Exclusive: It's snake breeding season and Jake Thomas' house is about to be full of them.
The man behind Unreal Reptiles got his first pet snake at age six and has been keeping and breeding all sorts of critters for about a decade.
Now Thomas and plenty of other breeders around the country are preparing for another big season.
He's already got a few clutches of eggs incubating in his NSW home and is expecting to hatch anywhere from 150 to 200 babies in the coming months.
"In 2021, I had 58 clutches and about 380 babies," Thomas told 9news.com.au.
Plenty of Australians would baulk at the thought of it but when a single hatchling can sell for hundreds of dollars, one clutch can earn an experienced breeder like Thomas thousands.
And he's expecting up to 20 clutches this year alone.
The ins and outs of breeding snakes
Most snake breeders in Australia are hobbyists, Thomas included.
He mainly breeds non-venomous spotted, children's and Stimpson's pythons and learned most of what he knows from books and online forums, though breeding how-tos can be found all over YouTube these days.
"It's pretty simple," he said.
Fatten up the female, put a male in her enclosure, and if they hit it off she'll lay a clutch of eggs a few weeks or months later.
That's usually when breeders like Thomas take over.
He moves the eggs from the enclosure into home-made incubators constructed from damp kitchen sponges and plastic grating in Sistema containers.
He checks the eggs daily to make sure they're developing and the incubator conditions are ideal.
Mat from Killer's Pythons, also in NSW, does things a little differently.
"We use old wine fridges with double glass doors so we can see inside without opening it and letting the heat out," he told 9news.
The fridges are gutted, then fitted with heating cords and thermostats to control the temperature while the eggs incubate.
Once they're ready to hatch, the baby snakes use their egg tooth to cut a hole in the egg and wriggle free, though Mat usually cuts the hole wider to help them out.
Then it's a case of waiting for each hatchling's first shed, putting them into individual tubs, and teaching them to eat.
The cost of a clutch
Feeding baby snakes can cost a small fortune.
They eat thawed frozen mice, which can cost from $0.70 to almost $4 per mouse, and each snake needs one mouse every seven to 10 days.
Mat buys in bulk from private rodent suppliers to save money, as pet shops often charge "more than double" what they do.
Thomas does the same but if he has just 100 hatchlings, a single round of feeding will set him back a minimum of $70.
Most breeders won't sell hatchlings until they've taken 10 unassisted feeds, so that quickly becomes $700.
More, if some refuse to eat.
"I've had babies that haven't eaten for eight months before," he said.
"It's quite frustrating."
Breeders have to be budget-savvy in other areas to offset feeding costs, so DIY-ing incubators and hatchling enclosures out of household staples is common.
Thomas swears by cheap Sistema containers, while Mat hunts Facebook Marketplace for broken wine fridges and gets other supplies from Coles and Bunnings.
"One incubator probably cost me about $150 to $200 to build, including the broken cooler, some heat cord, a thermostat and screws and fittings," he said.
By the time a hatchling is ready for sale, breeders will have poured hundreds into raising it – and they don't always make that money back.
In it for the love of the game
The average spotted, children's or Stimson's python hatchling can sell for $200-$300, but some colour morphs (patterns) go for much more.
"If we get lucky with genetics we can have snakes worth thousands," Mat said
But he doesn't breed snakes to make money.
"For us, it's purely a hobby, I don't think we even break even to be fully honest."
Few breeders make enough profit to do it full-time and even Thomas barely breaks even at the end of a big breeding season.
They just do it for the love of the animals and the chance to create exciting new morphs.
"It's hatching out things that no one's ever hatched before, that's what's really rewarding for me," Thomas said.
More Aussies are starting to see the appeal, too.
More snakes entering Aussie homes
Snakes have become more popular pets since Thomas and Mat started breeding years ago.
Reptile ownership in Australia jumped from 2 per cent of households in 2019 to 3 per cent in 2025 according to Animal Medicines Australia's Pets in Australia study, and social media has helped shine a spotlight on snakes.
"There's definitely a big interest there and more people are definitely getting into it," Thomas said.
Reptile expos are also popping up all over the country, giving breeders the chance to connect with customers face-to-face and educate the next generation on the hobby.
With about 200 known species of snake in the country, Aussies can never know too much.
"The more we can educate people about snakes, the less we'll see the 'a good snake is a dead snake' mentality," Mat said.
"And the less we will see people getting bitten."
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