Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If ball python mutations were at the same price level of cornsnake mutations! I wonder how many would keep working with them? I know I would

All you hear over and over again is money debates! Gets fargin boring after a while, if nothing positive can be said, then keep it shut

Brian A.

I definitely would. I used to keep boas and balls when I was younger. Like 8-16 or so. Then I sort of outgrew them and moved more into colubrids. Just to keep, not as breeding projects. As I got older, I actually thought I hated boas and balls, just for being so common. But the last few years I've been looking at everything from a breeding standpoint. I still don't have very much appreciation for boas but I'm totally in love with balls now after having them again for about 3 years. They can be challenging, which is actually a good thing. And there are so many variations now to collect, it's just impossible to run out of options with them. I'm a bigger fan of copperheads and retics in general but no other species can match what balls have to offer, as far as morphs and the ease of keeping many with limited space.

so you combat money debates by starting one.

Ummm, I think hobbyists and moneyists will be separated when pieds are sold for less than $2k. So, any day now...
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

why the hell has everything dropped so far this year? And like just within the last couple months. It seems like Daytona was the turning point for whatever reason. That does really suck but what can ya do?

I can't say that I'm familiar with corn pricing but I assume it's relatively low.

That being said - yeah - Id still be working with balls - I'd just have more morphs to work with - as it stands I'm only acquiring for beauty and my breeding plans are mostly centered around a variety of mixes - so the price of their offspring isn't really a fundamental issue for me aside from that it helps fund new acquisitions.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

I believe a very large number of people on Kingsnake and other such forums are driven solely or mostly by profit. This does not mean that these (profit driven) people don’t care for their animals correctly. I tend to believe the overwhelming majority on this site care for snakes FAR better than your average hobbyist does. I think it’s great that people make lots and lots of money through hard work, risk and dedication, which is what the people who are making money here are all about.

What I do feel is unfair is if someone makes observations like:

Why would I want to purchase a 700 gram Pastel male for $800, when I can get a 300gram one @ $275 and have him ready to go with similar results.

Or:

Why would I want to pay $1300 for a Het. Pied female, which is going to take three years to be of breeding size (if she’s fertile and wants to breed), when I can get a breeder sized Het Pied male (or three) @ $150 per, start breeding right away, and in three years have the same or greater potential for Pieds.

I am not saying observations like these are correct, but they might be? It does seem to me, however, there is a clique present here, that I believe for profit and money reasons, doesn’t like threads like these to be posted and tries to make the poster feel ignorant, isolated and unwanted on this board.

Just my humble opinion.

Like the corn snake market, there are now so many variations with Ball Pythons, triple-het. this and striped with a double indented spot that, they are losing their WOW factor and high out of the gate pricing already.

It's an exponential thing, by next year you will need an Excel spreadsheet to keep up with all the different variations. Your average hobbyist will be overwhelmed and will say to him or herself “I have enough variation in my collection to keep me happy”.

I am sure someone who loves corn snakes loves them and doesn’t care about the low prices and that’s a good thing as far as I am concerned.

Corns and ball pythons draw people like magnets. They're available in many different morphs and that excites people. Like me. Nowadays the most expensive corn morph might run you 1,500-2,500 dollars. Tops. And thats for a cutting edge first or second gen new morph. I have both corns and balls and I'm equally excited about each new pet and the possiblities of future breeding projects. Corns are just more affordable to most people. The possiblities are endless. This year or so I'll be working on breeding bloodred corns (a relatively expensive morph on the corn side) and I'm eagerly planning future generations. On the other hand, I may give my hand at breeding balls. I plan to buy a pastel in the near future.

Both are great pets with excellent dispositions. The more I learn about them the more I appreciate them. I think almost all day about when the next snake purchase will be.

You can't have just one...
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1.0 Green Iguana
1.0 Bearded Dragon
0.1 Blizard Leopard Gecko
1.1.1 Corn Snakes (2 Blood Red, 1 Orange Amelanistic)
1.1 Ball Python

when comparing the markets of corns and balls the number of mutations is about the only similarity involved. With corns you can get 40 eggs from each female yearly with very little trouble, I know of one breeder in South Carolina that produced 5 clutches of eggs that produced almost 80 live babies in one year from a female corn. That many clutches is rare from what I know of corns but double clutching is very very common. It is very easy to produce very high numbers of animals in a very small area. Most adult corns can be kept in 32qt tubs. On the other hand ball python females may produce 40 eggs in 5 years and that's a huge maybe. The size of tubs needed for adult females is a little larger thus cutting down on the number of possible animals in a facility. Egg incubation is not as tolerant of mistakes with any python egg as colubrid eggs are (my first clutch of eggs ever was a clutch corn eggs incubated on damp paper towels on my closet shelf 15 years ago).

Do I have a problem with the prices dropping to more affordable levels? NOT AT ALL. I look forward to the day when someone can buy a pied that they have been wanting for years without having to go deep in debt. With lower prices and increased production more people are able to add these incredible animals to their collections. The one aspect that I do not like is that as the prices drop, these animals will inevitably reach pet stores where these animals that we work very hard for are going to see the same dismal end that alot of the CH babies see every year, death by ignorance of store owners, employees and finally the buying public.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Alot of pet stores really dont give a crap about selling the animal at all. They look forward to selling/unloading to the novice on the other side of the counter the $400 dollars worth of accessories, ie: over priced bedding, bulbs, heat pads, rocks, sticks...it goes on and on.

It's about time somebody put the whole BP versus Corn thing into perspective. And you're right, the sad thing is eventually every morph will be in the hands of those in pet stores......we can only hope for the best.

A very large number of the African babies we import yearly end
up in the pet stores. They are not morphs so therefore not beautiful? Maybe their lives are less "valuable" than the "beautiful snakes" Maybe us normal people are less valuable than the "beautiful people" we see on tv. I'm not arguing either side here I just like to get people to stop and think about things. We all know that beautiful people get hired on jobs quicker no matter their level of expertise. (maybe not as a rocket scientist but you know in the majority of the jobs) Beautiful salespeople sell more product, get more money, get promoted.

Is beauty becoming the natural selection of the future?

So my real question is are the imported babies any less ball pythonish than the morphs and should we be upset when they end up in the pet trade? Actually the pet trade is the real reason all these babies are imported in the first place. The only reason we get to pick through these babies and decide which are valuable and which are not. The reason some kids get into the hobby in the first place. They remember the love they had for their first pet BP. It's a double edged sword. It can cut no matter how you look at it. Maybe we should place a few of the extra bucs we make by breeding in programs top educate the public, maybe spend a couple of hours in a school showing children how to have respect for and care for the animals they have. By being active participants in the move to educate people about caring for their reptiles maybe each person can actually make a difference.

wow you distorted everything that was said. No I don't think that morphs deserve to live more than normals. However we don't spend countless hours cleaning, feeding, housing, breeding for normals here. Sorry but that's the fact. All the normals that do hatch get top quality care equal to our morphs as we have to find good homes for them too. None of our animals get unloaded to the local pet stores nor will they ever. we have sold numerous normal ball pythons via the newspaper and each one has been hand delivered by me. Some of these people have lived up to 50 miles away and the cost of my time and the gas made the selling price almost free to me. This allows me to answer any question the buyer may have and to critique their set-ups and give advice. I also supply all buyers with a top quality food source for way below pet store prices so that these normals live excellent lives. so to assume that us breeders could care less about normals or the not as beautiful snakes is just wrong and we do feel sorry for the dismal end that alot of the imported animals meet. If we could buy them all we would but that's not possible or realistic.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

You should be railing against those who are raping the natural wild populations of thousands ands thousands of babies and adults every year.

There is no need for it, and if anything would bring prices up, NOT flooding the market with wild caught every year might help. Tens of thousands get tossed in the garbage for the outside chance of someone finding something genetically aberrant…

The fresh blood thing is a ‘red herring’ load of crap also.

If you read my post carefully you would see I was not accusing anyone. Not even the pet stores. Certainly not fellow breeders.
Like I said in my post. I just like to make people think.
My only points were that (and let me break it down for you)

1. Like it or not BP's are already in the pet trade.
2. The pet trade actually makes it possible for US (that means me too) to find new genetics or morphs to breed.
3. There is some bad and good in everything it is each persons intent and responsibility that make a difference.
4. The best way to combat cruelty to the animals we love is through education.

hmmmm they don't sound like evil ideas to me. It does not look like I am trying to blame anyone here either. I am not sure why anyone here would take offense to what I said. Unless they need to loosen their underwear a bit.