Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been doing some thinking on this subject lately. I have no problem with what type of animals choose to keep as that is their business. But, from a purely objective standpoint, I wonder how reducing the number of WC or CH animals would affect the ball python market. Due to the fact that so many people own and breed ball pythons, I tend to think that there are plenty of high quality normals available to meet the demand for people who just want a normal and beautiful snake.

Maybe the higher quality animals would decrease the number of people who end up with diseased or non eating snakes. Also, it would make the price a little higher. I guess the low price is the catalyst for the importation of ball pythons by the thousands. I do not have a problem with importing morphs, but I do think there are enough normals to go around.

Like I said, I have no problem with what anyone chooses to keep, just thought it might be an interesting subject to kick around.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

there a plenty of cb normals to support the hobby, but the growth of the hobby might slow down alot.

the biggest effect would be on big chain petstores selling wc balls to people who dont have a clue. but a few of those will end up in the hobby.

with no new wc balls less people would buy on impulse and then neglect or dump the snake
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jake barney
1.1 ball pythons
0.2 corns
1.0 cal king
0.0.1 wc garter
1.o cb son

If you just look at Petsmart and Petco alone, they buy tens of thousands of normal baby African hatched ball pythons each year alone. There is no way anyone in the USA can supply them without importing animals.

No chance that there are even close to enough CB snakes to meet demand. I personally don't think there is a need to import adults, but there is a need for CH.
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John Vandegrift

I don't see any reason to own a WC or CH. I will always own CBB. I heard that they import something like 500,000 baby balls into the United States, every year. Where do they all go? I would say most, if not nearly all, die. They do this so people can find one or two new morphs a year.

Most aniamls sold the past 10 years as cbb are ch. You are way off on your numbers as well. There is no where near 1/2 million a year coming in. There are not even CITES permits for evene close to half that.

Your numbers are ridiculously off, and importing CH snakes has nothing to do with finding morphs. There are a lot of people out there that own a BP strictly as a pet that have never even heard of places like KS or other reptile sites.
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John Vandegrift

people want cheap.......at $3 each for picked through 10 times ,skinny males.....they are happy.....buy more so some live is their motto....

you would have to ban every ball from importation not just normals......

and we have enough balls here to do that.......it would help us alot....

......but if you ban one thing it opens the door for untold problems .......
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what you want for a dollar...............???????

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They are going to be imported regardless of what anyone thinks. This is a multi-million dollar African industry, and being the sustainable resource it is, it would take alot for anyone on either side of the Atlantic to give it up.