opinions needed!

what python is the most wanted? and what sells the most?

Ball pythons are hot and exciting right now. There are many different morphs and many more to come. If I were you I would continue to do the research and fall in love with a species. Learn everything you can about it and raise some up from neonates. Breed them when you are ready. Do you have any herps. I like your enthusiam, Art

Originally Posted by futureherpbreeder

what python is the most wanted? and what sells the most?

It really sort of depends on your reason for asking. If you are looking for a future project, I agree with Art - research and work with a few species, then pick your favorite. Don't breed something just because everybody else is (or for the money).
If you are just curious about market trends, ball pythons are on top. The prices range from a cheap dinner for two ($30), to a new car ($10k-$25k), to a decent house ($100,000); they stay fairly small; and the variety of morphs seems to increase yearly.
Personally, I am a huge fan of retics (now illegal in my state) and womas.

Taken from the perspective of the market as a whole, there is only one possible answer to your question, balls.
No other python species even approaches the balls dominance in the market.
That's not to say you should become a ball python breeder. The market is also getting heavy with breeders and it's tough for a new name to get into it unless you have the cash to go directly to visual morphs.

The large constrictors have a completely different, and smaller niche. Myself, I usually discourage anyone from even getting into breeding the giants. It is my opinion that there is already significantly more of these snakes produced annually than there are qualified keepers to own them. The key word being qualified. The abundance of giant snakes being produced coupled with the equal abundance of unqualified potential owners is proving to be a serious detriment to our hobby.
I have no problem with anyone who is capable owning one of these snakes, but the fact is that only a very small percentage of the people who buy a hatchling burmese will still own the snake when it dies of old age. Of the ones that do keep the snake long term, many of them will not be housing it properly due to lack of space or funds. There's simply no reason to add even more of these animals to a saturated market.
This opinion often angers many of the serious keepers of the giant snakes, but the reality is they are in the vast minority of reptile keepers as a whole. For every one person who is fully capable and enjoys keeping their burms or retics, there are 30 or 40 keepers who really have no business at all with the cute little burm they just brought home from Petco.

Many of the other pythons are wonderful snakes, womas, jungle carpets, but their respective market share is hampered by the lack of mutations. I have 30 or 40 ball pythons. I also have womas and think they are magnificent snakes, but I couldn't see having 30 of them.

All that said however, any species you keep should be because you enjoy them for what they are in your collection, and would enjoy them equally if they were all worth $25.
The ball python market will collapse eventually. When that happens many $100K collections will be worth about a grand overnight. If nothing else an economy crash will bring it all down. Few things could be considered more of a luxury than a $20K ball python.
If you keep what you love though, you'll be no worse off when it does end. You'll still have a collection of animals you enjoy working with while a lot of the money breeders will be sitting on a huge number of cool looking snakes bemoaning all the money they lost.

Clay,
I completely agree with you, I myself am a burm guy. There are far too many people out there who purchase a burm or a retic and have no idea how big they will get and how expensive it will be to feed and house properly. Now dont get me wrong, im not one of those people who have big snakes and say DONT GET BIG SNAKES, but I seriously encourage people to think before getting anything close to a retic or a burm. There are so many burms out there that are up for adoption because their owners didnt know or neglected the fact of how big they get. This is one fact that really angers me, but it not only happens to the big snakes, but how many people do you think go to petco and say " look at that cute little ball python" while ball pythons are small, they too need a tremendous amount of attention and care. Granted they dont get as big as a burm, they still deserve the same basic things.
That being said, if I were a newbie, I would stay as far away from ball pythons as I could. Unless of course, you are getting into them for the right reasons. Just to want to breed snakes for money, in my opinion is wrong. That is what contributes to all of these 'orphans' out there. The ball python market, in my opinion, is going to see a dramatic fall in the next few years.
What kind of snake do I enjoy the most? That is what you need to ask yourself. The answer to that is what you need to get.

Jamie Randolph

Those of us that have been doing this for a while can remember when balls weren't particularly popular. The farming process, and CH babies, was a huge factor in this - taking them from problematic snakes that didn't thrive in the hands of most keepers to being the snake that can take you from beginner to designer morphs (depending on your budget). They've been big for several years now, and a variety of things will be happening. I think that due to their size, and the # of options available, they will stay popular...but the prices will continue to fall. The only reason it is happening slower than with some of the other species is that balls are much less prolific...6 babies vs 40 for burms vs 25 for boas.

ive been fascinated with herps since i was a kid living in mesa AZ. i told my self i will start collecting when i was stable and able to take care and properly take care of them. that happend about 2 years ago, now i own some very big herps! it wasnt for the money, but for the love of big snakes. hers some pics of their life style!

thanks everyone!

josh

ps icant get my cage photos on there, there 2 big!

Originally Posted by Clay Davenport

qualified keepers to own them. The key word being qualified.

Qualified, now that's a mouthfull. I can't tell you how many times I've NOT sold a Burmese, African rock or a retic because I felt the person wasn't qualified or simply had no idea about size.

I ask questions when people want to buy one of the big guys. Questions like: Do you know how big it will get? Where will you keep it when it gets big? I've actually had quite a few people tell me that they will donate the snake to the zoo when it gets too big. Then I ask them how big is too big and they say around 8'-10'. Then I tell them that this snake has the potential to get 8' in a year and the zoo doesn't want them and it's no longer for sale. I've been cussed out for that honesty.

I have a freind who has a huge albino Burmese that laid 60 eggs one year and they all hatched! These animals are prolific.

I only see the ball python market going up, maybe not in $$$ because the $$$ part has to go down with all the new morph breeders springing up every day and the fact that some of these animals are priced so high that I can't believe people would actually pay that kind of $$$. But I think it will continue to go up because there are already so many morphs and future morphs-to-be that it's going to be years & years before the full morph potential of the ball shows up.

I do agree with everyone else on this. Pick species you like to work with, not one you think you can make money off of. Otherwise taking care of the animals will become a chore and your animals will suffer.

I've owned snakes on and off since I was about 10 years old. When I was 19, I inhereted 2 large Burmese, and while they were awesome as pets, there was a point at which they were just too much. I ended up giving them to my vet tech who was very fond of them...

It really bums me out to see all the baby big-boys out there being sold at pet stores, then seeing them mistreated, neglected or abused because the owners can no longer care for them, or just lose interest in doing so. (I know the local reptile rescue guy here in San Diego, and some of the animals he picks up are in very sad shape...)

I think Karen is RIGHT-ON asking the basic questions for anybody interested in the true-giants to get a feel whether or not they really understand what they're getting themselves into, and just as important, putting the foot down when they clearly aren't qualified...

There are so many other beautiful species that don't grow to that enormous size, that are way more practical for the every day keeper, and also make great pets.

Now that I'm at a point in my life where I can afford this hobby, (and I'm into it now more than ever!), I have my wife to win over- it's begnning to get ugly! I've got 2 baby pines- 1 black, and 1 southern patternless. LOVE 'em both, but am desperately trying to convince her that I need 1 more- her reply is, 'where will it end?"...

//Todd

Originally Posted by Br8knitOFF

her reply is, 'where will it end?"...

Ra Roh Where will it end? I started off with one ball python in 1995. Now I'm up to around 70 snakes. There's always something else that I see that I "desperately need". Last year at a show I saw this cape gopher snake. The moment I laid eyes on it I knew I was going to buy it. Sad but true. Now I "need" a female to go with him! Ahahahahaha

I don't think we should put the full blame on breeders & pet stores for all these mistreated and unwanted giants. People need to be responsible for the life they purchase. I'm so sick of people who act like they don't know how big an animal is going to get. These days when the answer is right at their fingertips the excuse of "I didn't know" makes them look like idiots.

I work at a pet store a few times a week and I can't tell you how many calls we get from people who want to "get rid" of animals. When someone uses the words GET RID OF, it goes straight through me, like the animal is some form of garbage, and it's very hard for me to be civil to that person. Very rarely is it a snake and we sell tons of snakes! Mostly it's some form of mammal with cats & dogs being the #1 "get rid of" animal and we don't even sell them. My favorite excuse is: "I'm moving tomorrow and the ________ (insert animal here) has to go ASAP because my new apartment doesn't allow pets. Hello? Did you just decide to move today? I could go on and on about this. Sometimes I get so sick of people that it's pathetic.

Ultimately it's the responsibility of the person who bought the animal to maintain said animal. How is it the responsibility of the breeder or pet shop if the person releases or neglects an animal?