Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND IT. LARGER BREEDERS ARE NOW CHARGING $30K EACH. YES, WHEN COMBINED WITH A PLATTY IT PRODUCES LEUCISTICS. BUT , THE PLATTY IS THE KEY INGREDIANT, NOT THE MOJAVE. RALPH DAVIS PROVED THIS LAST YEAR. I'M ALL ABOUT MAKING A PROFIT, BUT THIS IS CRAZY. WHEN A MOJAVE IS BREED TO ANY OTHER ANIMAL (EXCEPT A PLATTY) THERE WILL NOT BE ANY LEUCISTICS.

But you have to understand....not everything bred to a platty produces leucistics...there is only a few that will...thats why they jumped up so high....
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Luke Martin
Bronze Serpent Reptiles

THIS IS YET TO BE PROVEN. TO MY KNOWLEGE ONLY THE MOJAVE AND RALPH DAVIS' PHANTOM BALL ARE THE ONLYMORPHS THAT HAVE BEEN BREED TO A PLATTY AND BOTH HAVE PRODUCED LEUCISTICS.

Think of it this way. If you had baby mojaves, would you sell them for the same price once you get the idea that they MIGHT produce a leucistic or would you hold on to them for more just in case? Sure it isn't yet proven that mojave X mojave will produce a leucistic, but the good evidence that it might has to get factored in somewhere.

yeah maybe a couple grand -- the only people who will make money off this are the ones who stumbled upon the visual hets by accident or for very cheap through trade anyone else is screwed. every one and there mom have a het white snake and are holding back females to breed them to. just wait three or four years when your wondering why you didn't make as much as you thought youy were gooing to make. for example ---DAYTONA-- I saw so many mojaves, fireballs, and like a hundred yellowbellies ---- not to mention I know some of the vendors and know they didn't bring half of the het leus that they really have. Sad but hey I still want a white ball and I will buy one in a few years when there as cheap as an albino

n/p

"yeah maybe a couple grand"

That's still a lot of money.

I think that enough people will want a white snake that it will take longer than you seem to think for leucistics to reach even a moderately affordable level.

I guess it would depend on how much you paid for your hets and how good a job you did of breeding them but I think even the worst case scenario can make a profit.

Suppose you buy a male lesser platy for $50,000 today. If you take your time growing him up and only breed him to two females for 2006 you might get 3.3 lesser. Maybe you sell the males for $5,000 each so only have $35,000 to make back before a glimpse of a profit. Now if those females take there time growing up maybe in 2009 they produce a total of 18 eggs and lets say 4 leucistics bred back to a platy. If leucies are still even $9,000 each you have reached the profit zone in 5 years. You have the next 20 years to bring up your rate of return.

Of course if I had a $50,000 snake I would try to breed him sooner and to more females. Also I would try to get the best deal I could on an entry snake which is a bit of a moot point as I don't have $7K for a mojave male (if they are really available for that) much less $50K for a lesser platy male (also technically not proven to some people's standards).

I DISAGREE. THER HAS NOT BEEN ANY EVIDENCE OF THAT. MOJAVE X MOJAVE = MOJAVE.

"MOJAVE X MOJAVE = MOJAVE"

Has there been any evidence that mojave X mojave = mojave? At least there has been a leucistic produced by a lesser X mojave. We don’t have any evidence that I know of as to what mojave X mojave will produce.

From one of the other posts it doesn't sound like the first mojave X mojave breeding is expected until next year. Why it's taken so long is another question.

On the other hand phantom looked enough like mojave that it was originally thought to be mojave. To me where mojave and phantom differ is that mojave looks more lesser phantom like. It's almost exactly in the middle in apperence. I believe the jump in mojave price last year was because lots of people EXPECTED lesser platy X mojave to produce leucistic. Maybe we'll be right again and mojave X mojave will produce luecistics. I think that platy, mojave, lesser, and probably butter are all very closely related genes and any combination will probably produce a leucistic.

What about mojave X mojave??? No leucistics?
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Chad Bachman

I'm not sure if it's been done yet (Mojave x Mojave). It sounded like it hadn't been done yet last year. I strongly suspect that mojave X mojave will also produce leucistic. Sure it's not proven, that’s probably why the lesser platy is still a lot more. I think both price jumps in the mojave in the last year or so are due to speculation that mojave X mojave will produce leucistic. Once that is proven perhaps it will jump again (or maybe it's already about as high as a het leucistic should be).

Mojave X Mojave probably has produced leucistics, but everybody is keeping it quiet. I can't see that nobody has done it yet.
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Chad Bachman

This "price hike" is totally absurd..........only in the reptile business will you see something like this! They were $7K apiece a year ago......based on what we knew at the time, this was a FAIR market price, and the fact that they sold VERY well at that price proved it. Then, the price was seemingly arbitrarily raised to $10K for males and $15K for females.......but NOBODY bought them at these NEW, unfounded prices (Males and females could be routinely had for $7K or less as late as this past spring!) THEY DID NOT SELL AT THE NEW PRICES, BECAUSE THE PRICE INCREASE WAS NOT JUSTIFIED! Now, about a month ago, MORPH KING produces the Leucistics from breeding a Platinum to a Mojave, which is AWESOME! (Well done, guys!). However, IS ALL THIS DOES IS IT JUSTIFIES THE $10K/MALES AND $15K/FEMALES PRICING, not these new "Fantasy-Land" prices of $30K for males, and $40K or whatever for females! Do people REALLY think that just a few months after they were available for $7K, that folks are NOW going to pay 4-5x that amount?! Get Real.....in fact, reality IS starting to creep in.....those who were asking $60K /pair are now already down to $40-45K/pr, and that will CONTINUE to drop until people actually start to buy them. You have to keep in mind, THAT THE MARKET "VALUE" ON AN ANIMAL IS ULTIMATELY DECIDED BY THE B U Y E R, NOT THE SELLER!! (HEY, I'VE GOT SOME APPLES FOR SALE FOR $500 EACH.....WANT TO BUY A COUPLE OF BUSHELS?!!!!!) A MOJAVE IS ONLY "WORTH" WHAT A BUYER IS WILLING TO PAY, AND THESE BREEDERS WILL FIND THAT THAT AMOUNT IS NO MORE THAN $25-30K/PAIR. This may anger some people to hear, but I'm only saying it because it is true, which they are finding out already.......

It’s nice to see a perspective on asking price vs. actual selling price. I think there may be a pretty good gap in these two prices for several morphs.

I still think if I had Mojave's I'd be asking more as consolation for not keeping them. I guess you only need so many males but I would rather keep a female that could produce a leucistic than sell her for 7K. Put a higher price on it and if no one wants them bad enough to pay it then keep them.

Does anyone remember what the asking price was for Mojave's when they where first offered? I thought I remembered $3k but wasn't paying all that much attention (I didn’t even have that much to spend and thought they where overpriced, lol) so may be way off. Someone should write up a page on great buys of ball morph history (the $5 piebald etc.).

A super Mojave has not been produced as of yet.
The good news, we don't have to be in the business of speculation. We don't need to guess or pontificate at all as to what any combo will produce, it will be proven soon enough. All we have to do is be patient until one is produced. I believe there is a good chance a Super Mojave produces a white snake HOWEVER, owning both a Mojave and a Platty, I can tell you that there is at least a chance, however small it may be, that it is simply the combo of the two that causes the white snake. Look there is NO black pigment on the Platty and there is a lot of black on the Mojave. Is it possible the white snake is simply a Platty Mojave/ Mojave Platty (the colors cross each other out) hmmmm???? Sure, it is possible! They are both co-dom/dom as far as we know. The Luesistic could be the combination of the two like say a bumble bee or a Mojave Spider or 10 other co-dom/dom combinations that have been produced. It doesn’t mean they ARE both “hets” for Luesistics. We won’t know until one (super Mojave) is produced! NO ONE knows until it is produced, no one (people can speculate all day long, again see the beginning of this reply). Would anyone have guessed that a yellow belly plus a granite would produce an Ebony?? How about a Super Cinnamon being all black/chocolate in color??? Again, let's just wait and see. If people so decide to consider it a foregone conclusion that a Mojave is a het for luesistic and it turns out to be something entirely different in the Super form, then they will have to deal with the consequences that follow that course of action. I prefer to be patient while keeping a smile on my face and realizing just how much fun figuring this whole thing out is. What we do know is that there are a lot of Mojaves out there. Someone next year will produce a Super and we will get the answer. Will that change the price of Mojaves??? Well, if a Super Mojave doesn’t produce a luesistic and the Platty ends up being the key I do know that RDR will be smiling as will all platty owners, while the people who bought Mojaves being told they are “hets” for Lucy’s will be rather distraught. Just my thoughts as either way I will have the ingredients to produce a lucy. Is a year really that long to wait for the puzzle to be solved???

"Is a year really that long to wait for the puzzle to be solved???"

But what do they do with all those mojave babies for a year? Are you saying they should just shelve them all for a year? Or should they sell them for the 7K price from before last summer when platy X phantom produced leucistic giving us the idea (now proven correct) that mojave (which looks intermediate between platy and phantom) would fit into the leucy puzzle?

I agree there is a risk that mojave X mojave might not produce leucistic but there is also a chance it will. Seems to me that the uncertainty should result in a price somewhere between whatever the price will be if it proves and the price if it doesn't prove. If you don't want to take the risk don't gamble, but you also don't have a chance to win. I guess the actual moving price will be determined by how many people think it’s a good gamble.

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2.0 50% het Caramel Ball pythons
1.0 Very dark Ball python
0.9 Ball Pythons
1.1 Thayeri Kings
0.0.1 Viper Boa
1.1 Axanthic looking felines...

The proof will be in the outcome of breeding these combos. I'm wondering if in some cases we might find that the really weird looking combos are alleles, two different mutations of the same gene. If cinnamon and pastel are alleles then pewter X normal will not produce any normals, only pastels and cinnamon. On the other hand, if they are mutations of different genes on different chromosomes even they will produce about 1/4 normals and 1/4 pewters (and 1/4 pastel and 1/4 cinnamon).

There have already been several breedings of leucistics (Kahl - twice I think, and Nerd this year and I thought there was another I heard of but can't remember now). Unfortunately no one is saying what was produced in those breedings. If leucistic is a combination of two unrelated co-dominants then leucistic X normal will produce some normals and some leucistics (about ¼ of each). Heck, leucistic x leucistic will not even produce all leucistics (about 1/16 completely normals and a bunch of any type – Mojave, lesser, phantom, fireball, etc. from the grandparents – but mostly leucistics).

However, I suspect that leucistic is the homozygous form of mutations of the same gene and hence leucistic X normal will not produce any normals (or leucistics) and leucistic X leucistic will only produce leucistics.