Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'd love to get into ball pythons, but I'm not really sure what the best way to go about it is.

I'm interested in quite a few morphs, but because I don't have the money to spend I need to start out VERY slow, even if I takes many animals and many years to see a result.

What I was thinking of doing was getting a female normal and a Het male, then keep back all of the resulting females to breed back to their dad. Sound okay?

I've also had trouble finding price lists for what I want. Does anyone know off hand the average price of a male Het Hypo? Specifically the Orange Hypo?

Another thing I've been wondering... Why are males the cheaper of the two genders? I realize that it's because breeders only need one male to service mulitple females and they'd rather get stuck with females, so in order to get rid of the males the price drops, but here's where it gets me... Don't most people prefer males for the same reason (that they can service multiple females)? Wouldn't the demand for males keep the prices high, if not higher than the females?

my opinion on the whole morph thing right now is if you wait a year it will all be alot cheaper...the prices are insanly high even for normals...i saw a pair of normal babies at a show a few weeks ago for 125.00 thats insane to pay that kind of money for a pair of 04 normals....I think if you buy morphs now you are going to loose alot of money because i think the market will crash before they are big enough to breed.....if you want them just cause they look cool...and they do...then i would buy whatever you wanted...
Good luck....Jason

Generally most morphs are a little cheaper each year as the supply increases. If you go with a morph like ghost that's been around a while (also one of the few that has ever gone up in price due to a demand spike once ghost combos started coming out) you aren't likely to see any big changes in price year to year. The extra year closer to breeding size should make up for any decline in price by waiting a year.

I was at a show two weekends ago where het ghost males where $125 each and they even got marked down to $100 at the end. There weren’t any females available. Presumably the breeder was keeping them back to breed to his homozygous ghost male. Actually of the four vendors selling balls there was only one female of any type available at the show, a $2,400 ghost (her brother's where $1,000). Since one male can theoretically breed as many as 20 females (I think it’s been done with pastels) people tend to invest in a single homozygous male and multiple heterozygous females. This leaves heterozygous males available for cheap.

If you can't afford a pair and have the patience then a single het male and a normal female is a good way to start. I did this with a het albino male in 2000 and have so far proven one of his 50% chance het daughters out. I bought a breeder sized het ghost male cheap last year and now have three 50% chance het daughters from him.

what about albinos ya think those will stay pretty stable for a while? whats the expected price in say when the 04's are ready to breed?
-----
hail satan!

Who the heck really knows?

The albinos are stunning so I would have to think they would have one of the higher stabilization prices. Who knows, maybe even nearly $1,000 and you might be able to produce with 04's before then. At any rate I think the price drop potential is as low on them as it has ever been and should get even better as they get closer to whatever the stabilization price will be.