attractions like Komodo Dragons, Giant King Cobras, Giant Anacondas, New Zealand Tarturas etc. Try a collecting trip to the everglades in Florida they are being overrun with escaped reptiles.
Regular demonstrations of snake wrangling and milking also go down well.

Generally it will cost you all you can spend and some more,

For education start off by reading all the Gerald Durrell books. Then talk to your guidance councillor. You should do some biology and animal husbandry. Also some courses in business administration and marketing.

Answer 2

Why no longer attempt to get something lovable looking and innocuous; yah comprehend, sorta to "wooo" your dad and mom into letting you've it. Petsmart has a good possibilities for reptiles; i'd recommend : eco-friendly Pacman frog, bearded dragon, eco-friendly Anole, lengthy- Tailed Lizard, leopard gecko, mossy golden gecko, purple eared slider, and a overweight frog. And yet another advice: do not get a snake or a scorpion, tarantula, and so on.