First off, I can't really add much more to what my peers have said about the current hognose market and it's pricing, I think they all pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Hognose snakes are still relatively an unknown niche market that is quickly gaining ground as people want something a bit different than the typical colubrid or python in their collection. Hognose snakes are an interesting snake for many different reasons, they are rear-fanged, keeled scaled, have that unique rostrum for a nose, will sometimes hood like a cobra while emitting a hiss that will startle most people and some will even play dead. I can see the allure of these snakes that are finally winning the hearts of most keepers. After all, for colubrids, what kingsnakes, milk snakes or corn snakes come close to having any of those traits? Plus, we're now developing more exciting color morphs than were available even 5 years ago, so the possibilities are still quite new and exciting! For these reasons alone, hognose snakes are starting to gain in demand while the current overly flooded markets of corns, kings and balls have been waning these last few years.
As my peers have said, it's supply and demand. But even hognose have been hit by this recession, morphs that cost $4k 4 years ago are now being priced below $2k and not because there's a lot of those animals being put out there by other breeders, it's just that not a lot of people have that kind of money for expensive snakes these days. I'm just glad that hognose have not completely bottomed out, but that's mainly because there's just not as many breeders out there (yet) as there are for corns, kings and balls.
But in regards to reptile pricing in general, I think that a lot of pricing is really irresponsible. I mean, $25 for a kingsnake? What does that actually mean in the real world? It means that that animal has now become disposable. In other words, Dad takes Johnny to a reptile show, Johnny gets excited over all of the snakes, Dad buys him the cheapest snake knowing that Johnny probably won't take care of it let alone have any long lasting interest in it and above all, they don't even have the proper caging for the animal. So Dad buys it knowing that it's a small price to pay so that Johnny can be happy playing with it until it dies, after all, it was a fun "souvenir" from the reptile show.
My way of thinking is that all animals should be priced accordingly to keep this type of behavior and mentality in check. If the cheapest snake is $100, the chances are that the above scenario is going to happen is lessened a lot. The cheaper the snakes become, the more disposable they become and the less responsible the keepers become. Our industry is an unfortunate one because a lot of people get into breeding irresponsibly and solely for the money. A lot of people are only looking at getting into the next "best" thing to make a buck out of it, not necessarily because of their love for the animal. And when that particular species market subsides, those breeders are moving onto the next "best" thing. It happens all the time. Unfortunately, these same type of people are the ones that end up flooding and crashing the markets for those species while the rest of us are left picking up the pieces.
I've always been of the belief that hets are one of the problems plaguing the market. How so? Well, if you have a 100% het axanthic for $300 versus an actual axanthic for $2000, which do you think is going to sell faster? The het one of course. What happens now is that the actual price of the axanthic is severely bruised because in due time, more and more people are going to be producing axanthics having only invested $600 for a pair of animals instead of $4000 for a pair. Along the way of these het to het breedings comes along a lot of possible hets which are then sold for even less money, some even sold as normals for even cheaper which can ultimately prove out. So now even more people have these genes and have only paid a very minimal amount. Now the market is flooded with axanthics and the price has bottomed out. This is what I believe has happened with balls and corns along with the recession which has driven the pricing down even more. When hets are sold at fractional pricing, the actual value of the morph has just been devalued as well. The only ways I can think of to stop this is to either price hets accordingly high to help keep the value of the actual morph, not sell hets at all or to simply cull them. Just because you can breed it doesn't necessarily mean you should, the same as selling, just because you over-produced some animals doesn't mean you should lower the price to make room for more. This is what happens when hobbyists get into purchasing hets, they over-produce just so they can get that wanted morph and then flood the market with low-ball priced possible hets and it just keeps snowballing from there. I've read on a lot of forums about some established breeders now complaining that the cost of breeding and raising snakes is costing more than they can sell them for.
Now I know that my rational is not going to catch on nor that it will be popular amongst most people, but I can't think of any other way to really save our hobby and our marketplace unless we start thinking differently and stop making disposable pets and crashing our own market values on these animals. I'm not talking about price fixing, I'm talking about responsible pricing.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles
