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10-01-2008, 04:14 AM

I agree completely, and hope that the majority of the breeders out there do as well. It would be a shame for everyone to drop prices insanely, and then have the market recover in 2 years...and there you are.

I like to buy the best animal I can afford...which will hopefully be a much nicer one next year than it was this year...and so on. What sort of look you go for in a morph has to also depend on what you mix it with, though. High yellow pastels are, _I_ think, prettier than the ones that brown out. But what if you're mixing it with a cinnie? Or a burgundy? Etc. There may be a purpose served in having a low yellow pastel. You have to experiment to find out what different looks you can produce.

It's also tough to selectively breed co-dom morphs for things when you are crossing them to normal females. You can pick a female that's a good match, but in reality you just have to wait and see to find out how the babies will turn out. It may take 12 years for you to even make a dent in developing a high gold or light tan, or high yellow line of normals to improve morph lines. You can't always just breed morphs to morphs, either, that makes it awfully hard to see what's going on. NERD's got high yellow line normals--it must have taken them ages to develop them.
Take the best, brightest lemon pastel NERD has and breed it to a drab female, and you're going to get 'ok' lemon pastels. I've found it hard to select breeder females with some of the attitude in the market. "Pictures aren't available, they're just normals". >.<

I've seen things marketed as 'lemon pastels' that just plain aren't, anymore.

The 'morph morph morph' attitude is understandable, but compared with, say, leopard geckos, ball python breeding is WAY behind when it comes to selective breeding for various traits. There's a huge area there waiting to be filled. It'll take a really long time to do it, but once you have a selective bred line, you've got something tremendously valuable.

Envision a line of ball pythons that consistantly throw super high yellow reduced pattern females that grow large and lay 10+ egg clutches in 5 years.

How much would that be worth to you? "Just a normal". Right. lol

Morphs will continue to come and go...I wonder if there will ever be a slow-down in finding new ones? There are enough crosses to keep people entertained for decades. Which is another reason why I'm not worried about price drop-outs.

10-01-2008, 04:14 AM	#56
WingedWolf	I agree completely, and hope that the majority of the breeders out there do as well. It would be a shame for everyone to drop prices insanely, and then have the market recover in 2 years...and there you are. I like to buy the best animal I can afford...which will hopefully be a much nicer one next year than it was this year...and so on. What sort of look you go for in a morph has to also depend on what you mix it with, though. High yellow pastels are, _I_ think, prettier than the ones that brown out. But what if you're mixing it with a cinnie? Or a burgundy? Etc. There may be a purpose served in having a low yellow pastel. You have to experiment to find out what different looks you can produce. It's also tough to selectively breed co-dom morphs for things when you are crossing them to normal females. You can pick a female that's a good match, but in reality you just have to wait and see to find out how the babies will turn out. It may take 12 years for you to even make a dent in developing a high gold or light tan, or high yellow line of normals to improve morph lines. You can't always just breed morphs to morphs, either, that makes it awfully hard to see what's going on. NERD's got high yellow line normals--it must have taken them ages to develop them. Take the best, brightest lemon pastel NERD has and breed it to a drab female, and you're going to get 'ok' lemon pastels. I've found it hard to select breeder females with some of the attitude in the market. "Pictures aren't available, they're just normals". >.< I've seen things marketed as 'lemon pastels' that just plain aren't, anymore. The 'morph morph morph' attitude is understandable, but compared with, say, leopard geckos, ball python breeding is WAY behind when it comes to selective breeding for various traits. There's a huge area there waiting to be filled. It'll take a really long time to do it, but once you have a selective bred line, you've got something tremendously valuable. Envision a line of ball pythons that consistantly throw super high yellow reduced pattern females that grow large and lay 10+ egg clutches in 5 years. How much would that be worth to you? "Just a normal". Right. lol Morphs will continue to come and go...I wonder if there will ever be a slow-down in finding new ones? There are enough crosses to keep people entertained for decades. Which is another reason why I'm not worried about price drop-outs.