I would say this, when someone asks the question, and is met with rude remarks from several people, too me, it just weeds out the guys not to buy from.



I will say the same thing I said awhile back that got moved to the business or market section of this forum. There are basically three people in the Ball game, the bigger breeders, the hobbyist breeder, and the newbies.



The big breeder usually has many years vested in snake keeping and breeding, which takes big dollars spent for caging, supplies, food, electricity, etc. They usually bought into the majority of the projects when the individual project was in its infancy, which means they paid the highest prices for the morphs when they bought them. The big breeders usually breed snakes for a living, relying on snake sales income to pay their bills. I think we hobbyists need to respect this, just as we respect our elders...



The hobbyist is pretty much what I would call myself. I own some very nice Balls, with a mixture of Het pairs and Homozygous animals. I breed the snakes to make vacation money and extra money for a pool, colored concrete at my house, maybe a Sunday driver vehicle. If I do not make a sale this year, my bills still get paid. I give myself a certain length of time to sell a certain animal at a certain price. If it does not sell in MY time frame, I will probably lower the price. I sold 24 out of 25 or my hatchlings from 06. Can I hold back animals, sure, but working a fulltime job means I want my snake duties to be as short as possible, which means less snakes, less cleaning time.



The newbies are people just getting into Ball breeding. These people are usually looking for the best price, and some will sacrifice quality for quantity. I was there once, but now prefer to buy only animals that I would call a 9 or 10 out of 10. I do not think we should knock people for looking for the best price, they will learn, you sometimes get what you pay for.



I think we all need to understand that breeders who rely on snake sales to pay their bills, and the time and effort it takes to be a top dog, front runner, and trailblazer in any given field is a time consuming job, and they should be commended and given a certain amount of respect. That said, the big breeder had better think twice about emailing people telling them that their price is too low. You can sell for what you can get. ME, with no real name recognition, might be able to get $500 for a snake that a big breeder could get $900 for. It is my perogative, to sell it for what I can get, or to hold onto it. I personally HAVE the space to keep back every snake I produce. I have purchased caging well ahead of my needs---which is amazing, usually I procrastonate big time. Bottom line, we all need to accept that a newbie wants a good price, and that the hobbyist might be able to sell cheaper, or more willing to sell cheaper, but the big breeder might have better stock on some snakes, and more education to pass on. We need to start acting like we are on the same team. People in all three catagories need to understand that we all have different needs, and expectations from this hobby/business.



Dave

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