man, if the petstore paid $3.25 per normal ball python and is selling them for $50, what a high markup that is....
Part of the reason normal males are not valuable (or are just so plentify for sale) is that people who do not buy ball pythons strictly because they just want a nice snake for a pet (ie don't want to breed, even for fun) don't see profit in keeping a bunch of normal male ball pythons. Much cheaper to buy a male morph (ie pastal, spider, other co-doms or even recessives) and breed him to a bunch of $50 (or less) normal females, than say, buying 5 normal male ball pythons and a pastal female, spider female, etc. and breeding one male to one female.
Course, the 'poor man's' breeding program could consist of one normal female and one normal male ball python, breed together, keep all female offspring, sell off all males for whatever they can for male babies (selling to people who don't intend to breed etc). After a couple years, sell half their one year and two year old females so they can use that money to buy a male pastal, then breed him to his remaining 2-3 year old females, selling pastal male babies and working up from there to other cool morphs.
Or, you can buy a bunch of really low cost male normal ball pythons and hope whoever sexed them really didn't know how to do it right or didn't know what to look for when popping (I do believe that females have pores or bumps that can pop out and look a bit like a hemipenis to somebody who really knows what they look like, or am I thinking of corn snakes), thus resulting in a couple missexed females.
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PHLdyPayne
