New price order?

Originally Posted by Cat_72

Repeat this every couple of weeks, and you get the picture. I suppose it's getting close to winter, I really SHOULD put some ads up to avoid shipping hassles when it gets too cold.....this weekend maybe.

Should we send you daily reminders in your PM Box? LMAO

Originally Posted by Cat_72

(busy laughing at the baby trying to bite at me)

This happens with me all to often... and it is normally followed by..... And you think your gonna do what.... eat me... I dont think so. Then I extend my finger to show im not skeert. The he tries to eat me

Originally Posted by KelliH

Dang girl, pm me I've got several Patty and Blizz males! The Blizzard has been for sale on my website for months, no interest. I still love the old school morphs and work with all of them. My favorites are Stripes and Blizzards.

I'm soo embarrassed!!
I sent you and email and left you a phone message

Originally Posted by Seamus Haley

Having a few snakes and breeding them isn't the same as breeding dogs because... and this is the important part... snakes aren't dogs.

The rest of what you said is basically the exact ignorant crap that royally torks me off about many first time or small time breeders. Having a small number of animals doesn't prohibit an individual from selectively breeding- they chose the damn things to begin with and if they had half a brain they would use some method of selection beyond "first avaliable" They have the ability to PICK which animal gets paired with which other animal, removing all excuses for the propagation of overtly negative traits. Far more important than even that though, they have the ability to make a decision to simply not breed when they do not posess stock which should be mixed or when the pairing is likely to result in low grade animals, the very existance of which is detrimental to the overall captive gene pool. Everyone who produces an animal has the ability to decide not to breed crap to crap to produce crap squared.

If YOU have a problem selectively breeding, I have the following advice for you... Know the species and understand their traits before you select your breeding stock. Learn to cull. Take some goddamn responsibility for the resulting offspring.

Seamus, this person clearly missed the boat when it comes to selective breeding.

Jaye, and Seamus, are you saying there are lines of ball pythons out there which aren't closely related (inbreeding generally being a bad idea) and will throw consistant offspring right now?

I mean, like I said, I know NERD has developed some high yellow normals, and I'd like to get my hands on some of those, but as far as I can tell, most people breeding base morphs are breeding them to normals.

Often to CH or CBB normals with unknown lineages. Those normals may LOOK like a fantastic match, but you won't know what you have until the babies hatch. And those babies won't be any more consistant in what they're likely to throw than their mother was. It takes at least a few generations to get a 'look' to turn up CONSISTANTLY.

You can't just throw a great mojave with a nice light tan normal snake and expect all the babies to be pretty like your mojave. And keeping the prettiest of those snakes doesn't mean the next generation will all be pretty either, particularly if you don't pair them up with their dad.

It takes quite a while, and with a small collection, it's going to be VERY difficult to get a consistant look going without tons of inbreeding. You need to be working with at least 3 different lineages of the same 'look' you're going for, and then you have to hold back the offspring to be sure of what they look like as adults. You're going to need a lot of snakes if you do it right.

Selective breeding isn't just "I think I will select two pretty snakes and breed them together".

Yes, if a snake never sells and everyone else has the same kind of animal for a lower price, and they're selling, AND advertising in the same places--it's overpriced. No question about that.
But a snake isn't necessarily overpriced if you don't advertise it, if no one else is selling ANYTHING like it, or other snakes like it are selling for the same price.

Donna, I was saying there are good looking snakes that are better to be bred and there are others.

As far as my personal opinion when it comes to the ball market, if you're entering it expecting to make money you will more than likely be sorely disappointed. I know there are some out there that make decent and even very sizable sums of money, but in the end, it's a market that won't continue to support that trend. As others said before, breeders are selling to other breeders. There is no end consumer in this scenario and it's gotten to the point that the market is saturated with breeders basically trading their offspring with other breeders. Prices are dropping fairly rapidly, and will continue to do so at an increased rate. I also believe that the impact of the new morphs will be markedly lower than they were in the past. The first bumblebees and piebalds caused quite a stir, but now the new morphs are going to be just another face in the crowd.

As for the high priced animals (pastel axanthic piebald and other multi-morphs) who are the consumers? Generally it's the breeders buying the higher-priced morphs, but lately, I believe the vast majority are choosing to produce them on their own. Of course these are just my own opinions, and I have no idea whether the market for ball pythons will stay afloat or not.

jaye--I actually disagree, and I think it will be around for a long time to come. Regardless, I'm in for the long haul.

This IS what I want to do with my life, and I expect to diversify over time and work with a LOT of other species eventually. I enjoy keeping snakes--I enjoy it enough to make it a business.

Originally Posted by WingedWolf

jaye--I actually disagree, and I think it will be around for a long time to come. Regardless, I'm in for the long haul.

This IS what I want to do with my life, and I expect to diversify over time and work with a LOT of other species eventually. I enjoy keeping snakes--I enjoy it enough to make it a business.

I guess you can call producing a handful of snakes a business, I'd personally call it a hobby. You're welcome to your opinion, but I'd like to know your reasoning behind it.

A handful of snakes this year--my babies were all still growing up! Actually, we produced 26 hatchlings, from one male and 3 females. The male was an ordinary pastel--he has browned out more since we got him, but he's still handsome, and some of his babies aren't too bad. We probably won't be breeding him again, though. Next year I will be producing probably around 80 to 100 hatchlings. I would call that a bit more than handful, personally.

It will be around 200 the year after that...and 300 to 400 the year after that.

I call this a business because it is. I have registered it as a business, and I have a long-term plan for it as a business. Things are going extremely well thus far, and I'm quite optimistic.

Yeah, I'd call that a sizable amount of snakes in the near future, and best of luck with them.

I don't think the ball market is going to crash completely, I just don't see it going gangbusters the way it has. It seems as though a lot of breeders have entered just to breed balls or switched to balls to capitalize on the outrageous morph prices. I just don't see things continuing in the same vein. I'm guessing that it will begin to resemble the leopard gecko business in the near future where only the newest cost upwards of a few hundreds at the most, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I just don't think the "investment" level animals are going to turn as big a profit as some may believe.