Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi folks,

I've been away from the bp world for several years and recently adopted a nice little normal from a herp society. When I started roaming around on bp sites looking for updated info I was really shocked to see the prices of various morphs being produced. I'll admit it right now...I'm a (shudder) mere pet keeper. I enjoy my herps for their individual qualities rather than their reproductive potential. A snake's genetic purity would be sort of wasted on me. My questions for you breeders are:

Does anyone think about producing "pet quality" bps? I do NOT mean breeding mills as for dogs! Whether we like it or not simple pet owners are a large portion of the snake-buying public. It is one thing to offer genetically specialized animals for thousands of $$ to fellow collectors, but what about the new keeper or pet owner who does not breed and probably won't appreciate the investment (both genetic and monetary) such a snake is?

If we as keepers want to encourage snake buyers to choose cbb animals how can we realistically expect pet owners to fork out $1000 or more for such carefully cultivated animals? They may only care about the markings of their individual snake, its health and temperment. Het for whatever won't mean a thing.

Please don't get me wrong. I've worked with herps a long time and appreciate the time and effort that goes into designer morphs, even if I can't see myself buying one for pet purposes. And yes, I also appreciate the cost of establishing bloodlines etc. My little rescue deserves the same level of attention and respect as that high contrast albino. I just wonder if breeders are losing sight of a rather large segment of the herp public and unintentionally perpetuating the market for miserable imports.

Thanks for listening.

I produced my first clutch this year from a 50%PossHet albino bred to a normal. I wanted to sell the only male as a normal and keep the females to breed back to the PossHet sire to possibly prove him out. When I asked our local reptile shop if they were interested, the reply was that "We've never had a problem with farm-hatched ball pythons. They settle in, feed well, and accept handling as well as any captive-bred. We can get them for $12.00 each, and that's all we can realistically offer for yours." I've sold other reptiles I've produced to them in the past for reasonable prices, and I believe they were being very honest. For $12.00 each, you can't even pay for a year's rat food and bedding to raise your own rats to feed your breeder's and hatchlings, much less buy supplies incidentals along the way! So maybe you want to seek out customers who want captive bred...If they'll pay $50.00 each for captive bred normals, you've got to find those people. If they aren't local, the shipping will cost almost as much as the animal. What it comes down to is margin...Would you want to go to all that work to sell a $50.00 animal, or a $5,000.00 animal? JMHO
Paul

Its awfully hard to compete with imported baby balls coming in for as cheap as $5 or $6 dollars.The average person who just wants a pet, is usually the person who goes to every table at a show and buys the cheapest available ball. Trying to convince these people to pay $50 for a cb hatchling is like pulling teeth.Its not that the breeders are ignoring a segment of the ball python community,its just that it doesnt make sense to breed balls soley to cater to this group of people. Sure, there are some buyers who are appreciative of cb normals.But there are lots of penny pinchers who only look at price.Its also ludicris to expect breeders with morphs to set aside a few normal females for the purpose of producing nice normals. Mark Petros/ Strictly Serpents

you get what you pay for - double-edged sword. That does not mean if you pay $1,000 for a snake that it's better than a $5 snake. But as some have already pointed out, you (we) have costs. If it costs me $50 to produce a snake, I'm not going to sell it for $25. What's the purpose, I might as well give it away. I think BPs are great and my youngest customer (hmmm, I gave it to the kid) is just 9 and loves it! Morphs are great as are normals. But cost will always play a large part. As long as the animal comes first, why not.
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Jay A. Martin

The first problem that needs to be addressed is the importation of ball pythons. This needs to stop before you will ever see larger amounts of normal captive bred animals being produced. This is just a number game. Nobody, and I mean nobody is going to be able to breed, raise and sell captive bred normals for the same price as imported babies.
On the flip side of this, there are numerous amounts of captive bred normals also being produced as a bi-product of co-dominant breedings, ie. pastels, spiders, mojaves and etc. There are breeders all over this country who have these snakes available. The catch here again is still going to be price. I personally think that $50.00 for a captive bred animal is a great price. I wouldn't hesitate to spend that on a cb. I see some of the larger breeders selling normal captive bred hatchlings for $100.00 and they sell them out! Normal ball python have and always will have a very important role in the propagation of the high end morphs.
In reality, the community here on Kingsnake is a very small percentage of the herp community. This small percentage that you see here happens to be more involved with high end morphs. Nonetheless, breeding, housing, heating and feeding are all things ball python owners and conniseurs contend with. Whether it be normal, morph, import or cb, the information found here is invaluable and applies to all of them across the board, making Kingsnake an invaluable tool to ALL persons interested in herps.
Another viewpoint is this; True a vast vast majority of herpers will not fork out the large dollar amounts that morphs are commanding. Though this is a waiting game, eventually many of these morphs are going to be produced in even larger amounts as the price drops and more and more people will start breeding them. The prices will be dropping to a point where the "average" pet owner/herper can afford them. Then you will really see a fever hit the herp world!!!! Not any one breeder will ever be able to keep up with the demand for morphs when the prices do reach that point.
At this point the captive bred normals will also be in abundance and I personally hope it will force the importation market out of business as the damage they are creating on the wild populations is devastating (not to mention the devastation of the numerous animals that die in the process). Of course this will not be happening on a grand scale for quite some time. We do already see this with pastels. Pastels are starting to reach the price range of "average" pet owners.
Wow, I just really went out to left field on this post. Sorry for my ramblings. At any rate, there are many sources for captive bred normal ball pythons, one just needs to look a bit and do thier homework. Once we see the end of importing tens of thousands of animals from Africe, we will see more captive bred normals. Until then, most breeders will not devote their monies, time and efforts to lose money, hence the price of morphs.
Yes, normals need love too, but remember there are way, way, way more normals in the ball python market than morphs. Normals are beautiful and so are the morphs, they ALL grace our lives with their beauty and timelessness!
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Steve Garrett
info@serpentireali.com
www.serpentireali.com