Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have several yellow bellies and are curious who even thinks they are worth what they are asking? We have a small operation and have at least 5 but were unaware untill now of there worth? We have seen the for as little as 1900 up to 15000 and we are confused why they are so important and we are not sure what we want to do with them. They seem to have some part in luistics but we are new to genetics. confusing question but just lookin for info or opinions on them. thanks scott

Until you prove them out.
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but more about what the fuss is about? We have a couple that will go this year and a few others: and i am to be honest dumb about what the use is and am just fishing for info. thanks

Because if you weren't looking for prices, why did you ask about their prices in your original post? LOL! Very strange.

What's the fuss about you ask? Just like you already stated, the fuss is that maybe they're connected to a very pretty all-white snake. Therefore they are worth more. But you have to prove it, unless your game is suckering innocent dumb people out of money.

Dude,
So you are saying that cinnamon pastels, mojaves, ghosts, albinos, pieds, and all other morphs if found in the wild should be considered at normal prices till someone proves it out>
How about all these breeders whom bought animals out of africa for tens of thousands with no proven genetics, not even previous breedings in the U.S. , those should be priced as normals till they prove out???
The term Yellowbelly is in itself a not so good name as technically there bellies arent even yellow, they may have yellow here and there but there bellies are not yellow. They are usually pure white with ringer spots here and there on the belly.
Yellowbellies were first proven to be co-dom by Amir here in Miami.
He bred an adult male to several normals and produced identical offspring to the father. Next thing was Mark Bell bred a similar one to a pastel and got extremely gorgeous pastels. And so Did Morton Wright.
Amir has this year produced more so has Morton.
I do not know if Mark Bell produced any yet.
If they do prove to produce a white snake then they are priceless. If they dont then the combos that can be crossed with the "yellowbelly" , which by the way was first named Lemon ball, will be incredible as I doubt many of you have seen the yellowbelly pastel. It is a extremely pretty pastel that hasnt really darkened as an adult.
I was there to help Amir slit the first yellowbelly eggs and it is co-dom.
Now back to where everyone thinks they have a yellowbelly,
there are many factors to them and having a yellowbelly is not one of them/
Take a look at Ben Siegels captive produced animals, those are REAL yellowbellies. I have only seen about 3-4 good ones on kingsnakes ads, but like pastels it could be variable as to how extreme they can be. They have an orangish ting to them, not a pure yellowbelly.
So in my own opinion if it has all the tell all marks of a yellowbelly, then it is. If it has a yellowbelly, then more than likely is not as they dont have that in reality.
Alot goes on behind the scenes within breeders/importers, etc that the public only learns of and usually a twisted version of it. But in all fairness, there is a ton more about these animals and others that the public really doesnt understand as they just read about it most of the time here in the forums or classifieds.
I have looked at the ads on kingsnake and right now there is only two posted that are true yellowbellies, the others imo are just nice blushing sided animals.

there is alot more to them than you may think,
Mike
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"Quality isn't Quality without customer service so I guess I sell quality"

Name a single morph (other than albino) that was sold for big bucks by the breeders BEFORE being proved out. Just curious if you can name one of them.

You asked

I mean, every other leucistic animal proved out. Its not like he was selling completely unrelated animals that had yellow-ish bellies. I would think that a "het lucy" is a pretty sure thing. Don't you?

And I know I asked. I was the one that asked. LOL!

..

How much did he sell het pieds for before they were proven? Did he sell them only to other breeders who were willing to chance it? I thought he kept most of them.

Thanks
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CB

"I post because I'm bored"

I thought that people approached Pete that wanted in on the project, but I never saw him solicit them in the classifieds before he proves them out (1997 Reptiles Magazine).

Yeah, and I'm fairly sure he didn't get the largest most diverse collection of pieds by selling his hets the first few years, but I could be wrong, happens all the time...LOL.
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CB

"I post because I'm bored"

And same here.

You can sell unproven animals all day long.....that's peoples right. You just need to accurately advertise them that way....then people can decide if they want to take the calculated risk.

What's wrong is selling something as proven when in fact it is not. But I can say I have a unproven "Yellow Belly" for sale and show a hundred pics and communicate why I think it is. The the buyer can make an educated decision from there.

The huge breeders don't buy proven animals out of Africa. Every single purchase they make is a calculated risk assessment. Sometimes this results in huge profit.....while other times a loss.

But.....if someone is out their misrepresenting the status of an animal....BUYER BEWARE.
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

Yes, it is buyers choice, but do not claim the animal to be able to produce a white snake unless you know for sure, thats the part that gets me. For all we know at this point, is some yellowbellies produce white snakes, and others are dom/co-dom for the yellowbelly itself. I would be very suprised to see all yellowbellies produce a white snake in the super form, but thats what makes it so exciting I guess, "you never know".

Everybody has an opinion on this & no one is more correct than the other until its all figured out.

JMO
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CB

"I post because I'm bored"

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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

The Sutherland's were selling male het for stripes from their, at the time, unproven imported stripe. I believe this would qualify as an unproven import having hets sold without having the line proven.

In an article about the latest Ball morphs, it states that the most expensive snake ever purchased (again March 2002) was a Black Eyed Leucistic Ball Python, which cost $150,000.00, and it does not state that it was CH or WC I know this doesn't help much but with what the article says who knows?!
It is amazing that according to Rep. Mag. just 2 years ago there was only 23 recognized anomalous colors and patterns/morphs in the Ball Python community (and this is their list!):Albino, Caramel Albino, Pale-Albinos, Paradox-Albinos, Burgundy-Albinos, Lavender-Albinos, Axanthic, Snow, Striped, Clown, Spider, Pastel, Opal, Melanistic, Jungle, Labyrinth, Spot-Nosed, Ghost, Desert-Ghost, Mystery-Ghost, Woma, Bengal, and Leucistic.
I think Reptiles Magazine should do a update!!!

A whole lot of them. Also realize this, back when alot of these snakes were first coming in and people were paying good money for them, even if they were not proven, the pricing strucure was totally different,
Think of it this way.......lets say pieds were not proven yet.
Lets say pete proved them today, proving they are recessive, etc.
Today for the first ones he could ask 50k and GET it.
Pricing was slightly lower, less people were into balls then now, etc
What would you rather buy a pied or a cinnamon? Pieds are cheaper than cinnamons! That is jut wrong! lol.
Didnt Ralph buy hets and poss hets before the pieds were proven? I am pretty sure pete had extra male visual pieds than females at the time and probably bred them to tons of normals.
Thus making lots of hets, and then when his females bred he probably bred pied to pied and pied to het female, and het male to normal, etc thus producing more.people bought at the time considered "poss" hets as it was unproven at the time.

Didnt people get in on caramels before they were proven? buying hets?
alot of morph "hets" sold before they were proven. But the pricing back then was far less than now. Back then I dont think anyone would pay 150k plus for a leucisitic ball, hell the first one found went to japan for 50k if i am not mistaken, and we all know japs always pay alot more for things than we do here.
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"Quality isn't Quality without customer service so I guess I sell quality"

It didn't just "appear" that you were asking for pricing info, but you actually ASKED twice. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but I have a het for albino with a yellow belly but I wouldn't dream of asking more than the price of a "het" without proving it to be more than that.

Paul
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12.7 Ball Pythons (various types)
1.0 Super Tiger Reticulated Python
1.0 Motley Cornsnake
0.1 Bubblegum Snow Cornsnake
0.1 Lavender Albino Kingsnake
0.1 Candycane Cornsnake
0.1 Leucistic Texas Ratsnake
2.1 Siamese Cats
0.1 Wife

They have never been for sale i must have miss posted arghh

I never posted them and have no plans to why would you insinuate im trying to rip some one off? Great mind set.

Not at all. I'm saying that there are people out there that are tapping in to this yellow-belly craze and could be ripping people off and that its better to prove out what you have before selling or inquiring about a price for your unproven animals. Why is that so hard to understand? More importantly, why are you taking offense to that? That's just weird. and not cool weird. Weird weird.

Sorry but thats what it seemed like: if not my bad, no worries here but thanks for every one giving me info

Frankly, Jeff I thought you were a little rough with your second post toward this guy.....just my perception based on the interpretation of the words you put on the page. I'm sure you did not intend to insinuate the guy is a thief.....but I can see how he may have misinterpreted the message you intended to send.

Look below..........

Jeff, these are your words in the second post on this thread, "What's the fuss about you ask? Just like you already stated, the fuss is that maybe they're connected to a very pretty all-white snake. Therefore they are worth more. But you have to prove it, unless your game is suckering innocent dumb people out of money."

You last sentence above.......using "You" and "Your" leaves the impression you are speaking directly to him and thus challenging his character and intentions regarding his Yellow Bellies.

Just a little feedback.......I'm sure your intention were not negative......LOL
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

Thanks again jim and jeff no worries im over it: not a big deal. back to balls

As I said, there was no harm intended. I said, "IF that was your game to sucker innocent people". Not "its sgoodson's game to sucker innocent people". Two COMPLETELY different statements. But again, its the internet, and no one can tell how you are saying something (tone, etc etc).

Happy Herping!!
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

I misread the original post, it was a bit confusing. LOL!
And some good points have been made, but in MOST instances/examples given, the wild-caught morphs were extremely visible specimens that were very different then the wild-type color/patterning. That said, I have to soften my stance a bit on the overpricing of unproven wild ball pythons: It is a free market and if someone is willing to pay the price asked then it's their right and business.

Paul
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12.7 Ball Pythons (various types)
1.0 Super Tiger Reticulated Python
1.0 Motley Cornsnake
0.1 Bubblegum Snow Cornsnake
0.1 Lavender Albino Kingsnake
0.1 Candycane Cornsnake
0.1 Leucistic Texas Ratsnake
2.1 Siamese Cats
0.1 Wife

Yellow Belly....Yellow Belly...Yellow Belly

The ever mysterious....out of no where largest 2004 topic within the Ball world. What is up with this morph??? Where did they come from??? Who originated the "Yellow Belly"??? Why are they so special...$10,000 to $25,000 special that is???

Well the short answer is simple¡K..They are the CODOM path to all white balls!!! It certainly isn't a secret anymore that is for sure. Why do you think the axanthic market is virtually stagnant¡K¡KBecause the double recessive path to snow is simply the hard way now. Leucistics balls are whiter then snow...you can't get more white then Lucy!

Let me start by saying in no way am I an expert on this topic, and therefore I'm sure that 100% of my comments will not be perfectly accurate. However as both a producer and buyer of balls I have generated some thoughts on the whole yellow belly neighborhood.

I believe that we have been shipping "Yellow Bellies" for years....we just didn't know it. How many breeders breed two normal looking snakes together for the heck of it¡K..not many. Look at VPI....just because they decided to breed to like in appearance normals and....POW!...LUCY!

I also believe that since they have been under are nose for some time now that people have adult "Yellow Bellies" sitting in their collections. I also think that many are smart enough given the recent events to know that. A number of people had cinnamons and looked at them as normals until the pewter.

That all said, I do think that it's very difficult to automatically claim one has a "Yellow Belly" by visual appearance only. Ultimately, the line must be proven before it is sold as one unless you put some series disclaimers on the animal.

Currently I see three things cooking with this whole leucistic drama:

ƒæ Blue Eyed Leucistic (Ralph Davis¡K.Vin Russo)
ľ Black Eye Leucistic (Eric Davies out of the UK first produced this to my knowledge....VPI, NERD, and others have one)
ľ Ivory (Snakekeeper) Technically I don't know if this is a Lucy....but it is CODOM and a very light tan. They have hets for sale right now.

Because of the above, Yellow Bellies certainly are not all the same...we have some different lines cooking here and probably more to prove out in the very near future. You've got Yellow Bellies, Fireballs, het Ivories, Phantoms, Platinums and I believe the super for Mojave will be LUCY..... I believe the Phantom X Phantom will be LUCY (Ralph has one Phantom X Phantom egg to find out this year).....not proven but just a theory. Many combination are ending up¡K¡K¡KALL WHITE. In my opinion.....Blue eyed Lucy is the sharpest!

You think you have a group of Yellow Bellies¡K¡K¡KSWEET! You may be right. Your not the only one¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

sorry.....some of the verbage got jacked when I pasted this in from WORD....
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

Jim,

I was just curious about something you said in your post.

What makes you think that a super Mojave will be a LUCY?

Just curious I guess.

Thanks for any response.

Steve Hammack
www.hisss.net
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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me

Because the Mojave and the Phantom are so close to eachother in appearance.....and we know phantom X Lesser Platty = Lucy.

What do you see Morph King breeding.....Lesser Platty X Mojave. Why.....because I believe they think they will hit
a Lucy if they havn't already.....just like Ralph did on the Lesser Platty x Phantom cross. Ralph proved this year that he doesn't need the Phantom to produce Lucys....he did it independently with the platty line. Soooo.....I believe he will also indepently do it in the Phantom line. If the Phantom line kicks lucys.....then I believe the mojave line will as well.

All these animals seem to fall within this "Yellow Belly" puzzle.

Take it for what it's worth....all theory at this point. Either way....I just love watching the story unfolding.
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

Thanks they are not for sale and we are just trying to get some info. Thanks for stepping up and giving me some details!