So I don’t know if this has ever been posted before but if it has then let me know. So, here is my question to all of you, where do all of you see yourself in the future with your collection? I am not referring to your desired projects you want to achieve but more so how you see your collection growing and if you plan on either downsizing, having a dedicated room or anything related to that. I myself plan on at least moving to a larger apartment within the next year so i can have a room purely dedicated to my animals and not have to prioritize as hard on what animals I would rather keep over others. I envision being able to just freely keep whatever i like without having to worry to much on space like I do now, and as many of you know my collection was stolen so this is why I thought about this topic in question. Please share your thoughts and ideas as always and stay safe out there everybody!
I’m hoping to get to the point where I can buy a place to turn into a shop. The town I moved into is pretty dead, and so there’s plenty of building space available for such a thing.
Right now I’d like to increase my rodent production enough so that I can feed my entire collection as well as have a surplus to sell to other people. The breeder I always went to for extra feeders recently closed their shop indefinitely so I’ll have to do something about it. Chain pet store feeders are outrageously expensive!
Good question 
My plan is somewhat similar to @trnreptiles but less around live animals and more around education, husbandry and enclosures.
A store where rather than buying a pre made square Viv (I plan to stock them aswel but put less emphasis on their sale) , I will come around to your home and measure your space and work with you to make it fit in with the rest of your furniture.
You want a pyramid shaped enclosure, made of glass with 2 layers? We can do that!
You want a old wooden wardrobe that opens up like reptile Narnia? We can do that!
You want a rack system in your courier van? We can do that!
I want to hold children’s educational shows eventually, where each one is based on a different region of the world and what the environment and animals are like there… And eventually do trips to safaris and such.
This is all many years away, but a youth club is opening up literally 2 minutes away from me and I have emailed them offering to take my snakes in and show them off and teach what I can… Even just to get the kids intrigued. I’m just waiting to hear back.
That is actually a great idea! I really like the idea with your plan to be a company that works with the customer to make whatever the customer has in mind. I also of course love that you want to do educational shows and such. The more kids that learn about the wonderful animals that we have in this world the better.
Where do I see myself in the future?
Once I have achieved all my goals which means I will likely be doing this for another 13 to 16 years I will slowly retire like any person with a normal job would.
I will still own a few reptiles that are dear to me because I don’t believe you can ever be out completely when you have done this for so long and are really passionate about it, but I will no longer breed.
So nothing will change really in the next few years.
Well I’m glad that you will be sticking around for a good while longer Deb 
Well I am old but not that old and I have been here for the long run 14 years already as a breeder 
Future plans for myself would be focused around retics as many of you know.
I plan to keep building my retic collection, and like Tom hopefully will be able to share my love of snakes with younger generations and especially kids. Hopefully I can hold educational and informational events subjected around retics, as I believe they are very misunderstood as a whole.
I’d like to introduce people to retics in the future by making them affordable to everyone. I believe many snakes are overpriced( and yes I know the work and time it takes for projects to see fruition) but I’d like to lower the industry standards by asking less for the animals we produce. Hopefully in time more will follow my lead and understand the less we charge for these animals, the more people will be able to afford this terrific hobby. And I believe the more people we have keeping reptiles as pets, the greater our hobby will be.
Also I’m working on a husbandry book focused around the species I’ve kept and had success with. That’s a long way out and will most likely be finished in 10-15 years as I’m still gathering information on the last species I have to add, retics. I’ll need at least a decade with them to be confident in translating that into a book for others to read and learn from.
MM started out for me as a hobby, but it slowly grew to where it filled all available time beyond my day job and my family. As such by the end of 2016 I had to sell off most of my reptiles, ironically.
Since then we’ve had a few family reptiles, such as my daughter’s beardie rescue named Buddy.
However, I am excited to now be at a place where things are changing, and I foresee having the time again to begin keeping a small collection. I will have to put a lot of thought into what those few animals will be!!
After my second kidney transplant in 10 years i am hoping this is what i get to continue to do, I enjoy it and hope my business will continue to grow and help pay some of the bills. 
I would love to have a small ball python breeding business down the road, and while I doubt I’ll make much, it would be great to at least break even. I wouldn’t want it to turn into much more than a hobby, but would still love a big enough collection to have a reptile room or small outbuilding for my snakes and feeders. I really enjoy ball pythons and the genetics aspect is just so cool, so I’d love to grow with the hobby and get into some higher end morphs.
Realistically right now though I’m due to finish my doctorate and start having to look for a job in about a year from now (anyone want to hire their own in-house, full-time geneticist??), which will likely involve moving halfway across the country. So in the meantime I’m trying to keep my collection pretty small and only buy females with at least one recessive trait because I don’t know what the job market and economic landscape will look like a few years from now. It would be nice to be poised to either jump into breeding or have marketable breeding sized females that will sell in the event of an uncertain future when that time comes.
I know this post is hella old. But I just found it and it’s something I like to think about. So here’s my deal. All our animals are basically my kids. 2 dogs. 4 cats. 4 snakes. 5 geckos. 30 or so Tarantulas/spiders/mantids a tortoise. And just like kids I just wanna see em grow happy and healthy. Into bigger nicer enclosures that support their growth and change. Species wise, our house will be built by then on our land and I’ll finally have to space to work with some larger species of animals. Primarily I’d like to get into Rhino Iguanas larger breed tortoises some pond turtles and some smaller monitor species.
I hope to breed high end boas and various types of snakes that I am interested in
My plan is to expand my rodent production to meet the demand for healthy ASFs in my area. After that, I think I am going to save up to expand into quail, honeybees, and potentially rabbits. This will be on top of the BP and boa projects I’m currently working on (over 30 snakes strong!)
My eventual dream is to breed animals for conservation purposes, especially threatened snake species.
Simple…Buy house with a big back yard…construct a reptile room out back and add to my collection. These animals will be what keep me busy when I retire.
All threads by me will always get a response no matter how old 
I love threads like that, they just continue to live on
Show off LOL! I kid I kid.
Future plans would be to move somewhere larger and to build a bigger outbuilding/Reptile house.
We already converted our Outhouse entirely into a reptile room. Mainly crested geckos with 33 now, but ideally want to carry on breeding our ‘high end’ Cresties and expanding the collection but there’s only so much room here along with all other animals! And with all ours being in bio vivs, they take up more room than a lot of other breeders I know who use tubs, but I don’t agree with them personally… May as well give them the best lime possible if you’re going to keep them in your care, I love each and everyone one 
They’re all named and handled constantly
Also I would love to have more fat tails, I have a pair of striped amels atm just been paired up and a younger Whiteout Zulu ‘white socks’ het Oreo. (Not paired) They’re wonderful so would love to get more for future plans I have in mind
And maybe also get my Banana Royal a female Banana friend! But unfortunately no room currently for another big ol viv!
But that’s the ideas atm 
I see myself having quite a few snakes, lizards, and other exotic pets with a small western hognose breeding project on the side. Especially since I want to be a herpetologist I feel like I would be working with them a lot even if they aren’t my own collection.