? about morphs, what's hot? What's not?

Carrot Tails just ain't what they used to be... Market is flooded, damn near every other post in the classifieds is a CT. I sold all my Carrot Tail offspring and CT breeders after last season. Working with just Tangerines this year and maybe Tang Jungle Albinos. Nice baldy Tangs still maintain their value for now. Agree with Kelli, last year the Carrot Tail market was hurt by cut throat pricing, but thats the laws of supply and demand for ya......

I've also branched out into snakes. The problem is, unlike the leopard geckos, raising up babies to breeding size seriously increases the "time to market" of the offspring. The bright side of that is that the prices stay high for longer.

Thanks for the response,

I hope more breeders chime in..........

Matt

I think the novelty will wear off. Really, the people who are paying the large sums of cash right now seem to be newbies who think they can jump in & breed them to make some easy cash. It takes work & honestly the market looks a little flooded! I have some morphs (2 strains of albino, ht, htct, pastel, stripes, jungles & het for just about everything else!) but i keep 2 unrelated breeding groups of normals because I think the market may eventually come back to these often overlooked hotties! I think the normals have a lot of "character" in their patterns.

Isn't the novelty and all of the morphs part of the fun though? It really seems like Leopard Geckos can never get old.

Are you breeding any of your other morphs besides the normals? It is extremely fun to breed a SHTC to an Albino and produce a perfect SHTC that is het for Albino. Then breed those hets together and produce something you have never seen before........

The possibilities are endless.......


Matt

I will be breeding all of my groups this coming season. I have 6 complete 1.3 groups that are mature. I have some odds & ends that I am still working on fitting in somewhere and several young 'uns that will be used in a year or so. The fun with the morphs is seeing what the offspring will be, that part is so true! I use my geckos in my classroom to teach about genetics & for other stuff too, so for me it isn't the bottom dollar that dictates how I do things. That gives me a little more freedom than for other breeders I think.

Isn't the novelty and all of the morphs part of the fun though? It really seems like Leopard Geckos can never get old.

and they dont but when you have three hundred people breeding for the same thing and you feel your animals are worth x amt but said breeder undercuts and drops the market and now what you have worked so hard on is now worth very little, it gets discouraging... i have stuff that people want but i have my other stuff i work but for my fun projects... but you know if you got a lot of geckos you get alot of eggs and you cant keep them all and eventually sell them and depending on the market might be 1/2 of what toy might have expected or even less...... a reputation and name also play a role bigger names will command high priced while i or you might produce just as nice or nicer offspring than said breeder we because we are not as well known have trouble selling or have to drop our prices just to get some sales......... its alot of different thing involved not just what morph and how much you have put into your collection... reputation,name,market those are just a few

I think you are very right. I think something that Kelli told me is very true though. When I bought my very first "high end" leo, from Kelli about 6 months ago, I asked her if people can actually make money by doing something they incredibly love and she told me that you have to spend a lot of money in order to make money. And that seems so true.

I think I read this off of vpi.com. On that website Tracy Barker said that her and her husband had spent a few years breeding many normal ball pythons, and they were only breaking even. She then said that they invested in albinos (or another expensive morph) and they are able to make just as much money breeding 4 or 5 albinos as they did breeding many, many, normals (I can't remember how many). and they had to do substantually less work. By breeding those Albinos in the first place it also seems like it would help you build a reputation too. I don't know why this wouldn't work for leos...... T

If you are basically a "no-name", but you figure out a way to market to everyone, and you have a morph that not many people have. Why wouldn't you be able to sell your geckos and make money.

I think if you have to undercut someone in order to sell your leos your not breeding the right morphs or your breeding low quality morphs, you have to offer quality and something unique that no one else (or very few people) have.

It is obvious that there are many Hypos and Super Hypos out there, but NONE OF THEM LOOK AS GOOD AS KELLI'S OR EVEN THE URBAN GECKO'S. These two people are able to offer the best and they Shouldn't have to lower their prices because some kid is selling his low grade hypos for a lot less.

People need to be aware that you do get what you pay for. Just because you see a SHCT for $150.00 it's still not as good as something you would buy from Kelli, sure you have the same morph, but it doesn't even compare to what Kelli offers for $200.00 more.

Well, I'm done talking for now...........Sorry if I don't make sense (I just kept typing)

Matt