What's with the price crashing?

I agree with much of what was being said. However my good people.
THIS IS A BUSINESS FIRST! Hobby second. This is the pet TRADE folks.
Once you put a tag on it, it no longer becomes just a hobby. The two may coincide, but everytime you price it, it becomes a business first. And everyone becomes a potential customer.

Our economy is not something to ignore, people are not 100% recovered, natural disasters, oil spill f*** ups, unstable markets, throw things up and down.

So the ball python market being the example used, has to stablize itself somehow as it grows to the masses.

One who loves the hobby,culture,etc. Consider it a good thing. You bring new breeders, forcing old over pricers out, you bring new technology, new information, new eras of breeding, more knowledge, higher demands for better and greater morphs. If the market stayed the same how would morphs advance, how would punnet squares look like a simple game of tic tac toe? Before you shoot me down thinkof this. If the great PKs, Sharps, Wilbanks, NERDs,Grazianis,Bells,Russos,Stone,Ronne,etc... had to fund ALL of their projects without a growing market. Where would the hobby be?

**push the negative aside and look for the bright, if you are a passionate hobbyist who just so happens to breed.**

Now breeders and those passionate enough to take their time have to reinvent themselves must adapt as all things. And if you can't do it now, you never will. Not in this lifetime at least.

A growing unstable market = a stable market in a capitialist world.

Also about the whole quality issue people talk about. I've noticed a lot of the big well-known breeders have a "brand name" of sorts on their snakes and are able to sell it for a higher price than a smaller breeder who purchased snakes from the same big breeder and is selling the same snakes.
Quality in both snakes should be the same, provided the smaller breeder known a thing or two about proper husbandry which is we're talking about costly morphs should be a given.
I think the only way to make good money consistently is to:
a: Have a large operation with lots of breeders
b: Attempt to create new crosses of morphs (lots of snakes required)
c: Be on the lookout for new morphs (big breeders having an eye on africa all the time)

Eventually all the morph crossing will make ball pythons more like cornsnakes, they'll always be a bit more valuable because they're a more desirable snakes in general, but mostly morphs except for a few newer ones will be relatively cheap, much like corns today.

Speak for yourself Ramiro.... Balls will never attain the colorations that you can find in corns... and that alone makes them more desirable to me. Show me a fire engine red BP... and you'll have something.

The rest of what you posted I do agree with. As to the brand name... chances are those breeders either got very lucky and stumbled on something new..... or they spent years improving on existing morphs. Take Alby... he turned a $75 tangerine leo into a $800 leo... and he sells out! That is what sets breeders appart.

I think most would be surprised at what animals actually sell for by these big name breeders and whether or not they were actually produced by them. Just because something is listed for a certain price doesn't mean it sells for that price.

Well Steph, at PrehistoricPets, what's listed is what you pay. I've heard stories of Jay rather not making a sale then pay shipping on their medlow-med end animals. Now this is just an example, and some* personal expierence from being around him etc. He told me one of his employees would give give me a better deal the he would.

Prehistoric Pets is not a big name breeder. They're a pet store. A big name breeder would be Bob Clark, Pete Kahl, NERD, etc.

I consider Jay & Tim big names, at least in the retic world.

But they both are breeders, and both rather large names. Just because one isn't as big in one area (BPs) that makes the other one a simple "pet store"?

I'm really not following what you're attempting to argue with me about?

Bob Clark and NERD are also known for Retics in addition to what they have done with Ball Pythons, so I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at or what that has to do with anything I said.

I'm just saying that sometimes you pay the price listed.

Originally Posted by Utta

I'm just saying that sometimes you pay the price listed.

Yes, that's obviously very true for a lot of people. But that doesn't negate that behind the scenes wheeling and dealing goes on that most aren't aware of how low some of these animals are actually going for. Some of the pricing I'm aware of gives me a stomach ache.