Exclusive: It’s snake breeding season and Jake Thomas’ house is about to be full of them.

Now Thomas and plenty of other breeders around the country are preparing for another big season.

He already has a few clutches of eggs incubating in his home in New South Wales and anticipates hatching anywhere from 150 to 200 baby snakes in the upcoming months.

“In 2021, I had 58 clutches and about 380 babies,” Thomas told 9news.com.au.

Many Australians might hesitate at the idea, but considering a single hatchling can sell for several hundred dollars, one clutch can earn an experienced breeder like Thomas a significant amount.

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 primarily breeds non-venomous spotted, children’s, and Stimpson’s pythons. Most of his knowledge comes from books and online forums, though nowadays breeding tutorials can easily be found on YouTube.

“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.

”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.

When the baby snakes are ready to hatch, they use their egg tooth to pierce a hole in the egg and wriggle out, although Mat often enlarges the hole to assist them.

Then it’s a case of waiting for each hatchling’s first shed, putting them into individual tubs, and teaching them to eat.

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 need to be cost-conscious in other ways to manage feeding expenses, so it’s common to make incubators and hatchling enclosures using household items.

Thomas relies on affordable Sistema containers, while Mat searches Facebook Marketplace for damaged wine fridges and obtains 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.”