Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In your opinion what would you say are the top 3 Ball Python Morphs to invest in with 1 being the best and if you can please explain why?

Thanks,
Steve
www.serpentsden.com

1.Lesser Platinum, or any part of the platinum project from Ralph Davis. Why? Because the lucy's popped up from them and they seem to be a bag of genetic tricks. Platty daddies, lessers, lucys. . .Who knows what's going on there? Plus, they're beautiful in their own right.

2.Pieds. I thought pieds were ugly until I saw one in the flesh. As Markus Jayne said in a post below, even people who don't know what a ball python is stop and look at a pied. We haven't even seen any crosses here yet. Even the "low whites" are awesome critters with their abberant patterns. Lots of possibilities!

3.Genetic stripe. I think this one is overlooked a lot and so to be in there producing stripe crosses right now would be a good position. Hypo, axanthic, carmel albino, possibilities, possibilities, possibilities.

I'm not an expert, just someone dinking around with a pastel and a hypo, but if I had a million dollars, this is my big three I would go for.

Would I be correct by saying Lessers should yeild approx 50% Lessers if bred to a wild type or is it not yet known?

Thanks,
Steve
www.serpentsden.com

When you breed a lesser to a normal it yeilds lessers and "normal looking siblings" as Ralph says on his birthing record page. It is unknown if the normal sibs are carrying or can carry a gene that is at work in the original platinum.

Ever morph is a great investment but if I had to choose 3 to work with it would have to be........

1. Pastel- I would choose pastels only because you can produce them fast and because alot of new-comers in this market cannot afford the HIGH priced morphs and they end up buying a pastel. with pastels you will be able to sell lots of them and make great money in the process. Also because all you need is 1.1 pastels. Breed the male to the female to hopefully produce supers, without having to spend the money to buy one, so in a way ur getting 2 morphs (pastel and Super) for the price of pastels. And you breed that male pastel to a nice group of normal females and produce a nice amount of pastels. Great Investment there.....

2. Genetic Stripe- I would say this because at the moment they are not really being crossed in with other morphs at the moment, but the still have a GREAT price and the price has barely moved, and when it is crossed with other morphs, the price for it will go up. So you are getting a snake that sells HIGH priced hets, and the price will eventually go up when it starts it phase of being bred to all of the other morphs. Another Great Investment there.......

And lastly........

3. Lesser- These snakes are great eye pieced. The eye loves them! Plain and simple....We have only seen a couple years of breeding with them and we have seen lessers, platty daddies, pastel lessers, blonde pastel lesser, and LUCYS come from them in just a short period of time, and JUST WAIT until they are bred to all of the other morphs........So much can come from them and they yeild a price tag to show for it.....

So those are what I would invest in, it works out Great because your in a High Priced Market, A Market for newbies, And a New Morphs Ground Floor Market.......

It wont be anything but great for your investment and your love of the animals

Mike

I personally believe that it depends on your business plan. Are you wanting to work on developing new morphs or crossing morphs? Do you want to produce all the different morphs in larger quantities? Do you want to be big? Do you want to keep things on a hobby level? Do you want a quick return on your investment? Do you have a few years or more to sit on your investment?
In all actuality any morph is a great investment. It would depend more on how much time you want to wait.
Quickest turn around are going to be the dominant and co-dominant morphs (pastel, spider, mojave etc.). They also drop faster in price than the other morphs.
Simple recessive genetics are going to take you longer to make your money back, but hold prices longer.
The way I see it is that no matter what you spend on your morphs, you will certainly make your money back and then some. High priced ball pythons are only a niche market. The pet trade hasn't even been touched with ball python morphs as of yet. Now that pastels are coming down as well as some of the previously high priced hets, the pet industry is starting to take notice. There will NEVER be one breeder large enough to fill the demand for morphs once they start reaching the pet trade.
Pastels for instance are still selling for 800-1200 for males and 1500-2500 for females. This year we will most certainly see a drop in pastel prices once again. The average pet owner who has been eyeing the ball morphs is very excited because he/she has the 5,6,700 bucks to drop on a pet.
Lets look at a hypothetical situation. Lets use the pastel as the morph since it is now coming down to pet trade prices. You could potentially breed say 10 pastel males to 5 normal females each, totaling 50 normal females. With an average of 6 eggs per female that would make 300 eggs. (Of course you won't always have exactly six eggs and all females may not become gravid but this is strictly hypothetical).
Out of 300 hypothetical eggs approx. 50% will be pastel. That brings our totals to 150 pastels. If pastels are selling for lets say $500.00 at the time, do the math on that. That comes to $75,000.00 Pretty good return for one season of breeding from just 10 pastel males! Not evening mentioning super pastels from the 10 females you held back last year! And lest we forget the other 150 captive bred normals that seem to be so scarce on the pet markets. Sell these or save the females for future breeders.
It just snow balls and snow balls.
So, in my opinion, it really depends on how big you want to be and your return investment goals. If someone doesn't have a huge amount of capital, then there is still money to be made. But most of all ball pythons are a joy to work with. I can't imagine anyone having this much fun and excitement in an office!
So, in my opinion, any and all morphs are a great investment. Even the red headed step child of ball pythons..... pastels!!!!!

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Steve Garrett
info@serpentireali.com
www.serpentireali.com

in my opinion i would get at least 6 different types of morphs bearing different genetics (co-dom, simple recessive, double recessive)and some normals. you can produce alot of hets and double hets, and visible morphs. this would be better in the long run and not "get rich quick"

I agree with you. I was explaining that basically the possibilities are endless. In fact if you are in this for the long haul, of course you will want to work with numerous morphs. The fact still remains that what you get into really depends on what your financial goals are. If you are breeding ball pythons for an investment, you have to have a investment plan. The same as you would with ANY investment. You wouldn't just go to your bank and give them $30,000.00 without having your plan on paper before you go. You will want to know your returns, how long until you get a return, how to reinvest, etc. etc. The pastel story I used was purely hypothetical, showing that there is a HUGE... and I mean HUGE market that hasn't been touched and that people that do not want to invest $30k on one snake still can be a part of the ball python breeding investment.
There are many ways to look at investments with animals. Pick your plan and go with it!
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Steve Garrett
info@serpentireali.com
www.serpentireali.com