Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I dont know about anyone else but some morphs seem to look really similar to normals yet the prices are so much higher. Piebalds and albinos you can clearly distinguish the difference between them and normals and you can acknowledge they are unique. However, morphs like pastels and spiders....yea they have a little more unique color or slightly cooler pattern. So what?
They still look way to similar to be the price of a car. For the price of a spider BP that looks very similar to a normal with little difference, I can get a car. It's ridiculous. Also, there was a post about someone mentioning some peopel here reply harshly for their own profit purposes. Not only is this true but its blatanly obvious. Pieds and albinos are truly out of this world, unique and far different from their normal counterparts. Some morphs like pastels, in my opinion, are hardly any different from normals. All they are are a little unique normals with fancy names attached. It's not about supply and demand. Trust me, I would know what supply and demand is. The demand is not as high and the supply is not as low as so much that a snake would cost as much as a car. Showdogs are less expensive..... by about 17000 dollars.

A little food for thought....

np
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

My image Gallery

n/p

and an orange ghost male.....maybe a pair...and a pastel male too.................

might have enough left over for dinner........

........(((actually....I would use it on my house....))).....

......yep..........

How much do spiders cost now? I thought most were 14-15k.
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

My image Gallery

You must shop around.
You will be surprised what you will find......
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

Which is why the prices are still high. It takes special genes to create these morphs so they will never be considered "pretty normals". Just because a piebald and albino are just totally different, that doesnt mean they were harder to make than the rest of the morphs. You still need a homozygous to het or at least het to het breeding to produce them, and for pastels you still need to have an actual pastel to produce a pastel. Making a piebald is no different than making a ghost or other morph. It's just a matter of obtaining the specimens you want to breed.

There are also people that think an albino Ball python is still a Ball python, and therefore should be worth $15 like an imported baby. My advice to you: DON`T BUY THEM!!!!!!!! More for me.

"DON`T BUY THEM!!!!!!!!"

Well said.

WWW.NEWReptiles.com

Oh great, another "why are they priced so high thread".

Haha I was thinking the same thing with the "why so high price thread".
Obviously these people don't know too much about the market of ball pythons, and they are just complaining because they can't afford the snakes themselves. Sharingan, I think you need to go and look at some pics of spiders and some of the other morphs that you are putting down. People put a lot of money and time to produce these snakes and I'm sure they don't appreciate people like you who know nothing about the market to be putting down the snakes that they put so much time and money into. Deal with it and buy what you think is pretty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Luke

Because a porshe is hands down better in every aspect. I have driven both on numerous occasions and a Porshe is worth every penny....Well it's worth that to someone who wants performance, handling, accelaration, etc. ...If someone just wants the porshe look than buy a nissan Z...If you want a ball python to just have a python, then buy a normal....If you want something that is stunning and has a lot of potential to make designer morphs than you need something a lil' more than a normal bp.....Not to be mean or anything but if you can't see payin' that much for a snake then don't buy one...Nobody is forcing you too....Your question is like saying why would someone live in a Million dollar mansion when a trailer has everything you need....Most people want more extravagent stuff to have a nicer lifestyle.

Spider
two albinos
Axanthic ....
Any look normal?
If so - which one?

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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

If the demand weren't there, the price would not be that high. Obviously the BP market has skyrocketed beyond reasonable expectations. There are definitely people out there willing to spend $15-50K on an investment quality breeder morph. And as long as these people exist, breeders will continue to seek out new and exciting (expensive) colors/traits.
The trouble as I see it is with the huge migration of reptile breeders into a market that has a limited mass appeal. There is a finite number of people in the country (and world) willing to purchase a ball python at all. Let alone spend two months salary on one that has slightly different than normal color. When this end consumer market has been depleted we will have a lot of breeders with their mortgage payment relying on the sale of snakes that now are worth a fraction of the cost required for the breeder to just break even. I believe this is what market analysists would call a "crash." You can equate it to what happened to tech stocks in the late '90s. Your next door neighbors that had not been in the stock market were suddenly investing in "the next best buy" to try to strike it rich and ended up over-inflating every price they laid their golden touch upon. Eventually the world wised up and realized the demand was hugely over-rated and tried to dump their supply all at one time...we now know where tech stocks are sitting. A lot of people lost a lot of money when that crash happened. I see that happening to the BP market someday (soon).
Another aspect that I don't care for with the BP craze is the loss of concentration that quality breeders are devoting to other projects. I cringe every time I hear another breeder that I respect say the words "I just got my first Ball Python morph." When I ask what they had to sell to afford it, most of them reply with a species that is being worked with far too little or by too few people. And these breeders only do this to make a quicker buck. This "breeder poaching" by the BP market is reducing the production of species that may someday be unavailable to the herp trade. That is a true loss all in the name of commerce.

Pics just cant do justice to most morphs, especially pastels, spiders, mojaves and many others. if you think they are not much different after seeing them in real life , then please get your eyes examined! As far as costing more than a car, since when was buying a car a GOOD investment. as far as i am concerned autos are one of the worst investments out there. and unless you are mario andretti, i doubt you will be making any $$ off your car. just my babble. don
Link

np
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Cathy Hrusa
poetichusky@hotmail.com
Future Ball Python Breeder
~My Ever-growing herp Collection~
0.4 Normal Ball Pythons
1.0 Albino Green Burmese Python
0.1 Bearded Dragon
1.0 Red Eared Slider
0.1 FL Cooter
1.0 Sunburst X Blue Veiled Chameleon
0.0.2 Firebelly Toads
0.0.1 Pixie Frog

You're telling me that you cannot tell the difference between these snakes?

Perhaps Ball breeding isn't for the colour blind folks?! LOL!!

Gee, which one is which??