Trends in the reptile market come and go. I'm suprised that the Ball morph market's bottom hasn't dropped out yet.

I personally believe it's a combination of many factors. A majority of the people purchasing these outragious ball morphs are newer to the hobby...say, less than 5-8 yrs. in the hobby (IMHO- although some big time breeders have sold out to follow the ball trend). People just getting into the hobby read alot...everything they read is telling them that other than a cornsnake, a ball python is the best "pet" snake they can own (smaller size...esp. compared to most beginner snake books that say boas grow to 12'...which they do... but usually they are much smaller). Almost every pet store they enter is selling balls (more common these days in pet shops than boas). It's all about balls, balls, balls...

In turn these hobbyists get a little money and buy a ball MORPH (or even a so called "morph"...I put this in quotes because most aren't true morphs... I've picked through shipments of 100's of animals and could have made up names for a dozen new morphs 10 years ago)... then the downward spiral begins- slowley more and more money is invested into balls and it seems they are blind to any other species availiable. Just take a look at some of the webpages of ball breeders...they JUST breed ball pythons only (Oh course Jeff started this thread and he only breeds B.c.i. to the best of my knowledge...although his boa breeding video does show anacondas breeding in the beginning).

Hobbyists these days are a different breed...it used to be mainly children, bikers, etc....nowadays it's families, professionals, "investors",etc... these people have more money and are willing to spend it on so called INVESTMENT animals.

I could be completely off, but that's just my opinion. I believe when the ball market crashes, it's going to crash really hard. If there is one thing I've learned from the hobby is you'll never get rich from breeding animals (with a few exceptions)...Keep the animals that you love...if you love ball pythons, then power to you...keep them and enjoy them.

Graham

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