Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have seen some posts and heard some talk from people new to reptiles and new to Ball Pythons in particular, that think they have missed the boat.

I have to say, now is probably one of the best times to get into breeding Balls. In the past, those with limited funds were limited to purchasing Hets, Possible Hets, several normal females and/or, maybe, a Pastel male.

In todays market, a small tax return can buy you ten fold what it would have even a few years ago. I think in the past, some people bought what they thought they could make money on, and not what they actually liked. With the plummeting prices, most morphs are on a much more level playing field, with similar prices, so now you can buy what you really like, and probably in Homozygous form.

If you are thinking about getting your feet wet, I have a few suggestions to keep it FUN, and maybe make you a few bucks. This advice is just mine, other's might have totally differet views, and I doubt there is really a wrong way to start...

1-I would say most of the people in this hobby with sour attitudes overspent, or borrowed money from friends or relatives, with the expectation of quick money from breedings. They promised quick paybacks to the people they borrowed from, and if the first year did not go as planned, they were left explaining why they could not make their payments. There are many factors that can make your year less than you were hoping for, and if you have a deadline when you owe money, and no snakes, it is not going to be fun. I would not put snakes on your Credit Card unless you can pay it off immediately, and not charge a high dollar snake with the expectations of breeding it, and selling the offspring, to make your payments. Remember, you are going to have up and down years in all likelyhood, and Visa does not take snakes as payment!

2-Get a good rack first. If you have no housing, and a $300 first year budget, get your rack, and then look at buying snakes. You do not want to have a hatchling rack, and a few babies you just bought, and have not money left to buy adult racks.

3-Start slow! Having 100 snakes does not make you a breeder. Get a small number, do not fill your rack completely up, and take your time, enjoy the snakes you just bought. Snake projects are like big puzzles. Find out what you like, and piece together your breeding projects. So you like Clowns, and have very limited funds. Buy a Het female and you probably will get a het male for free. If and when the price is right, add a male Pastel Het Clown, or femlae Pastel possible Het Clowns....add a Ghost female to make Double hets , or Possible double hets.....

4-Make crosses! If you buy 10 normal females and a Pastel male, you are going to produce a large number of Pastels, maybe more than you can sell. So, you advertise, feed, advertise, feed, feed, try to sell them, and it does not work. So, inevitably, you lower your prices, and keep lowering them because you are tired of feeding all the babies....remember, Pastel x normal gives Pastel and normals. Could be alot of mouths to feed.

4A-My opinion, your first snakes should be female Pastel, female Cinn, and whatever else you want. I would not go out and buy a 20 lot of normal females, for what you could get a female Pastel and a female Cinn for, or two Pastels.

Get what you like, do not overspend, and you will have a blast!

Dave

That's funny you should mention female pastel and female cinnies for first snakes. That is exactly what I bought, along with a spider male. I've had 1 ball python for about 6 years which has never been sexed, but at almost 4 feet long and 1450 grams I'm hoping it turns out to be female. I'm not in this for the money, that part is just a bonus. It's basically my mid-life crisis hobby
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Computer geek by day, snake lover by night
.1 Jungle Pastel
1.0 Spider
as yet unknown 6 year old BP

The big picture is that the economy will dictate what happens to the pet trade. The longer that we go with a bad economy, high unemployment, inflation, etc.,etc., that will dictate that most consumers do not have as much "extra" spending cash for reptiles and will limit the growth and scope of this industry.

It is also a very rapid cycle industry. The market saturates on brazilian rainbow boas for example, they drop to $35-40 each wholesale, people do not want to breed them to sell them so cheap so they move to other animals. Less brazilians are produced, prices shoot up to $75-90 wholesale just a couple seasons later. This cycle is typical of almost every animal common to the trade (I am not talking about rare or hard to breed animals).

So with those two things in mind you look at the kingsnake classifieds and you see exactly that, market saturation is causing lower prices, lower prices are driving many people to sell their animals, the poor economy is keeping many great deals up on the board for sale much longer than they previously ever would have been because people do not have cash to spend. You are now also seeing people with nice higher end ball pythons that were holding out for good money cracking because they need the cash and the prices are getting cheap on many harder to find combo moprphs.

All these pressures are going to do to reptiles pretty much what they are doing to most industries in our country right now, it is an amazing buyers market but buyers are hard to find because cash is tight! No more people mortgaging their home or business to buy snakes. No more bank loans for starting a herp business or a pet shop. If you see the same situation in homes, cars and other major purchases, you will see it on reptiles where the money is maybe more important to pay bills than to buy snakes.

Amen brother.....think it is hard in the snake industry right now, try selling houses for a living....talk about hurting....I am fortunate in that my normal job is booming right now so yes I am breeding and buying...(for a rainy day) I have found it is very easy to get the deal you want right now.

Do you mind me asking what you do? Just curious.

Refrigerated container shipping....lots of stuff going out of the country this year, seems the dollar ain't worth a $*#t so everyone overseas is buying from the U.S. now

The poor economy, high gas prices in particular, are actually HELPING the snake market! We are having a great year, and I attribute it to the fact that many folks simply cannot afford to take the family car on the annual vacation. Instead, they stay home and concentrate on their reptile collection.

Let's see-you can either fill up your SUV, or for the same money buy a hatchling pastel....
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....