Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I Can't tell you how sick this market has turned since people (outsiders) came in and threw their bug bucks into just another HOT investment. They came, made their impact on the hobby and are slowly pulling out with their tails between their legs. This huge wave has has some positive effect for the true fans of the hobby. It produced huge number of morphs in a short time and it dropped the prices of once super high dollar morphs that were out of reach for the average hobbiest. There were so many new morphs comming out in the same seasons that the supply was more than the demand for any one morph. This made the prices drop quickly.
In my opinion, I'm glad it happened because the true die hards, the people who get a trill in producing morphs that they love can afford to get into the projects they can really get excited about. For the true die hards money is not the main focas just a way to finance their own growing future projects. I have made money in breeding ball pythons because it's a passion of mine and the money allways went into producing new, exciting snakes. The goal is to have the hobby pay for it's-self and your personal collection's growth.
In the future our kids or grand kids will be able to go in a reptile store and be able to pick a ball python color morph of his choice out of hundreds of varieties for around the same cost.
Forgive me if my opinion is harsh. It's just honest
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I agree i am gettin a pair of het pieds soon a few years ago that was out of my range. The money from selling them (asuming i can sell them)is just extra incentive. Most of whatever i make will be going to my family to help pay for their house and future projects. I am keeping at least one from my first clutch because the piebald is my fav morph. I dont see me getting rich off of them just anticapating the day i hatch some piebalds and albinos and in the future maybe albino pieds. I also want to invest in some pastels in the future. Ohh i cant wait till i hatch a pied lol
B. Sleeper

one thing the bandwagoners didnt have so much an effect on is recessive morphs, and recessive crosses. they were in such a hurry that they focused more on codoms. thats why mojaves went from many thousands the many hundreds in two short years. sure, albinos are somewhat cheap, but they have been around for quite awhile too. double hets are still very expensive, and double homo recessive morphs arent even for sale yet by the breeders. just imagine the cost of triple het ghost x caramel albino x pied, not to mention the actual visual morph itself. BIG BUX. hopefully within 10 or 12 years i will have one, but i sure wont buy one, im going to produce my own. between now and then i will produce ghosts, pieds, and caramel albinos, and every type of het and double het and on and on and on. i guess my point is that recessives hold their value and are less attractive the get rich quick crowd. it will be awhile before a pied is a petstore animal, the way pastels are now.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm pied caramel glow.

That's right. If you would like the project you are working on to be able to pay for it's-self and a little extra to start another then have some resessive's in your collection. Even a Resessive/Co-dom project will hold a value for some time because the resessive gene is in the mix. That's why I have both. Not only to create some outrageous snakes but to ensure that long project is at lease able to pay for it's-self.
We have it lucky compared to most other hobbies. At lease our's can pay for it's-self at lease.

Morphbreeder's Collection page