I want your opinion

We all know that ball python mutations are the hottest thing on the planet right now and we all also know that there are a million people crawling out of the woodwork on this site, kingsnake and every other, selling het and possible het animals. Most of the inquiries on this BOI for the past few months have been one of the guys after another after another. Everything from $50 to $5000.

Some of these guys offer a paper trail, some don't, but does that matter. Can't they buy one het or pos het and sell 20 normals and just give everybody the same story, same papers, etc? It happens all the time. No matter how many good looking healthy animals you would buy, you would still not know the genetics for at least 1-3 years and if they are possible hets nothing could come of breeding them and you would never really know what you had purchased was or was not even possibly het for anything.

I buy het and pos het animals all the time but only from friends that I feel I can trust and breeders whose reputation is worth more to them than a quick buck. So the big question is, is it worth dealing with these guys and saving a little money or is it just something that you see and avoid while the hair on the back of your neck stands up? What makes the difference to you on somebody's character on if you buy from them or not online when you have never even met them? Just really really curious. Evan

Evan,

I agree that there are more and more people popping up selling hets. pos. hets and other morphs. Unfortunately there are going to be some people out there that will sell normals as POS. Het animals just to make a quick buck. Take this for example, I have 4.0 50% pos. het Pied Balls for sale. None of the ones I have show the belly pattern that some look for in pos. het pied that is supposed to be a sign of it being a het. But I have about 35 of my c.h. balls that have the exact belly characteristics as what is looked for. if I were dishonest I would be selling the heck out of those animals and telling everyone that they are the pos. het PIED animals. Now we all know there are animals out in the wild that carry the different genes but there is no way of knowing what an animal is without being able to trust the sellers word. I honestly think in another 2 years there are going be a ton of people pissed because their supposed het animals sold to them by some of these fly by night companies/individuals turn out to be nothing more than a normal. I guess that it why I only buy het or Pos. het animals from someone I can trust.

Rob,
You hit the nail right on the head man!!
Greg Holland

Take this for example, I have 4.0 50% pos. het Pied Balls for sale. None of the ones I have show the belly pattern that some look for in pos. het pied that is supposed to be a sign of it being a het. But I have about 35 of my c.h. balls that have the exact belly characteristics as what is looked for.

Rob, you're making me nervous. I spent a lot of money on a possible het pied female that had the belly markings from a person other than the "known breeders".

Sheesh. Now I am going to worry about that female as well as if I am ever going to get my jungle from Stan.

Evan,
I'm small time (no, make that tiny time compared to people like you and Rob), so I would never even CONSIDER making that type of investment on a "possible" from someone I didn't know personally or who had a SOLID reputation. Maybe it's because I'm a paranoid ex-cop and High School teacher whose been lied to one too many times. It's hard enough for me to trust someone over the net on a small time deal when I can't shake their hand and look them in the eye. Now if I was "big time" like y'all, it might be worth the gamble to buy a possible het from an unknown seller if the price was right. I would just tell myself going in that it's like going to Vegas. It's a gamble and more times then not the house wins.

Take care & God bless,
Phil Frost
ZNJ Exotics
znjexotics@hotmail.com

Evan,
I have considered this myself. The same problem existed in the late 70's and 80's but on a much more restricted scale. Imports were the norm and the internet was just a thought. Our technology has really brought this to the forefront. The larger the demand for a particular item, the more scamers and operators will crawl out from the woodwork. If you buy carelessly, you had better be prepared to drive or fly across country to extract your pound of flesh. I have no solutions, personally, I must trust reputations and the BOI as you well know.
Mark Daniels
New Orleans

It is logical for small time breeders with small time budgets to produce proportionally fewer homozygous animals. If you want to breed ball morphs but can't afford 20K in start up costs for a pair of animals, the logical thing to do is buy a male and start breeding huge numbers of hets.

Some for future projects, some to sell.

I agree that a bit of caution is certainly warranted, but it can't be said that nobody should make purchases from relative unknowns- how else are they to become known? Many of them seem to feel that they'll get better responses by selling their animals cheaper than the average market value, knocking about 10-25% off the commonly seen price. They're not entirely wrong in this, but it can make others suspicious.

Personally, after a lot of consideration about this problem of buying het animals (not ball pythons, of course, but the problem is the same), I decided that buying het animals just is not worth the stress. Breeding positive hets together is chancy enough with Murphy's Law looking over your shoulder, but POSSIBLE HETS? No way! Yeah, you MIGHT hit the jackpot, but you probably won't

Unless you are really only interested in the normals anyway, and anything else would be just icing to the cake, I would say save your money and by full homozygous animals. That way you know exactly what you are getting, and there is a lot more predictability in your future plans. Unless the wild mutation comes off with the first shed skin after you buy it, of course....

Plus the prices will probably still be relatively high on that cultivar when it comes time for you to sell some babies. Unless things really go sour in the market, you should do quite well IF you can make the initial outlay of money, and IF you are successful breeding them.

Just be prepared for bad luck. Back when amelanistic Honduran milks were still going for $3K each, my big robust 3 year old female died coming out of brumation. I could only get that single pair of Amels from Louie Porras back in '95, and in '96 I couldn't get any. And that male, well he had no clue about females at all, so I guess it didn't matter that the female died. That little setback kicked me completely out of the market and killed my desire to ever spend any REAL money on something that can DIE on me.

This add has been up for Carolina Reptile Exchange for what, almost 2 months now. Why? That's a way lower price then others are selling them for! I think a fair price, what the market will support at this time but why haven't they sold?

http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=32&de=142248

Case in point!

Rich can sell a $15-$20 Anow or Anery corn snake for almost double.....$30

We aren't talking about a het so why can he do this? Is the quality better? I highly doubt that! He can do it because after putting in years of hard work people know they won't be let down and if they are the issue will get fixed. Is this worth the extra money?

I guess that's up to the buyer. You have to weight the risks of the person you feel you're dealing with.

I didn't buy those hets cause I wasn't comfortable with the breeder even though he may be great. I just paid an extra $1,800 to be 100% sure.. Well worth $1,800 to me!

Nice sunday mornin conversation( as I sit here w/my first cup of coffee) I too have many of the concerns already expressed by others in this post. Last year was my first year jumping into the ball market. I have seen many het and poss het animals out there and some of the deals made me wonder too. Because the market has so much money involved in it, I think many small time breeders are anxious to test there breeding luck and try to get there slice of the pie. Seamus made many valid points in his reply. Trying to get your name out there, competing to sell your offspring next to some of the better known dealers. I think to myself, how will I market my offspring when I produce them? Will other hobbyists/breeders think my animals are legit? Also, as a smaller breeder, I think sometimes snakes are offered cheaper because of space constraints.Maybe you had a better year than expected and space becomes a problem.
As far as buying hets/poss hets and trusting the deal, its a crap shoot at best sometimes. My feelings towards poss hets are this: If I was serious and trusted the breeder who produced them I would feel more comfortable buying an entire clutch. Single poss hets are a huge gamble,and not for me. Dont get me wrong, I love a good card game, but I dont like gambling large sums of money on my reptile investments(lol) Plus, as stated earlier, its not like you will know in a day or two. Many poss het deals are long term projects. I dont want to make a mistake today, and wait 2-3 or more yrs to have it come back to haunt me.
Part of the fun,at least to me , is raising hets and seeing those morphs pop out of an egg, or live birthed. Its kinda like christmas! But for all the years I have been doing this I dont remember any other snake with so much money and potential wrapped around it. Along with that goes the scammers who are out to deceive you for profit, and those gambles on het/poss het deals. I am all for dealing with small breeders, those who are honest and trustworthy. I feel they have a lot to offer, and are more than willing to deal on prices( simply because they can afford to be more flexible w/prices) Plus some of the small dealers are the future of this hobby. What better time to discover a business relationship and friendship. Trust is the key word in relationships, business or otherwise. Deal with those you trust,Trust those you deal with. ( I need another cup of coffee)lol Ken