Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If you have a $40K snake that everyone loves but very few can afford to buy, and it sits in your racks for a few years. And then it's become "old news" as everyone has produced them and there's bigger and better morphs out there. Is that snake really worth the $40K?

I mean there's got to be a limited market for some of these morphs that breeders are marking up 10's of thousands of dollars that in a few years any of us could be mass producing. Is there really that much value in that animal.

I guess this is one of those "if a tree falls in the woods..." questions.
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Tosha

1.1.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy)
0.1.0 Siberian Husky (Kita)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
5.4.2 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

Hmm...I guess once you reach a certain price, it's more of a "trade" value. I wouldn't pay $20K for a Genetic Stripe, but if I had a handful of $7K Pieds sitting around...I'd probably make the trade. And I might still be reluctant to pay $7K for a Pied, but if I had a handful of Hypos sitting around...and I'd pay cash for a Hypo.

And I doubt it would remain a $40K animal for too many years. Once you can just as easily buy adults at half that price, the original animal is no longer worth $40K. It's worth the same as equally-sized and equal-looking adults.

Chris
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"If only you would use your powers for Good." -- B. Russell Bethea

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Jay A. Martin

Your post is en very interesting one. I have thought about this myself. I'll use your numbers and explain what I think on the subject.

If I had a 40K snake and few can afford to buy it. 1. The snake would be worth far more then the 40K, I'll explain this later with #3. 2. You would not have a lot of competition. 3. This is were it's good to start, you would be at the top of the producers with the 40K snake. You breed it, produce it, you might only sell to a couple to breeders for 40K. the other ones left you keep and raise. The second year the price drops a little, you produce a few again this year they sell for 35K you sell three. The others you keep and raise. Year three you have more animals to breed you held back a pair from year one. You double what you can produce, the price lowers a little more, more people buy. etc, etc, etc, That 40K snake quickly became a $100,000.00 cash cow.
I see it as a numbers game, and where you start at. The closest to the top the better. From the first breeding and sells you made money then it's just a matter of holding back raising more and breeding more down the line to have the numbers to sell as the price drops more people can afford to buy and you would have the numbers to still be ahead of most.

James W. Arnold

If you have a $K snake that everyone loves but very few can afford to buy, and it sits in your racks for a few years. And then it's become "old news" as everyone has produced them and there's bigger and better morphs out there. Is that snake really worth the $K?

I mean there's got to be a limited market for some of these morphs that breeders are marking up 10's of thousands of dollars that in a few years any of us could be mass producing. Is there really that much value in that animal.

OK This is where my genetics starts getting a little shaky so if I'm wrong I'll be the first to admit it. After all this is just theoreticall.

Lets think about the bumble bee as they're currently running about $35K. Produced from a Jungle pastel and spider. It seems like in the last couple of years the jungle pastel has become fairly easy to get (I've seen them coming from lots of breeders). And this year we're looking at a bumper crop of spiders --> so in the next couple of years when we get more of these spiders breeding, bumble bees look (to me) like something that would be fairly "old news". And what do you get when you breed a bumble? I don't know can you produce more bumbles if bred together or do you end up with a bunch of pastels and spider? This is where my genetics gets shaky. Again this is just something I was thinking about, so it's not meant to create an argument or anything.
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Tosha

1.1.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy)
0.1.0 Siberian Husky (Kita)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
5.4.2 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

ok now you have everyone breeding their spiders and pastels to make bumblebee's. however you made bumble's 2 years ahead of everyone and if you were smart you kept back a few. now you have adult bumble's. now you breed them together and with luck you get a couple killer bee's ( which is the super pastel spider ) which once the bumble bee's get to the $7500 mark will be worth 25k-35k. so basically as long as you breed, sell, keep back properly you can continue to stay on top of the game for years to come. And hey look at it this way, if the market crashes which it won't, and the bumbless sell for 1k and killers for 3k selling just a few makes your money back in just a couple years. NOT A BAD HOBBY TO GET INTO IS IT.
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2.0 het pied
1.1 het albino
1.0 het citrus ghost
0.9 normal
1.0 american pit bull terrior
1.1 taco dogs (ankle biters)
1.0 grey cat

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrior as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

I think the existence and fairly quick creation of the Killer Bee (Super Pastel Spider) proves that spider and pastel are on different chromosomes so Bumblebee X Normal should produce eggs each that each have a 25% chance of being bumblebees, a 25% chance of being spider only, a 25% chance of being pastel only, and a 25% chance of being completely normal for both pastel and spider. Not bad. If your bumblebee was a male and you had a bunch of normal females you could produce some good numbers of mostly mutants.

A price tag on any morph is only worth what others are willing to pay for it.

The Ball Python market is quite artificial, sure you'll have the odd big sale here and there BUT most are trade value AT market price.

Your 40K mutation will not be worth that down the line but one would think its subsequent offspring would yield tenfold.

Mike Jensen

"Your 40K mutation will not be worth that down the line but one would think its subsequent offspring would yield tenfold."

Whatever the real market price of any morph is it's the ticket price to be in the race to make money producing more. Especially if it's a single unique gene but even with a combo like bumblebee. Even though you could make your own bumblebee by combining the less expensive individual morphs the time to grow up and make the cross has a value and hence the premium.

We have a black pewter female that we post in the classifieds off and on for about that price. Finding a buyer with cash is difficult, but there are a number of breeders out there with items to trade that we are interested in. If you grow her up, in eighteen months you have the potential of producing not only black pastels, pastels and more pewters, but you have the possibility of introducing a third gene, and making a combination never seen before .. consider a pewter bumblebee ... Is she worth $40K? You bet!
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Al Zulich
Harford Reptile
www.pythons.com

"potential of producing not only black pastels, pastels and more pewters"

I've very interested in seeing what pewter X normal produces.

If pastel and cinnamon/black pastel are alleles (different mutations of the same gene) or even linked by being close together on the same chromosome you might not be able to produce the expected 1/4 pewters from pewter X normal but your consolation will be that you will not get the expected 1/4 normals either.

Tosha,

Looking at your question from a practical or common sense stand point the question the begs to be asked is: Who would buy a $40,000 animal and not breed it?

If a person considers their initial purchase price of $40,000 to be an investment it would be very unwise of them to allow that investment to sit idle for 10 years. Every year that the animal is not being bred is a potential loss of a return on the initial investment.

Considering the initial investment is a substantial sum of money, it is logical to deduce the animal involved is rare to some extent. As long as it is a proven morph or combination of various mutations the babies will help pay for the initial investment. Like another poster stated...by selectively breeding and holding back the offspring a person could end up with a very nice profit off that one animal.

Very few people have the money to spend $40,000 (or even $5,000 or $10,000) on an animal. Fewer still are those that have the money but actually want a snake of some type. I can not think of anyone spending that kind of cash on an animal "just for show" or because they like taking care of them. If that is the case a simple wild type animal from a pet store would serve the purpose just as well.

Let's face it: Every one of us on this forum will readily admit to enjoying their snakes (all of the various species we each care for), not everyone is willing to admit that money plays a part in the decision to keep them (for some they are simply pets). But, I bet a person would be hard pressed to find an owner of an albino, ghost, pied, pastel or any of the other "low end" morphs who isn't planning on breeding the animal at some point; if for no other reason than to help offset the cost of the morph they purchased. More so with the "high end" morphs and combos.

I can imagine someone purchasing a $40,000 animal simply because they love the color/pattern morph it exhibits and breeding it at least until it pays for itself. In this scenario, the owners intent is for a display animal, but they are wise enough to "get it for free" in the long run.

I tend to ramble at times, but I hope my reply made sense. Since, this was a theoretical question I only attempted to give a response that examined the question from a practical standpoint. I did not bother with "little" things like trade value, genetics, and market fluctuations. I think these are beside the point unless the question is more specific.
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Sometimes, things are exactly as they appear...sometimes.