Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm curious to what everyone thinks is the best $2500 investment ball pythons.

Michael Ibanez

Heres a couple to go with albino male, pastel male or a ghost male. Get a albino male and a het female and produce albinos in 3 years. or go with a pastel male and a couple adult normal females produce pastels in a year. and/or go with a ghost male and get 2 het females and produce ghost in 3 years. Scott Glover

In my opinion I think it would be albinos.If you do some dealing you should be able to pick up a visual male and het female for $2500, 05 hatchlings of course.But there are also the ghosts and pastels which you can't go wrong with either.These are the morphs that I am working because thats what I really enjoy.So invest in something you really like and have fun with it.Just my 2 cents.Jeremy

I would have to say a pair of pied hets. In a couple years you'll produce a few babies and by selling one animal you'll have made your money back plus profit. No brainer.

I'd have to go with pied hets as well. Visuals are nice but then again you could only afford 1 unless you found a deal on a pair of pastels. Albinos, Ghosts, and het pieds would be the 3 to decide from. Hets are great....but can you wait it out? I won't be dealing with hets anymore...besides double hets that is!
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John Light
JL Exotics
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I'd have to agree with getting the male albino and picking up a het albino or two. The pieds would be a good way to go also, however, it seems like I keep seeing a bunch of the same pieds up for sale for a long time. It may be easier for someone just starting out to sell the cheaper albinos than a more expensive snake like a pied. But that's just my thought.
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Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

OK, here`s the best use of $2500. Get a nice male pastel and several normal females. That should leave you with about $1500.Use the balance for a male ghost and a 100% het ghost female. With this combo you can start making money right away with the pastel male,most males will breed for you as 7-9 months old.In the mean time you are a little diversified with a second morph. The reason NOT to get albinos is simple from an investment standpoint.The $$$ tied up in the het females is dead money for 3 years. You can produce 30-40 pastels over this 3 year period before you can produce any albinos. With these sales, you can invest in lots of other projects. Another positive of getting into a ghost project is that they are way more in demand for producing designer balls than albinos are. You see alot more female albinos for sale,than you do female ghosts. Getting het pieds shouldnt even be considered from an investment standpoint. Now if you just love pieds or albinos and just want to have or produce one there`s nothing wrong with getting into them.I own both albinos as well as pieds.But with limited $$$,they are the best INVESTMENT. Mark Petros BallPython777.com

oops, the last line should read " they ARENT the best investment" Mark BallPython777.com

Pastels are dropping in price fast. Especially recently. They are expected to be around $500-$700 for '05s. I suspect for the reasons you mention: fast money. The market is being flooded with these guys. Another trend I suspect happening is people buying a breedable male, breeding for a few months until females are gravid and then offloading the male. I agree completely on the hypos. They sure are nice.
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Jay A. Martin

maybe males will drop to 500.00 but females NO WAY to many other morphs to breed with a pastel female!

go one step further...if and when they are 500.00 to 700.00 more people can afford them so more sales can be made!

sorry for the rant but i think patels and pieds and ghost and well ALL BALL PYTHONS ARE THE WAY TO GO....

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER!!!!!!!

Paul

>>maybe males will drop to 500.00 but females NO WAY to many other morphs to breed with a pastel female!

That's what I meant.

>>
>>go one step further...if and when they are 500.00 to 700.00 more people can afford them so more sales can be made!

Eventually reaching critical mass. Supply will surpass demand. I hope not though. I'm planning on picking up another Pastel this year - if I can get a good deal.

>>
>>sorry for the rant but i think patels and pieds and ghost and well ALL BALL PYTHONS ARE THE WAY TO GO....

I completely agree. All BPs are the way to go.
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Jay A. Martin

Get a aresenal of females and by 2009 (depending on feeding habits) you could very well produce Hypo Pastels, Super Pastels, and then reinvest some of the funds and purchase something in a higher dollar range and start the crossing! JMO

Your plan sounds good, but where do you get a nice pastel and several femals for $1000? Yeah $1000 for an (ugly) pastel but more like $1500 if you want to get a good, sellable bloodline. Also, most breedable females will cost you at least $3-$4 hundred a piece if you can find a good deal and then you have no money left over for the ghost. If you get a bunch of hatchling females for $100 a piece then you still have money tied up in the females for 3 years till they are of breedable size. Am I missing some part of your plan?
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Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

I guarantee you that you`ll be able to buy beautiful male pastels this season for $750.I personally will be selling Graziani and NERD line pastels.You cant get more established than that. You wont find cheap adult balls on the classifieds,but if you`re creative and look in some less obvious places you can find breedable adults for very little money. Recently I picked up a 1770 gram virgin female from a local pet store for $60, and a 2200 gram female at a local swap for $90.These deals dont always happen but if you keep your eyes open you`ll be able to find 3-4 females in a years time.As for pastels crashing... You hear the same thing every year.Yes there`s more pastels being produced every year,but there`s tons of new people coming into this hobby every year too.And invariably most start out with pastels as their first morph.I agree with some of the other posts that female pastels are just too valuable from a designer standpoint to drop significantly. I purchased my original female pastels in 2002 for $1500-$2000/each,I expect 05`s to be at least in that range. Pretty good stability in comparison to other morphs that have dropped from $25,000 to $5000 in the same time period. Mark Petros BallPython777.com

I agree with Mark and I really like the Pieds, so I have 100% hets of those, but through trades with other reptiles that I breed I have gotten some nice and large "1500 Grams plus" females and my next buy will be a very nice bright yellow Pastel to breed with those females.

Rob Reiding.

Take the $2500 buy a bunch of cbb hatchling females. You should be able to get some good deals if you buy them in bulk maybe get 30 or so of them make sure they are cbb tho. Raise them up for a couple of years to about 2000 grams sell most of them (during breeding season would be best) for $400-$500 a piece hold back some nice looking ones, with your $10,000 buy yourself a nice Mojave or other Co-dom(s) of your choise and start breeding.
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Tosha

8.10.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and currently un-named)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Dessert Tortoise (Pope)
7.9.5 Fish (1,2,3,4...)
0.0.1 Frog rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.2 Lizards rescued from pool skimmer

Raising normal females is always a good idea.They do nothing but go up in value and the price on normal females will never crash.The longer you hold them the more valuable they become. $2500 worth of normal females is an interesting investment alternative. If you bought 250 @ $10/each you could resell them for $40-$50 each by Christmas and turn $2500 into $10,000-$12500 minus the cost of food and your time for maintaining the group. Mark

Let me know and I'll do it lol!!!