Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As a small breeder that focuses mainly on Ball Pythons, I have to question the future price of some BCs. When an absolutely beautiful young female hypo goes unsold on KS for $275., it makes me wonder where the price is going. I currently buy and sell @ 50-75 Balls a year and the prices are holding up extraordinarily well. My limited exposure to the boa market does not reflect the same with the exception of Sunglows, etc. Any insight you might want to share?

This time of year supply begins to out pace demand a little. You can't command the same price you can in March or say November. Balls price stability, as I'm sure you know, is mostly due to small clutches....demand out paces supply. Boas can have large litters, and with a co-dom genetic like hypomelanism, potentially half of the litter will be hypo. As Boa popularity increases, as it has, prices will level a bit because the demand will start to catch the supply.

Just my Opinion,
Take care, Chris Olson

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www.chrisolsonreptiles.com

The price of all morphs will go down, boas and ball pythons. Watching the ads and forum the last couple years, the hypo boa parallels the pastel ball. Very pretty, very popular, but very easy to produce, dominant. You can expect the pastel balls to really plunge this year, and especially the amazingly overpriced super pastel which will be abundant now that there are so many breeding size male and female pastel balls.

I don't own any BP other than the ones at my shop, so I'm not much of a BP morph expert. But I'm sure you've seen many bunk BP pastels and BP jungles(didn't see your hypo, not implying it isn't hypo). The same is true within the ranks of Boas. Many boas that would have been very nice 5-10 years ago, are very common. You'd have to have a real standout in the hypo deparment to perk up ears and open wallets. I've seen a vast improvement in the color/pattern quality of the farm bred BPs over the last 5 years, compared to the quality 10-15 years ago. Just look whats happened to my "Frilled Dragon Market". 10 years ago they were nearly a grand(retail), when I bought mine two years later they were around $450(retail), now with very many farm bred imports, the retail market is the same as the wholesale market. The folks that recognize a good thing before it's a craze are the ones that can make a living. But it is always a gamble. Welcome to exotics.
Good topic-
Matt Schubarth
Pet Nebula
2100 Stephens #116
Missoula, Montana 59801
406 541 9929

People that expect their boas to sell off immedeatly, cause the price drops by reducing their asking price over and over. I have lots of hypos, and it boils down to you get what you pay for. I wouldn't even look at a hypo priced at $275, because the price alone screams that it is a poor quality animal. People don't want poor quality animals, they want somthing they can be proud of having, maybe they had to work a bit to get it. You don't see folks saying look at my "cheap" hypo on the fourms. Look at it as if you were talking about a car (this is just an example) there's not too many geo metros at the car show, only quality peices of work that took time and $ to get it like it is.. Just my thoughts.....
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Ed Lilley, www.constrictorsnw.com