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Ball Pythons, there's room for everyone!

The BoidSmith

The BoidSmith

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In today's market it seems ball pythons are among the most versatile herp options. Apart from the proven morphs that comand unusually high prices, there is a miriad of intermediate alternatives. I was puzzled by an ad posted today offering farmed balls at $55 shipped! Once the shipping costs are deducted the price is probably close to what a normal corn snake will go for, although they come all the way from Africa! Then we have the other extreme (always talking about normals). A fancy name (laberinth, reduced, busy, etc.), is attached to a slightly weird normal, and the price tag is US$1,000. What other herp offers this spread in prices?
 
I was having a conversation about this very topic the other day. Is there even a reptile that is as common as, say, piebald ball pythons, that requires no paperwork to own legally, which sells for even half the price?
 
Richard,

The one that probably comes the closest are the BCI morphs. But again, compare a Kahl albino strain that this year go for $800 to a normal baby at $50 the ratio is 16/1 while a normal baby ball python again at $50 vs. $2,500 for an albino the ratio is 50/1!!!
Truly amazing. Then again you have to put into perspective that the boa, although with higher mainetnance costs will produce more offspring. Just on the offspring side alone let's say maybe 30 baby albino boas at $800 = $24,000. While you need to sell 10 baby balls to produce that much. Rounding figures up you need two breeding pairs of albino balls to generate similar cash from sales as one pair of boas. Return on investment might be probably larger with the boas.

Regards.
 
I have to agree that I don't think there is ANY herp species on the market today that offers that kind of massive price spread from normals to "special" normals to morphs that you see in ball pythons.

I mean look at the "moustache-phasse" I think it's called. They are going for over $1000 because they have black on the nose and lips. News flash, don't MOST of them have that? And then you get into the whole "labrynth, granite, chocolate, reduced pattern, blah blah blah" morphs many people are selling. When these sellers bought these "aberrant" and "unusual" morphs from their suppliers, chances are they paid the same exact price for those perfectly normal looking normal animals. I think I need to get back into the ball python market where I can take a perfectly normal import ball python and throw a nonsensical BS tag on and get a $990 return on a $10 investment.

Don't get me wrong, there are certain morphs that ARE legitimate morphs(Piebalds, Bumblebees, Spiders, TRUE stripers, etc.), but the majority you see in ads online are made up morphs. But hey, if that's what floats your boat... I've got some swampland in Florida and a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge I can sell you. ;)
 
Rob,

I absolutely agree. What really concerns me is that some people do believe that if those pythons are sold for that much it's because they are worth it. A different story is when they try to sell them.

By the way I have copper plates with Abraham Lincoln's face engraved on them. They are going for only $19.99 a piece (some people call them "pennies"). How many do you want?
 
Just when I thought I had seen everything! Posted today:

I'm have a special this weekend on 100 lot baby balls,
100/ $7ea Shipping is $45 Next day FedEx.
Live arrival guarenteed.
Click to expand...

One thing is clear though, if one wants to produce and sell normal CB ball pythons don't do it for the money. The second conclusions is try to breed your females so babies will hatch towards the end of the year. Never in the Spring!

Regards.
 
a little note in regards to morph's and $$$...Last year a pic was circulated of a leucistic ball python that was still in Africa...Whoever had it there was taking bids and I think the bid was over $100,000.00...closer to $150.000.00...from $7 to a nice house w/ a 3/4 acre lot lol...everyone needs to buy a nice pair of captive born and bred balls to breed...We're down to just two, an 01 male and an 02 female and they are just cool snakes...both eating prekilled or live (doesn't matter to them) mice or rat hoppers regularly, very inquisitive, never bite or even get headshy and will be bred in 2005...
 
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