Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I have been looking at just normal females and the price difference has just shot up tremendously from about a year or so ago. Is it the ozone layer? Are ball pythons are not producing enough females? I have seen in classifieds a normal male CB go for $45 and a female normal shoot up to $250. It must be that females are more valuable. This hobby has certainly turned upwards. Now everybody get those females on and charge as high as you can, because I will be looking for the sales next year. (No mean spirtness intended).

Your friendly neighborhood
Clownloach

I just bought 2 CB healthy FT eating normal females from Alex Hue at $48 a piece. Very nice animals too by the way. They're in the 150-200g range. So, if you're lookin for one, I think he still has some more available. He's an awesome guy to deal with and the snakes are quality. No wannabe CB's here. Nice fat healthy babies. The real deal. Anywho, I'm starting to sound like a commercial. LOL Guess you have to just know when and where to catch em at the right price. Laters...
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Cathy Hrusa
poetichusky@hotmail.com
Future Ball Python Breeder
~My Ever-growing herp Collection~
0.2 Normal Ball Pythons
0.1 Bearded Dragon
1.0 Red Eared Slider
0.1 FL Cooter
1.0 Sunburst X Blue Veiled Chameleon
0.0.1 Russian Tortoise
0.0.1 Sulcata Tortoise
0.0.2 Firebelly Toads
0.0.1 Pixie Frog

I was wondering if you were refering to last summer's prices?

It would seem like prices could be slightly marked up in the early months of the year. Since most of the ball pythons hatch from early spring through summer... It would make sense that the supply is lower than the relative demand. I know that I have seen someone talking about how adult ball pythons can sell for more in the late summer time when people are looking for breeding age BP's. It would make sense that last year's CB babies would be worth more sense they are are not freshly hatched babies that have yet to start eating (you would hope anyways...)

Am I way off base here? Just kinda guessing. Are there seasonal fluctuations in the ball python pricing?

I have looked into adding female ball pythons during the "off season" and they always seem to increase in value.. My thoughts on this are that people with breeding projects may not have females that are going to be large enough, or not enough females and want to add on to the female stock to increase the output of neos in there future breeding seasons.. So of course since multiple females are able to be bred by a single male, they become more valuable.
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Randall L Turner Jr.

You never experience life until you have kids..then you realize what you should have done rather then what you did do

With the proliferation of "some type of dominant" mutations females that are big enough to breed have become a hot commodity. I suspect the higher priced ones where adults and not hatchlings. An extra female that is ready to breed to your pastel/spider/mojave/pinstripe/platinum/fireball this year could earn you thousands of dollars while a hatchling female is still growing up.

Breeder sized females can be worth their weight in gold in certain situations to certain people. If February and March is nearing, and you don't have the females, but you have the males, with $20,000 clutches on the line, female-worth just escalates. Totally.