Interesting thread this.



I have just bought two pair of hondurans to start breeding (1.1 hypo het albino and a anery het albino/albino het anery pair). So I will be a few years away from producing anything, but figured I give my two cents anyway. I decided to but them because they are beautiful in there own right and will produce some stunning offspring. That I will get to sell some of the offspring to recoup (hopefully after reading this thread) my expenses and maybe help pay for feeders mice help justify the original expense to myself.



Who knows what the cause of the price drop is. Certainly the economy is not great so how many people really have the money to spend on a >1000 snake. Then there are other arguments, the market is flooded with some morphs beause of lack of buyer desire/ability to pay and over production of the morphs. An earlier post suggested a really good reseason, the high market value was driven by breeders, who now are no longer in the market for some morphs; the new stable price, what ever it may be, will be what hobbyists with no real intent on breeding are willing to pay.



Are there any remeides to this situation? Other than limiting the number of morphs produced I dont see how you can keep prices from falling over time; prices which were probably artificial high beacuse breeders were buying the available high-end morphs. So the price drops (which may not even be long term, one off season does not predict next seasons prices) and more hobbyists will be able to buy the high-end morphs, demand goes up.



I worry, however, that the price of honduran morphs will go the way of the cornsnake (looking really long term here). I dont mind so much if they drop to 300 or so, then more people will be able to buy them . But, when the price drops to under 100 for a snake they become cheap enough to be "throw-away" pets.



Anyway, I may be new here and not an established personality but those were my thoughts on the subject.



Cheers,

Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

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