Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have to say I am pretty pissed off as of late. As a breeder I am trying to enjoy this hobby while I actually make some money. The term investment often accompanies higher priced animals. This gives buyers the impression we will not only enjoy owning these beautiful snakes but see a return off them. I have always attempted to keep my pricing along the line of "market" prices. Now it is safe to assume that prices are lower than market for friends and repeat customers. I do it, and have no problem with anyone else doing it. What bothers me is what I see on the classifieds. Many breeders who undoubtedly sold numerous high end snakes to customers over the past few years suddenly put these snakes into a nose dive of declinig prices, falling at a ridiculous rate, especially the Snows. So it went from,,,,these rare snakes...to they aint worth diddly anymore. So what if there's a hell of a lot more now than there was a few years back. Everyone understands that prices fall annually. Why the race to dump off these snakes that did people who worked with them justice and made them a good buck over the years? Especially after the marketing of how people who have only recently been able to start working with them were told how this snake had a promising future with new morphs and combos on the horizon. For these people to turn their backs on the customers they sold snakes too and also give a discouraging impression to others who are interested in working with them who now WON'T cause of this crash is a lousy way to show us how we did the right thing by getting into Hondurans. There was no need to bombard the classifieds with pricing half of what it was last year, and even if it was ONE morph...now it is dragging the rest of them down with it too. So what can we expect next year?? And what will these types of breeders ruin for the newer folks next? What goes on off the net in private....with the same lower prices could have existed WITHOUT making it appear as these beautiful snakes are on a serious decline in pricing. Now the new market pricing seems to have been established and it stinks.... I know a few people who are waiting for this flow of cheap "high end" morphs to be bought up so that possibly some more suitable pricing can come back and hopefully save this snake from being a 50 dollar pet shop special. I just produced some Ghosts for the first time this year, and I am extremely happy about that, market crash or not. I will continue to work with these snakes, as I love them, high dollar or not. But it does suck that I could get 2 Snows this year for the price I paid for an Albino het Anery x Anery het Albino pair last year. Tom Stevens

It does not make much sense to me. They could keep the prices up and still sell off their snows, it would just take longer. I would rather hold onto the snake for a little longer and sell it for more money. Just wait til next year maybe we can get a pair of snows for 500 bucks!

Hondurans are suffering from their own relative success.With the availability of morphs growing exponentially faster than the new market most breeders are at or over their own carrying capacity already.Honduran breeders are now competing with a continuously changing landscape of the consumer.With the ability to double clutch and their ease to breed the ssp successes will always squeeze out the profits from the middle men first.DONT complain,have you seen the price of snow corns?? If you were thinking about becoming rich breeding snakes stand in a long line of better people before you ,lol.
I think its the marketing end of this medium that needs work.Breeders just arent nice enough to individuals at shows as they used to be.We sometimes would rather hold a price than give someone a deal.....and some of those someones are the first timers that get a bad taste in their mouth so they dont stick with and expand the hobby.Remember,for most of us that is just what it always will be.Jeff

Good post Jeff.

Well I am a stay at home dad....and my successes working with snakes got me into breeding way faster than I had ever expected. I do just fine even with the low end snakes, and I am happy when I make any money. I also have a few projects next to no one else is working with so even if I lose big on the Hondos I am still going to do just fine. Bottom line is I am not selling my Hondurans. It is just frustrating to watch a snake lose its value to the degree of over 1000 dollars....which is outrageous. It seems like they were not given much of a chance this year. People asked appropriate prices, and did not get them and panicked. I have seen ads where prices were reduced again and again over the course of a week or two. Now people are racing to dump their animals including adults. It is also a bummer to see people just want to produce babies and send them packing. Why? Is that not the funnest part? Producing babies and enjoying having them til you sell them is a big part of this for me. We all know the risks involved as prices can fall and hard, but most people seem to produce Hondurans late in summer through early fall....it is only early October and people can not wait to get these out of thier possession? It may be easier for me seeing I am always home but I have at least 100 hatchlings right now on top of my collection and I am loving every minute of it. If I could not handle the maintenance of caring for all these snakes I would not be doing this. I actually have quite a few Pits right now,,,,so as you can imagine they take up room, eat you out of house and home and do not fetch high prices....but I love working with them, and will deal with it. I just wish some of the guys who have been working with these Hondurans would deal with it as well. Tom Stevens

Past results dont guarentee future profits.Alot of people think all albino tri colors are alike,some cant wait to get into the albino annulatas...Remember that for many of us its the ability and ease to move offspring at known rates that gets us into lines or ssp. that we not have been interested in at all before morphs($$).Yes,hondurans have hit the invisible wall before ball pythons and after corns.Sometimes they make a comeback,but dont bet on it.Jeff

agree with every single word Jeff just said.I don't know if its just because I had a long day and had a couple drinks just before getting on here but that all made perfect sense.LOL.......

Shannon

That's just the way it is in this hobby. Been breeding colubrids for 30 years now and the prices have always come down. Most of them are not hard to breed. In 79' my first albino corn cost me $100 and in 80' my first campbell (from Applegate) cost me $100. Now they're both in the $10-15 range. Even the high end campbells ( halloween, bi-colors) are lower in price. The same thing happened with my sub-ocs in the mid-70's until the blondes and silvers (now albinos) appeared. You have more breeders turning out hondo morphs so the supply increases and prices come down. I only wish this would happen with the high end BP's.
My costs for frozen rodents and supplies exceeds my snake sales by 4-1. I've given away snakes in the past
(BP's and corns) when I run out of space, but still enjoy the hobby, especially the egg hatching part.

Mike

Mike, I think you got a great deal buying pueblans for $100 in 1980. I didn't think there were very many around. I bought a pair in '82 from Duane Collins in Az and I paid $500 for them. I also paid $100 for an albino corn from the Ft. Worth zoo in '79. I pretty much agree with you on how prices drop. I wish they would stay as high as possible but it never happens. I think the internet has helped sell animals but it also makes people aware of what animals are worth unlike the 80's. Back then it seemed easier to sell animals since there were a lot less people in the game.