Could be because an individual person isn't capable of or looking to own DOZENS of dog or cat breeds.

With low maintenance pets like herps, an individual is capable of owning dozens, and even hundreds, of herps.

One factor that stands out to me when I think about the ups and downs in the Ball market is VARIETY of choice.

If a Ball keeper 'grows tired' of looking at their normals and decides they want a morph, they have sooooo many choices.

It's not like back in the mid to late 90s when you had virtually ONLY recessives (albino, caramels, hypo, pied, clown, axanthic...pastel being the only co-dom for awhile) to select from. You could pony up $7500 for an albino or 'accept' your normals and wait for prices to come down.

Nowadays? Well, look at all of the quickly re-produceable doms and co-doms.
Pastels, Spiders, Mojaves, Cinnamons/Blk Pastels, Lessers, Butters, Pinstripes, Calicos, Granites, YellowBellies, Womas, Fires, Sables, Harlequins, Het Red Axanthics, Spotnoses, Vanillas, Thunders, Vin Russo's het Blue-eyeds, and so on.

What about when the OTHER proven co-doms become more common or available to the general public? (You know, Ralph's Phantoms, the Bells' non-hybrid Angolan Balls, BHB's Chocolates, Jared's Apricots, Shatter Patterns, Ian Gniazdowski's Red Stripes, Oz's Orange Dreams, and on and on and on.... )

In my opinion, it's not so much that one particular 'sub-market' (ie: Mojave or Pastel) has become saturated or over-produced but the entire Ball Python genre that's currently saturated as much by freedom of choice than one particular morph.

While there ARE people who will pay $25K for a snake as a pet, the more common person is looking to make atleast make their money back.
I can't help but chuckle when I see a classified for a rarer combo morph (HoneyBee, Spinner, just to give examples) and the seller says 'demand for this snake will be strong for years to come'.
Why the chuckle? Because, if $800 snakes aren't selling quickly who are you to look into the future and tell me that $20K and up snakes will have demand? I'm sure I'm not the only person who laughs at these advertisements...

Just some lazy Saturday afternoon musings....

Suppertime! Mmmm, cheddar chive & garlic smashed potatos! C'est bonne!

BB




-----
"Have you hugged your drummer today?" --- Me

[ Show Entire Thread ]