New price order?

[The BoidSmith]

We are all aware the economy is going through rough times. People have trouble paying their mortgages or even filling their tank with gas. In spite of this we still see individuals offering animals for sale at outrageous prices. This is no criticism to the price itself, as you can ask whatever you want for your property. But really, how does asking in excess of $5,000 for a snake sit with everyone strictly from a business approach perspective? Even if you receive an offer for $2,500 for the animal, would you reject it? My point is that there seems to be a disconnection of some people with the current state of affairs and their approach to business. The days of the $10,000 snake are gone; at least that's my opinion. It seems to me that the current economic situation calls for a new price order.

[shrap]

We are all aware the economy is going through rough times. People have trouble paying their mortgages or even filling their tank with gas. In spite of this we still see individuals offering animals for sale at outrageous prices. This is no criticism to the price itself, as you can ask whatever you want for your property. But really, how does asking in excess of $5,000 for a snake sit with everyone strictly from a business approach perspective? Even if you receive an offer for $2,500 for the animal, would you reject it? My point is that there seems to be a disconnection of some people with the current state of affairs and their approach to business. The days of the $10,000 snake are gone; at least that's my opinion. It seems to me that the current economic situation calls for a new price order.

I dont see anything else in our country getting drastically cheaper just because the economy is in the crapper. Why should the reptile market be any different? In fact many markets are actually charging more (been to the grocery store lately?).

[The BoidSmith]

Yes, although groceries is one thing that we can't live without; on the other hand reptiles...

[Mooing Tricycle]

I dont see anything else in our country getting drastically cheaper just because the economy is in the crapper. Why should the reptile market be any different? In fact many markets are actually charging more (been to the grocery store lately?).

Hobbies are usually the first to take a plumett.

Because people focus more on spending money on gas and food and other necessities, they spend less on their hobby of choice, so because less people are buying, its taking a costlier animal to sell, to make up for the costs of the animals you havent sold, which then makes people less apt to buy, because they dont have THAT kind of money to spend on an animal, that they could have gotten cheaper a couple months ago. I also think because the price to deliver feeders* for those that dont breed their own*, and the cost of food to feed them too is going up, people start to charge more for their animals to feed the ones they do have. Again, backfiring because less people are buying, so making things go all out of whack. This trend wont continue if the prices on everything keep rising, and pay does not increase with it as well.

Eventually, stuff WILL have to come down, and people will start eating it on their animals. Its just a matter of when, really at this point. and then thats when your best time to buy is. ( from a business standpoint anyway)

At least, this is how i look at it.
I like learning/talking about market stuff, and economics, and how everything is sort of like a chain reaction, where everything affects everything in a market. there are lots of different ways to look at things.

[shrap]

I understand where you are coming from Dan. I just dont see the need for people to go into panic mode and drastically change the market at this point. If the economy is going to completely tank somewhere down the road then that will take care of the prices on all non essential good and services in this country. If the market rebounds then things will be able to carry on as normal. Where supply and demand will dictate future market prices.

At this point I just dont see the need to panic and prematurely alter the market. It is just too soon for that in my book. The next 12-24 months will tell the tale.

[Mooing Tricycle]

I understand where you are coming from Dan. I just dont see the need for people to go into panic mode and drastically change the market at this point. If the economy is going to completely tank somewhere down the road then that will take care of the prices on all non essential good and services in this country. If the market rebounds then things will be able to carry on as normal. Where supply and demand will dictate future market prices.

At this point I just dont see the need to panic and prematurely alter the market. It is just too soon for that in my book. The next 12-24 months will tell the tale.

I agree. a panic will harm more than do good. I think people should just stick with it for a bit. Things will start looking better soon enough.

[The BoidSmith]

I understand where you are coming from Dan. I just dont see the need for people to go into panic mode and drastically change the market at this point. If the economy is going to completely tank somewhere down the road then that will take care of the prices on all non essential good and services in this country. If the market rebounds then things will be able to carry on as normal. Where supply and demand will dictate future market prices.

At this point I just dont see the need to panic and prematurely alter the market. It is just too soon for that in my book. The next 12-24 months will tell the tale.

No, need to panic, that's for sure. Again, more power to those that can weather the current situation and decide not modify their prices. My take though is that the $5,000 snakes are not going to sell that easy as a few years ago. Even if someone has the money to spend there are other priorities down the road. These times are good for those individuals who sell more affordable animals.

[shrap]

My take though is that the $5,000 snakes are not going to sell that easy as a few years ago.

I think we have seen that happening for the last two or three years already. It was only 4 or 5 years ago that a Spider Ball was 10k-15k. Now they are $300 all day long. The laws of the marketplace (supply and demand) have already been busy doing just what you suggest and will continue to do so.

Personally I have no problem with the laws of the marketplace lowering prices. It is just going to open up the market to tens of thousands of people who have been priced out of the market to this point.

[The BoidSmith]

I think we have seen that happening for the last two or three years already. It was only 4 or 5 years ago that a Spider Ball was 10k-15k. Now they are $300 all day long. The laws of the marketplace (supply and demand) have already been busy doing just what you suggest and will continue to do so.

Personally I have no problem with the laws of the marketplace lowering prices. It is just going to open up the market to tens of thousands of people who have been priced out of the market to this point.

Furthermore, I don't foresee new ball python designer morphs entering the market at what they used to. You may very well produce the first brand new killer morph but if there's no buyer for it, you are dead in the water. Now more than ever it's the buyer that sets the price, and not the seller. A seller may want "X" amount for a snake but ha has to be prepared to negociate to "where he has never been before" or he will not move your animals. There's one psychological aspect to it. If the buyer gets used to the "new morph" in the ads for a long period of time he tends to loose interest.

In my opinion this is a very good time for less expensive snakes species (or normals of certain morphs).

Best

[Seamus Haley]

In my opinion this is a very good time for less expensive snakes species (or normals of certain morphs).

I don't think it's ever really been a bad time for less expensive species.

The majority of the high dollar animal sales have gone to people looking to produce more of the same as a financial investment. While they may own that particular animal for the remainder of the animal's life, they aren't really an end consumer in the strictest sense. Conversations with other people who are functioning on some level as a business or are simply the more diehard herpetoculturalists can skew the perspective of the overall market.

It has always been much easier to sell (meaning find a customer for, not a question of total work involved) one hundred ten dollar animals than it has been to sell a single thousand dollar animal.

I believe you're right about the prices of some morphs. Supply constantly goes up from the point of initial production and demand goes down as consumers who wanted one have obtained one. Mix in the current overall economic slump and the tendency for slightly more tightfisted budgeting by those who are hobbiest breeders or smaller operation types looking to invest and the prices drop. "By how much?" is always the question that matters... to those looking to buy and sell morphs anyway, I've always liked what natural selection did a lot better.

[hhmoore]

I understand where you are coming from Dan. I just dont see the need for people to go into panic mode and drastically change the market at this point. If the economy is going to completely tank somewhere down the road then that will take care of the prices on all non essential good and services in this country. If the market rebounds then things will be able to carry on as normal. Where supply and demand will dictate future market prices.

At this point I just dont see the need to panic and prematurely alter the market. It is just too soon for that in my book. The next 12-24 months will tell the tale.

Ah - the voice of a reasonable man that didn't get in over his head by spending more money than he could afford or producing more animals than he could deal with. Smart cookie

[hhmoore]

My take:
The market is to a large extent being driven by the consumer AND the the person I did not describe in my previous post...For whatever reason ($$ being one of them) people seem to consider breeding a natural progression of this hobby now. It just isn't enough to love the animals and keep a bunch of them anymore. Not only is supply increasing at a greater rate than ever before, but there are more and more people that aren't willing to hold onto animals. They produce more than they are comfortable caring for - $$, time, and space, are a few of the factors that come into consideration - so they start cutting prices. The part I think is funny is that they continue to produce more than they can deal with...they just can't seem to let a season go by without breeding.
At the same time, the "backdoor prices" have become relatively common knowledge. Many people don't think twice about offering half the asking price...and some take an attitude when they are turned down, so the assumption could be that they are used to those offers being accepted. Then, there is wholesale.... People's interpretation of wholesale varies drastically. By definition, it is the selling in quantity, as to jobbers or retailers, for resale. How many of us have NOT had a prospective buyer say that they only pay wholesale? I've had countless people tell me that when they are inquiring about a single animal....or one they want for a breeding project. IMO, if I am buying an animal that I want for me & am planning on keeping it for a few years before considering selling it - it isn't wholesale. I don't have a problem selling things at a huge reduction from normal pricing, IF I am selling off a number of animals to a business that is going to resell them. Did you ever ask somebody to send you a copy of their tax certificate?? Gotta love those responses, lol.

* remembered this part before I finished, but didn't feel like fitting it in, so I'm going to just tack it on at the end.....
watching the classifieds & deal shopping has become a hobby in itself. It has become painfully obvious that a portion of sellers are going to cut prices until an animal sells, so people are willing to wait them out. It might take them 6 months longer to get what they want, but the odds of somebody agreeing to a lowball offer increase substantially as time goes on.

**Of course, this is all just the take of a person that likes snakes more than he likes most people....I am definitely not cut out for sales, because I get tend to get annoyed or frustrated with the antics of today's consumers; and my response is generally to say the heck with it, pull my ads, & take a break from trying to sell for a few months. Saves me the hassle of shipping anyway, lol.

[The BoidSmith]

Breeding is the natural progression as you say. It's the ultimate challenge as a keeper to be able to succesfully breed the species in captivity. Similarly, zoo's reputation oftentimes lie more on the success of their breeding programs than on the diversity of the species they keep.

As for people offering half the price that wouldn't happen if sellers didn't inflate prices by 100% ;) Seriously though, if you look at the prices on the www and then check the same company's prices (for the same animals) at shows you can tell animals are way overpriced on the internet. Of course, not everyone can attend shows all the time...

[Lucille]

Furthermore, I don't foresee new ball python designer morphs entering the market at what they used to. You may very well produce the first brand new killer morph but if there's no buyer for it, you are dead in the water. Now more than ever it's the buyer that sets the price, and not the seller. A seller may want "X" amount for a snake but ha has to be prepared to negociate to "where he has never been before" or he will not move your animals. There's one psychological aspect to it. If the buyer gets used to the "new morph" in the ads for a long period of time he tends to loose interest.

In my opinion this is a very good time for less expensive snakes species (or normals of certain morphs).

Best

Interesting theory. But I disagree. It may be that buyers may be more careful about plopping down 5 or 10K on a new snake, but those may not be the 'new morph' buyers. I still feel that there may be a strong market for the brand new killer morphs.
I think there are people who have fallen in love with the morph idea and while there is no question that any snake is beautiful, there is a strong demand for the new.

I was restocking my garden last year and wanted some daylilies, and was looking around because it had been quite a while since I bought. I ended up with some nice plants but found that there is a very strong market for new cultivars and that there was actually competition to pay many thousands of dollars for spectacular new registered cultivars.

There is no question that there are problems with the economy. But there is also a very strong market for expensive items, everything from daylilies to Hummers to Yorkies and I think that there is a place in there for snakes too.

Man does not live by bread alone. Let's see how it goes, but I would be surprised if demand falls for beautiful new morphs.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Seriously though, if you look at the prices on the www and then check the same company's prices (for the same animals) at shows you can tell animals are way overpriced on the internet. Of course, not everyone can attend shows all the time...

This isn't unusual in any market. My Uncle is a bee farmer, and he charges $1-2 more online for his products then at shows. It's a convenience thing. If show animals/products weren't moderately lower priced then on the internet, do you think they (the shows) would be as popular? People can be lazy, why both driving 1-2 hours to a show (or even farther for the BIG shows) when you can pay the same price online without getting off the sofa? ;)

[blueapplepaste]

Prices are already coming down on their own accord. I think that the economy is making it harder to move animals; but for many people their snakes are not just a "hobby"; its more than that. I know when money was/is tight for me, I drive less, eat out less, etc to save money. I enjoy my reptiles too much to sacrifice them; and I still try to put money away for those "big purchases" so I can continue to expand my collection.

Now if things get bad enough, of course I'll scale down or do whatever so I can survive. But for me, and many others, their reptiles are not the first thing to go in hard times. The market will adjust itself just fine w/o artificially lowering prices to accommodate the economy.

[hhmoore]

Breeding is the natural progression as you say. It's the ultimate challenge as a keeper to be able to succesfully breed the species in captivity. Similarly, zoo's reputation oftentimes lie more on the success of their breeding programs than on the diversity of the species they keep.

As for people offering half the price that wouldn't happen if sellers didn't inflate prices by 100% ;) Seriously though, if you look at the prices on the www and then check the same company's prices (for the same animals) at shows you can tell animals are way overpriced on the internet. Of course, not everyone can attend shows all the time...

It used to be a natural progression...now it seems to be something different. I'm having a tough time coming up with a good explanation - I'll blame it on the hour. People are jumping into breeding without the experience that we used to see. Maybe it is related to the readily available information on the internet :shrug01:, but people are starting to breed that haven't got a clue what to do about some of the simplest problems. Heck, I see people advertising that can't identify the sex of the babies (speaking of snakes, and sexually dimorphic lizards).

As for the second part of your statement - while it may be accurate to a degree, it seems a bit narrow focused. Sure, some people/dealers do price like that...many do not. I don't price things much different whether I am advertising online or posting prices on my table. I usually know what I want for any given animal, and that doesn't change just because the person is standing in front of me with cash. Please keep in mind that I'm not talking about $5000 animals, here. When I decided to do more breeding, I decided to work with primarily with animals I could sell for $100-$400, because $500-$1000 animals is a totally different market. People are trying to beat me for half price on $100 snakes...heck, they're probably worse for the $100 and under animals than they are for the $400 stuff. Ever have a person on the opposite end of the country offer you $50 or 60 SHIPPED for a $100 snake? Or, when you are practically giving the animal away for the cost of shipping, people people still want it for less - I've gotten offers that would have left me $20 or more in the hole.
No thanks - I'll keep them.
Luckily, I have enough sense not to breed the same stuff the next season when I am still sitting on a bunch of babies :thumbsup:

[Mooing Tricycle]

When I decided to do more breeding, I decided to work with primarily with animals I could sell for $100-$400, because $500-$1000 animals is a totally different market.


Luckily, I have enough sense not to breed the same stuff the next season when I am still sitting on a bunch of babies :thumbsup:

I think this is a good way to do things. If you focus on a specific area that you want to work with, i think people would have more success at selling. I think the best advice anyone can give when people ask what they should breed is... "breed what you like the most, and stick with that" If ones goal is to sell, find out what has a pretty good market, and steady interest, and work with that, and just keep tabs on how things are going.

I personally want to have a good variety ( which is the main thing, i know i look for when i go to a show. I find myself looking for the hard to find, or the.. not so common. I dont look for ball pythons! )
So i dont really want to breed a whole lot of Ball Pythons... because there are going to be hundreds at the show, why waste the tablespace when most are probably going to be browsing right over them * i absolutely do for the most part!*? Unless theyre a morph of some kind. Im breeding the ball pythons, mostly for my own goals. I dont plan on making much money at them, or with them at all.

The caulker cays though, and the bullsnakes... maybe, and maybe some other different species sometime later down the road, i know id like to, maybe to cover supplies and food, not so much profit. or for, again, my own personal gratifaction ( sunbeams would rule, if i were to be successful with them) But again, im more keeping for my own interest, than anything else.

Besides that, im far more apt to share with my friends. Id certainly be happy with that too. :thumbsup:

[Southern Wolf]

I think this is a good way to do things. If you focus on a specific area that you want to work with, i think people would have more success at selling. I think the best advice anyone can give when people ask what they should breed is... "breed what you like the most, and stick with that" If ones goal is to sell, find out what has a pretty good market, and steady interest, and work with that, and just keep tabs on how things are going.

I personally want to have a good variety ( which is the main thing, i know i look for when i go to a show. I find myself looking for the hard to find, or the.. not so common. I dont look for ball pythons! )
So i dont really want to breed a whole lot of Ball Pythons... because there are going to be hundreds at the show, why waste the tablespace when most are probably going to be browsing right over them * i absolutely do for the most part!*? Unless theyre a morph of some kind. Im breeding the ball pythons, mostly for my own goals. I dont plan on making much money at them, or with them at all.

The caulker cays though, and the bullsnakes... maybe, and maybe some other different species sometime later down the road, i know id like to, maybe to cover supplies and food, not so much profit. or for, again, my own personal gratifaction ( sunbeams would rule, if i were to be successful with them) But again, im more keeping for my own interest, than anything else.

Besides that, im far more apt to share with my friends. Id certainly be happy with that too. :thumbsup:


:iagree:


I am just a small time operation. The only person I can get to show up to work is me, myself, and I :D and I already have another full time job.

With that being said... I try to focus on what I think will sell in 3 years... this is just a guessing game. What may be hot this year... may not 3 years down the when the babies finally grow up.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I think the best advice anyone can give when people ask what they should breed is... "breed what you like the most, and stick with that"

:thumbsup:

This is what I did with my Leopard Geckos. I saw the Leo market starting to tank with the Macks a few years ago and made the decision to just keep what I liked the most and not worry about what the newest trend was. I adore my small, select group of Leos and am very happy with my decision.

[johns6068]

I agree with others that the market will probably be fine. It will take time though. I see no need for price changes as most prices are dropping anyways. Other then that being said, the prices for snakes I could care less personally myself. I'm in the hobby 1st as a love for reptiles. I will cut back on other things before doing so on my snakes =) While I'm new to breeding snakes and yes one of the ones who at this point can't sex thier own snakes...I see learning how to do so as part of what I'm looking forward to in this hobby myself. I've always had snakes growing up and I just wanted to take it a step farther and be able to learn how and produce some of the morphs I like. Instead of just dropping $2000 on a morph and getting it tommorrow. I see more enjoyment and value myself of making that morph myself that I want reguardless of what it's worth in 3 years. I'm not and never will be in this hobby just for the money. Nothing against those who are. I wish them the best and hope they do well :thumbsup:
Something though I could never put a price tag on and the ecomony will never change would be some of the awesome folks on here and off here I have met while getting more into this hobby:) To me their friendship is more valuable then any snake I'll ever produce :)

[pcrooker]

Perhaps the downslide of the economy will lead to less people coming into the trade who are merely looking to make money. We have seen more people coming to "flip" reptiles and an increase in scamming merely in order to make money. This may be a crazy line of thinking, but I have to think it will have at least SOME impact as the economy falls... JMHO

[Southern Wolf]

I agree with others that the market will probably be fine. It will take time though. I see no need for price changes as most prices are dropping anyways. Other then that being said, the prices for snakes I could care less personally myself. I'm in the hobby 1st as a love for reptiles. I will cut back on other things before doing so on my snakes =) While I'm new to breeding snakes and yes one of the ones who at this point can't sex thier own snakes...I see learning how to do so as part of what I'm looking forward to in this hobby myself. I've always had snakes growing up and I just wanted to take it a step farther and be able to learn how and produce some of the morphs I like. Instead of just dropping $2000 on a morph and getting it tommorrow. I see more enjoyment and value myself of making that morph myself that I want reguardless of what it's worth in 3 years. I'm not and never will be in this hobby just for the money. Nothing against those who are. I wish them the best and hope they do well :thumbsup:
Something though I could never put a price tag on and the ecomony will never change would be some of the awesome folks on here and off here I have met while getting more into this hobby:) To me their friendship is more valuable then any snake I'll ever produce :)

agreeded.... somewhat

I started off this hobby back in '91 .... and it didnt take long for it to grow into an obsession. The first time I saw an albino BP it was going for around 30k .... at that time I knew I had to get one. Well I finally got my albino last year.

My life pretty much revolves around my obsession... lord knows its cost me a relationship or two..... but for me... it just made since to try and make a living doing something I love. Im not to the point I can quit my day job.... but one day I will be... and then I'll be happy.

Even though Im starting to breed to make a living... I will always have snakes that will just be pets... primarily my 'hots' and a few local species.

Even though Im running my hobby as a business.... it is still a hobby to me... and something I dearly enjoy. I cherish the day I can walk away from work and deal with my animals on a full time basis.

Even the cage cleaning doesnt bother me.... but then again... Im not producing the quanity that Rich and Kathy are either ;)

[shrap]

With that being said... I try to focus on what I think will sell in 3 years... this is just a guessing game. What may be hot this year... may not 3 years down the when the babies finally grow up.

I pay no attention to the "future" market at all when I decide what I am going to breed each year. I simply keep and breed what I am into, always trying to create that "perfect specimen" for my personal collection. Like this that I created this year. I wish you could see her in person, my camera work just plain blows.

http://www.sammygreggreptiles.com/dc_gallery/albums/userpics/10001/p4_f3.jpg

Or this.

http://www.sammygreggreptiles.com/dc_gallery/albums/userpics/10001/pied2_10_20_2006.jpg

I will never own or breed an animal if I personally aint into that species or morph. I dont care what the market is demanding. It just aint why I breed.

[Mooing Tricycle]

I pay no attention to the "future" market at all when I decide what I am going to breed each year. I simply keep and breed what I am into, always trying to create that "perfect specimen" for my personal collection. Like this that I created this year. I wish you could see her in person, my camera work just plain blows.


I will never own or breed an animal if I personally aint into that species or morph. I dont care what the market is demanding. It just aint why I breed.


Thats the way to be sammy! ^_^

Here, let me help you out though eh? http://pics.livejournal.com/mooingtricycle/pic/000teppe

That is quality. and this girl, was part of the same clutch as the girl sammy just posted :thumbsup: Thats what happens when you are SELECTIVE!

[hhmoore]

I totally agree, Sammy. Some of the favorite snakes in my collection are the bullsnakes - I breed them because I like to...if I sell the babies, great. Given my admitted approach to this, I often carry some over into the next year. If I have too many left in the spring, I don't breed certain things. This year, I will probably be carrying 30+ babies into the spring (unless I decide to start advertising them again, lol) - that's fine - I'll do some breedings to get me closer to some animals I want to see here...things I might not mess with if I was concerned with making the sales.
At $25 - $100 each for the bulls I produce, they aren't paying the bills - they're just great snakes!

[pcrooker]

That is quality. and this girl, was part of the same clutch as the girl sammy just posted :thumbsup: Thats what happens when you are SELECTIVE

What beautiful babies... serves a great point!

[The BoidSmith]

The thing is that for some individuals breeding snakes has become a significant portion of their overall budget. Choosing the right animal genetics and its future market value might be the difference for them between being sustainable in the long run or not.

Best! :)

[hhmoore]

I understand what you are saying, Dan, and those people DO have to be aware of market trends and the economy. The fact that relatively few people are in a position to spend $1500-2500 on a baby snake is overshadowed by the fact that the market activity of the past few years makes them nervous about doing it.

`(I went off on a huge tangent here, and deleted it all before posting)

If someone had told me 10-15 yrs ago that I would make $X in 2008 selling snakes, I would have thought they were nuts...it just wasn't where my focus was. I hope to produce more (quantity and variety) next year, so I naturally hope to make proportionally more money. I don't rely on my reptile income...but I hope one day that it will be enough to allow me to change my current work habits without detrimentally affecting my income/lifestyle. I don't WANT to try to support myself this way...it would put an entirely different spin things. Sales would necessarily become a greater priority, and I wouldn't be able to to take the same attitude I have now. This is a hobby for me. I do it because I enjoy it...but I don't want to count on sales to sustain my lifestyle - period. (like I said before, I'm just not wired that way).

[The BoidSmith]

but I hope one day that it will be enough to allow me to change my current work habits without detrimentally affecting my income/lifestyle. I don't WANT to try to support myself this way...it would put an entirely different spin things. Sales would necessarily become a greater priority, and I wouldn't be able to to take the same attitude I have now. This is a hobby for me. I do it because I enjoy it...but I don't want to count on sales to sustain my lifestyle - period. (like I said before, I'm just not wired that way).


We share similar perspectives there.

Best

[Southern Wolf]

I understand what you are saying, Dan, and those people DO have to be aware of market trends and the economy. The fact that relatively few people are in a position to spend $1500-2500 on a baby snake is overshadowed by the fact that the market activity of the past few years makes them nervous about doing it.



Yep... and that is why I am (will be) breeding everything from corns to kings and balls to bloods.

I will have something for every budget.

[Seamus Haley]

Breeding is the natural progression as you say. It's the ultimate challenge as a keeper to be able to succesfully breed the species in captivity. Similarly, zoo's reputation oftentimes lie more on the success of their breeding programs than on the diversity of the species they keep.

Not always anymore.

Pick an aspect of keeping a species in captivity. It gets easier when more is known and when the experiences of others can be used to forego certain variables in favor of what works. Combine this with technological advances that assist you in manipulating the environment the animal is kept in, their diet and health.

Breeding species X may not be as challenging as keeping species Y alive.

There was definitely a time when that was not true- but that was largely prior to the widespread advancement of knowledge that precipitated the advent of the highly successful hobbiest breeder. Given that the stance was largely held by those who were involved in animal husbandry as those advances were discovered and spread, the attitude was largely held by the most knolwedgeable people around and tended to be passed on well after it was entirely accurate.

There are numerous species that are fairly popular about which the knowledge of their husbandry and breeding is so conclusive and comprehensive that little individual skill or knowledge needs to be brought in on the part of the person attempting to have them produce. It's slightly more difficult than following the directions on a microwave dinner... but only slightly.

What is rarely addressed are the less easily defined aspects, the HOW is often straightforward enough, the when and why are rarely that well described. After so many decades where "Can I breed this? Is it even possible?" was the all consuming question among those knowledgeable enough to be engaged in the activity to begin with issues such as "Should I breed this? Is it the best possible pairing?" are not covered as well as I (for one anyway) would like.

The result of too much emphasis on "Can I?" over "Should I?" has been; bug eyed texas rats, no eyed alibino boas, bearded dragons that have a lifespan about one third that of a wild animal that makes it to adulthood, scaleless animals, hybrids that have a 20% hatch rate that don't make it past four months of life, pastel ball pythons that look like absolute garbage, mislabeled hybrid colubrids, tegus that can't bask properly because of their pigment deficiencies, the complete breakdown of subspecific or locale specific lines in several species, the propogation of a nasty skin eating fungal problem in cornsnakes, "grab bag" genetics where breedings throw up a party platter of recessive traits... And I firmly believe that it has slowed the efforts and avaliability of wild forms of many less commonly seen or more delicate species since the efforts of so many of the more experienced and better educated folks has been on producing day-glo combinations of color traits that are deterimental to natural selection.

To hell with breeding some varient of eighteen recessive traits in a ball python. Show me someone who has taken WC java snakes and turned the majority of them into stable long term captives that feed readily, show me someone that has an entire collection of rare anoles, show me someone that has predictable success rates breeding hellbenders and they are someone who's expertise and dedication I'll happily admire.

[The BoidSmith]

Not always anymore.

Pick an aspect of keeping a species in captivity. It gets easier when more is known and when the experiences of others can be used to forego certain variables in favor of what works. Combine this with technological advances that assist you in manipulating the environment the animal is kept in, their diet and health.

Breeding species X may not be as challenging as keeping species Y alive.
.

But that has always been the case, it's not something recent. For a "given species" (not across species) it's easier to keep it alive than to breed it. It's true that some individuals have skipped altogether the experience of keeping a species and learning all the aspects of husbandry jumping directly into breeding, some with incredible success even.

o hell with breeding some variant of eighteen recessive traits in a ball python. Show me someone who has taken WC java snakes and turned the majority of them into stable long term captives that feed readily, show me someone that has an entire collection of rare anoles, show me someone that has predictable success rates breeding hellbenders and they are someone who's expertise and dedication I'll happily admire.


And I couldn't agree more with you there. But that can be done either by institutions, where the source of income for the individual is external to the project, or by those that subsidize their hobby with a significant outside source of income.

Best



But

[Seamus Haley]

But that has always been the case, it's not something recent. For a "given species" (not across species) it's easier to keep it alive than to breed it. It's true that some individuals have skipped altogether the experience of keeping a species and learning all the aspects of husbandry jumping directly into breeding, some with incredible success even.

I may not have made myself entirely clear...

The gap has widened. The viewpoint that breeding was the apex of acchievement originated during a time when the breeding triggers and husbandry parameters of even more commonly kept species were still being defined and success often required an experienced, detailed oriented individual and meticulous observation and an exhaustive process of trial and error. Forty years of those individuals compiling information has resulted in an understanding that is comprehensive enough to remove the majority of the more signifigant variables involved in breeding some species. It no longer requires the expertise it once did, it simply requires that an individual be able to follow a set of straightforward directions presented as absolutes.

To use the hypothetical species again, breeding species X has become easier and easier and easier while keeping species Y has not seen the same advances.

I'm often reminded of a quote from Jurassic Park when looking at these people who label themselves as breeders that barely know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to zoology, taxonomy, the few simple aspects of physics it takes to manipulate the environment inside a box...

I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!

[BryonsBoas]

The price of my rat food has doubled in the last 16 months , my rat bedding has gone up 50% , it costs double for the gas to drive the 30 miles into town to get rack ( snake & rat ) supplies. The supplies themselves have increased as well. With everything getting more expensive to keep them and get them into optimal condition for breeding, why would I cut my prices by 50% or more as some have?

I can understand and agree to the supply and demand thing but I have a very hard time letting some yahoo that overbred his animals again set the prices because he got his litters before I did. Add in the increasing lack of selective breeding by more & more folks running snake mills while I try hard to produce outstanding babies and I don't see a reason why I can't charge slightly higher than market or what I think the babies should be priced at.

I also get that cheaper animals are easier to sell as well but not everything we look to produce are $100 animals. We took a good a bit of time looking for the animals that really struck our interest and fit our plans and paid a premium for them. I'm not seeing me cutting my nose off to spite my face just because Joe Blow lost his job or I might have to feed it 10 more times. I may sit on them longer but someone who appreciates the work we put into the project will pay asking price or pretty near it. I have been known to accept reasonable offers.

To answer your question tho. We have a $5k animal up for sale now. And no , I wouldn't take an offer of $2500 for her. She was 8 years of wanting and work to finally produce her. I won't undercut what I've found to be market nor will I take a lowball offer out of desperation or a need for quick cash. I don't even even want to sell her but life doesn't always play fair. If someone really wants her , then I'm sure something could be worked out but it will be on my terms.

[Todd Thompson]

We are all aware the economy is going through rough times. People have trouble paying their mortgages or even filling their tank with gas. In spite of this we still see individuals offering animals for sale at outrageous prices. This is no criticism to the price itself, as you can ask whatever you want for your property. But really, how does asking in excess of $5,000 for a snake sit with everyone strictly from a business approach perspective? Even if you receive an offer for $2,500 for the animal, would you reject it? My point is that there seems to be a disconnection of some people with the current state of affairs and their approach to business. The days of the $10,000 snake are gone; at least that's my opinion. It seems to me that the current economic situation calls for a new price order.

If you dont have the money then dont buy. I dont think anyone in their right mind would pay 500 hundred for a snake but none of us are in our right mind.
If you fell you are going through rough times then buying any snake is the last thing to think about. But if yo have to I can sell you a 09 superpastel for 2500 with no money down and payments of just 25 dollars a month for the first 4 months. After 4 months the payment will increase to 500 a month for 5 months. PM me if you want to do it?

[The BoidSmith]

I dont think anyone in their right mind would pay 500 hundred for a snake but none of us are in our right mind.


Excellent point! :)


If you fell you are going through rough times then buying any snake is the last thing to think about.

Even better! :)

But if yo have to I can sell you a 09 superpastel for 2500 with no money down and payments of just 25 dollars a month for the first 4 months. After 4 months the payment will increase to 500 a month for 5 months. PM me if you want to do it?

This is what I meant about the new price order. You can't enter the market with those prices anymore. Today you can buy superpastels all day long for $1,000, even for less at "wholesale" pices, that is "IF" you even sell them...

With everything getting more expensive to keep them and get them into optimal condition for breeding, why would I cut my prices by 50% or more as some have?

Because if not the "yahoos" as you say who can undercut the market will sell their snakes, and you'll get to keep them! As Jerry stated in another thread "money talks", although he was referring to the sellers the same "green" (as in $$$) principle goes both ways.

Best

Dan G.

[The BoidSmith]

To answer your question tho. We have a $5k animal up for sale now. And no , I wouldn't take an offer of $2500 for her. She was 8 years of wanting and work to finally produce her. I won't undercut what I've found to be market nor will I take a lowball offer out of desperation or a need for quick cash. I don't even even want to sell her but life doesn't always play fair. If someone really wants her , then I'm sure something could be worked out but it will be on my terms.

This brings me to the topic of "price elasticity". In lower priced reptiles there is very little elasticity. This is particularly true with internet sales where shipping prices puts a fixed and heavy burden on individual snakes (multiple snakes can be shipped in one box thus diluting fixed costs). With higher priced snakes we have greater elasticity. Who can deny that $2,500 for a snake is still a good chunk of money? How many people would like to receive just that as a monthly salary? But there's another factor that comes into play, and it's your perceived value of your merchandise, and the need you may have for the money at a particular point in time. For a snake valued at 40 k there's even greater elasticity, and it wouldn't be unheard of for a person accepting an offer of 20 k.

Best

[WingedWolf]

No one wants to see the market fall out that way, though. I actually do believe you can still sell $10,000 snakes. I certainly don't believe 'those days are gone' just because the economy is tanking. Actually, the opposite might be true. A $10,000 snake is an investment. It's not just a pet. The stock market isn't exactly a better bet than that, right now.

I also think that the economy problems are being felt very differently in different parts of the country. The effect where I'm at in Omaha really isn't that serious. It's a little tougher than it was, but most people are treading water just fine.

Yes, every year prices for various morphs drop. I have seen a slightly steeper drop this past year than the one before, but not outrageously so.

So, you get to keep the snakes? So, then you can sell them as yearlings next year. And so on. As long as you can afford to feed them, you won't lose money on them for a while if you keep them. If you keep them long enough, breed them, concede to a small price drop, and make it back selling the babies.

Once all the "yahoos" have sold their cheap snakes, there will still be people looking for more snakes. The problem I see going on is too many motivated sellers--people who NEED to sell a bunch of snakes fast. That's not a great situation to get into, and it's probably the reason I see so many people completely bailing from breeding BPs this year. That's a self-limiting issue too, though. Once everyone who's going to bail has bailed, everyone else will just ride out the problems.

I have ball pythons--they live for up to 30 years, and they don't eat THAT much. The recession isn't going to last forever, they never do. I'd be crazy to drop my prices way below market just because sales are slow. There is a demand for these snakes, and eventually they're going to get sold.

I don't see folks like Ralph Davis or NERD having problems selling their animals at excessively high prices, either--reputation and quality speak louder than a recession too.

I want to have a good foundation of income coming from ball pythons morphs so I can afford to work with rare species. I would never be able to do that if I couldn't make it a better than self-supporting business.

The way people talk lately, you'd think we were in the next Great Depression. No one I know is making dumplings because all they can afford is a bag of flour--they're complaining because they have to wait until next week to pick up that new PS3 game. Perspective. :P

[KelliH]

:thumbsup:

This is what I did with my Leopard Geckos. I saw the Leo market starting to tank with the Macks a few years ago and made the decision to just keep what I liked the most and not worry about what the newest trend was. I adore my small, select group of Leos and am very happy with my decision.

I wish more people would do what you did. The leopard gecko market is WAY super-saturated right now and there are too many being produced. I don't keep up with the ball python market these days, but I do know that it is extremely difficult to sell leopard geckos right now. Part of it is that too many people are breeding them, and also a couple of the "bigger" breeders are WAY overproducing the morphs, therefore causing major price drops. The other part of it is most definitely the economy IMO. The Europeans still buy. I know one other US. breeder that has not had a domestic leo sale since May.

[The BoidSmith]

This is what I call a very good discussion! :)

[hhmoore]

Donna,
I agree with parts of your statement...and I think parts of it are naive, at best. The reality is that, yes, you can hold onto the babies...but (with BPs, in particular) you won't get more for them as yearlings. That means you are housing, feeding, and caring for them for free.
Let me give you an example: back in 06, I bought a few spiders at about $1000 each. One of the females turned out to be the oddball that was a sporadic feeder, and won't be ready to breed for another year (or two? :ack2:). The other two are plenty big enough to breed, and I plan on doing so this year...much as I would almost prefer to get out of balls entirely (I think everybody knows I'm not a big fan). IF I could sell my pastels and spiders without taking a loss, I would in a heartbeat...but, the reality is that I'm going to have to breed them a few times before I can consider it.
Sure, I could breed the male to a couple of the normal females I have sitting around - which are still here because I won't give them away - but then I would just have a bunch of babies that aren't worth crap that I would have to feed & try to get rid of (OK, in all fairness, if I LIKED BPs, that wouldn't be such a chore, lol...but I don't, so I'm not going to put myself through that. Even if I did, it would still take a couple seasons to make back what I invested in those 3 spiders).

I also don't really see it as a self limiting issue - unless there there is a mass exodus of BP breeders, along with a freeze on incoming enthusiasts getting involved. Every year, more and more people are getting involved in breeding...and producing animals they haven't really considered how they are going to get rid of (you'd be surprised how many new breeders never contemplate NOT being able to sell the babies). I can point toward any number of people that have kept snakes for a year or two, that have at least 10 BP females they plan to breed this year.
BPs are so heavily produced that we could cut off importation of WC and CH, and not really even feel the loss...heck, from a market perspective, it's probably a pretty good idea (except it would kill everybody's dream of snagging their own morph).

You're right...there is a market, and they will sell. IF you have something unusual, or are willing to drop prices til they do. (I focused on BPs for the majority of this post; but most of what was said can easily be generalized, with minimal changes)

[Seamus Haley]

I wish more people would do what you did. The leopard gecko market is WAY super-saturated right now and there are too many being produced. I don't keep up with the ball python market these days, but I do know that it is extremely difficult to sell leopard geckos right now. Part of it is that too many people are breeding them, and also a couple of the "bigger" breeders are WAY overproducing the morphs, therefore causing major price drops. The other part of it is most definitely the economy IMO. The Europeans still buy. I know one other US. breeder that has not had a domestic leo sale since May.

If the biggest breeders are able to sell every animal they hatched and you aren't... which one of you "overproduced"?

I know that you, for example, go after a slightly different customer than an industrial style breeder does Kelli. Aiming at a niche market of selective customers who are willing to pay a little more for a higher quality animal. There's some overlap between their customer base (or the customer base of their customer base since the biggest breeders *largely* sell to retailers and jobbers) and yours though, since there are also people who would sometimes select price over certain differences in quality.

That said though, if the biggest breeders are able to sell all the animals they want to at a price that makes them a profit during a time when a smaller more selective breeder is not... which of those individuals is using an unsuccessful business model?

I think my earlier posts made it pretty clear that I genuinely miss the idea that widespread care and attention would be put into producing the best possible offspring from every pairing. I can't fault the business model of the people who produce and sell massive quantities though, nor can I justify attaching any kind of negative stigma to them just because their production numbers dramatically changed the whole supply and demand equation by inflating the supply side. If they are running a profitable business during a time when a smaller niche breeder is not, then it's the unsuccessful individual who needs to look at their profit margins, pricing scheme, advertising approach and overall capability to profit by doing what they want to do... throwing blame for difficulties or failures at the feet of someone who has managed to look at the market and the industry and be successful isn't really logical.

I see a lot of parallels to the tropical fish industry in the reptile industry, always have... And the thing is that when you breed guppies... even high end brand spanking new super high quality guppies (ohyes, they do exist) with a large price tag attached... you need to understand the overall guppy market and model your business accordingly. It's not appropriate to blame Seagrest farms for producing forty million of your cutting edge morph a year after you introduced it, or the resulting price drop as they appear in every petco and petsmart in the world (at twenty percent off if you have your PALS card no less). Those breeders have to spend their time constantly improving their stock, refining the trait to it's pinnacle or working on the next new thing, they can't sit on their laurels while thousands of people who have never bred a fish before in their life begin reproducing that trait which distinguished the trait as formerly high end.

[KelliH]

If the biggest breeders are able to sell every animal they hatched and you aren't... which one of you "overproduced"?

No no... I didn't say I am not selling. I was referring to the leo market in general. :)

Those breeders have to spend their time constantly improving their stock, refining the trait to it's pinnacle or working on the next new thing, they can't sit on their laurels while thousands of people who have never bred a fish before in their life begin reproducing that trait which distinguished the trait as formerly high end.

Agree 100% and this is why I am able to keep going year after year, and will continue to breed leopard geckos, which are my passion. I really like what you have said about widespread attention and care, and I agree. The supply/demand/overproduction "thing" has happened before. What usually ends up happening is that you will see a large number of aspiring leopard gecko breeders having a "Collection Sale" and getting out of it because they are frustrated. It's not easy to sell leopard geckos unless you have something really unique or unusual, or a brand new morph, and/or are a very well known breeder. I actually tell/warn my customers about this. Sometimes I think I am not the best salesperson but they always buy anyway.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I think if people are dropping $500-1000 on mutts (poma-poo, labra-doodle, etc), their are going to be people out there wanting to put that sort of money into a reptile. :shrug01:

I wish more people would do what you did. The leopard gecko market is WAY super-saturated right now and there are too many being produced. I don't keep up with the ball python market these days, but I do know that it is extremely difficult to sell leopard geckos right now. Part of it is that too many people are breeding them, and also a couple of the "bigger" breeders are WAY overproducing the morphs, therefore causing major price drops. The other part of it is most definitely the economy IMO. The Europeans still buy. I know one other US. breeder that has not had a domestic leo sale since May.

Want's funny, Kelli...Half of what I actually kept were my last Leo purchases I've made...And they were from you! :D

[Seamus Haley]

No no... I didn't say I am not selling. I was referring to the leo market in general. :)

Sorry about the confusion, most of those "you"s were "you who are reading this" not "You Kelli"s

Agree 100% and this is why I am able to keep going year after year, and will continue to breed leopard geckos, which are my passion. I really like what you have said about widespread attention and care, and I agree. The supply/demand/overproduction "thing" has happened before. What usually ends up happening is that you will see a large number of aspiring leopard gecko breeders having a "Collection Sale" and getting out of it because they are frustrated. It's not easy to sell leopard geckos unless you have something really unique or unusual, or a brand new morph, and/or are a very well known breeder. I actually tell/warn my customers about this. Sometimes I think I am not the best salesperson but they always buy anyway.

I have a bit more of an issue with those people who find themselves unable to move what they produced than the industry trend setters that can dictate prices on more common species/traits.

Both of these groups tend to produce offspring using the first male avaliable first female avaliable, GO! approach that I don't care for as a personal matter... But the giants know what they are doing when they do it. There are buyers lined up, they have run all the numbers and know what kind of efficiency and profit they are getting as a return on their time and investment and, ultimately, the majority of the animals they produce will be sold to people who will not be breeding them or contributing to the overall captive gene pool. It's the approach from the people who end up perpetually unable to move their stock because they didn't comprehend that they would be competing against those wholesale goliaths who often end up using the animals they couldn't sell as future breeding stock, only compounding their problem.

I've notoriously got very limited patience with people who are naive and not actively seeking to change that though. My intolerance for ignorance probably makes me judge (and condemn) those people who blunder into producing junk more harshly than those who simply choose to produce baseline, midgrade stock as a result of an educated and informed business plan.

[KelliH]

I gotcha. I am still selling geckos but it has slowed down a lot when compared to a year ago or two years ago. It's mostly the cause of a recurring cycle that happens every few years, but I do think that this time around the economy is playing a bigger role in it than in previous years.

I agree with most of your points, Seamus. Many of the people that decide to start breeding leopard geckos are young and this is probably the first reptile they have ever reproduced. They get caught up in the excitement of it and some spend a good amount of money on their breeding stock. Some quickly get discouraged when they realize that 1.) it is not as easy as they thought it would be to move their offspring and 2.) it is very expensive and very time consuming to properly care for a medium to large collection of geckos.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me as if the reptile market in general has been rather slow as of late. Not just with leos, but everything. I see it as a supply/demand issue as well as an economic one. Those of us that have been doing this seriously for awhile have seen these up and down trends many times, and I have no fear that things won't get better. I just wonder how long it will take!

[WingedWolf]

Donna,
I agree with parts of your statement...and I think parts of it are naive, at best. The reality is that, yes, you can hold onto the babies...but (with BPs, in particular) you won't get more for them as yearlings. That means you are housing, feeding, and caring for them for free.
Let me give you an example: back in 06, I bought a few spiders at about $1000 each. One of the females turned out to be the oddball that was a sporadic feeder, and won't be ready to breed for another year (or two? :ack2:). The other two are plenty big enough to breed, and I plan on doing so this year...much as I would almost prefer to get out of balls entirely (I think everybody knows I'm not a big fan). IF I could sell my pastels and spiders without taking a loss, I would in a heartbeat...but, the reality is that I'm going to have to breed them a few times before I can consider it.

Of course--there's a big difference between buying an animal and then having to turn around and sell it, though, and producing some yourself. I can't think of a single animal in my collection I wouldn't take a loss on if I tried to resell it as a yearling, just due to food costs. It's also true that some co-doms are dropping so fast that the difference in price each year means that a hatchling's cost one year will be a yearling's cost the next--but that isn't true so much with the recessives. Usually you can at least get the market hatchling rate plus the cost of the food it ate, for a yearling. For females, sometimes more.

A hatchling pastel female right now is worth 180 to 250. A breeding sized female is worth 1000. Now, even in 3 years, a breeding-sized pastel is going to be worth more than 250, because that's the basic price for a normal breeder female. The cost of normals hasn't changed that much over time, and that caps off what you would expect to lose on the low end of the market.

Ball pythons remain fantastic pet snakes--in spite of the massive quantities being shipped in out of Africa, there's still a demand for normal balls just as pets. Although I've seen some folks complaining about having problems moving normals, I didn't experience that problem this year myself--in fact, they've moved as fast or faster than my pastels.

When I bought a pair of normals over 10 years ago, they were $25 apiece from a reptile show. And you can still buy normal hatchlings for exactly the same price today. That's what I've been selling mine for.

The stability at the bottom of the market is the reason why I don't see huge problems. The way I see it, if you can eventually make back what you paid for the snake plus some, and it pays for its own food and supplies every year, then it's profitable to breed. "Just normals" will bring in just enough money to care for them over the course of a year. Once they get older and lay larger clutches, then even they start to make a profit.

If you threw your male spiders with a couple of normal females, you would wind up with about $1200 in spiders, and $150 in normals. It might take you a few years at that rate, with prices dropping, but you'll still make back your investment in the spiders--easily. I understand you don't like them, and I think that's what makes the big difference. Spiders still have a few years left before they get down into the price range of normals--pastels probably have 2 years, maybe--because I think it will slow as they actually approach the price of normals. Ironically, when they do, demand for inexpensive spiders is probably going to spike, because unlike pastels, I think they'll do well on the pet market, in pet stores. (A shop owner here informed me that the pet-buying public isn't really willing to pay more for a snake unless it's dramatically different, because they don't know a pastel from a normal anyhow--they just want a nice pet. He had a pastel up in his store for ages, and sold dozens of normals, and couldn't move the pastel. Put pastels down into the same price range, and they'll sell then as pets).

I picked ball pythons for reasons other than pure $$. I really like the snakes, always have--I could have picked boas, but I don't like boas much. lol
I set out to breed snakes, yes, to make money--after having kept reptiles for decades, and having done leos for a year or two, I had the opportunity to invest in it, and I've been completely happy with the decision. It's basically my 'dream job'. Coming in at the ground level, this season is going to be the first one we're really going to see a decent return, and it will be at least one more after that before we're in the black.

I may be naive, but so far my luck has been fantastic. (Example, my biggest female layed 13 eggs, and we hatched 11 pastels and 2 normals from them...lol).

It may take some bad luck to knock the rest of the naivete out of me, but I have been paying attention, and I just don't think things are as bad as some folks are saying they are.

Maybe my expectations are a bit more conservative, though? The numbers we've been crunching look pretty good to me.

Now, I wasn't saying you should stubbornly refuse to lower prices when the bulk of the market drops--that's not it at all. I'm just saying that you shouldn't be selling a snake that sells (not just is priced at, but sells) for $200---for only $100 because you're in a hurry. Nor should you take the lowest prices you see to be where the market's really at currently. People will buy animals in the middle of the price range even when the really cheap ones are available, in my (admittedly limited) experience. They'll do it because they like the look of the animals you have for sale. There are things more important than the price tag.

That doesn't mean you can sell a pastel female for $500 right now, unless you happen to be NERD or Graziani. But if you ask $250 because the animal is exceptional, you will get it--you might have to wait around for a few months, but you'll get it. And hey, even she ate $8 worth of food in that time, you still did pretty good.

I still maintain that with a lot of morphs, the price doesn't drop so fast that a 3 year old is worth less than it was as a hatchling. You may eat the price of feeding it, but on a HIGH end snake, that few hundred dollars is no big deal. Obviously males are a lot less predictable, but that's what I'm seeing, overall.

[Renshai]

Getting in kind of late on this one...BUT...here's my opinion.....In regards to pricing, of course the pricing can only be what the market will bear. That being said, in ANY "economic downturn" or whatever you would like to call it, the people who are buying truly high-end, expensive, rare, and unique items will still buy them, regardless of the economy. They remain relatively insulated as far as disposible income is concerned. This remains true for reptiles as well as nearly any other industry ( I was in mid-fi sales for a long time and have now gone to esoteric level stuff...the market is stronger) THe people shopping for 5-50K reptiles will be shopping for 5-50K reptiles regardless of the economy, for whatever motivational reason they possess. The truly injured in this economy are the Mid-grade hobbyist or breeder. The animals that are sitting in the $250-$2500 range are suffering the most decline. The really inexpensive remain strong and the Upper range remains strong. All the fluctuation is always in the middle. But aw %^& it, who wants pie?:)

[BryonsBoas]

This brings me to the topic of "price elasticity". In lower priced reptiles there is very little elasticity. This is particularly true with internet sales where shipping prices puts a fixed and heavy burden on individual snakes (multiple snakes can be shipped in one box thus diluting fixed costs). With higher priced snakes we have greater elasticity. Who can deny that $2,500 for a snake is still a good chunk of money? How many people would like to receive just that as a monthly salary? But there's another factor that comes into play, and it's your perceived value of your merchandise, and the need you may have for the money at a particular point in time. For a snake valued at 40 k there's even greater elasticity, and it wouldn't be unheard of for a person accepting an offer of 20 k.

Best

I haven't worked since June 12, 07 due to ripped up knees from an " on the job injury " that my boss was kind enough to fire me for. On top of that , he increased the company profit margin by NOT having mandatory Workman's Comp Insurance. I haven't received a dime from my boss since and I'm still wrapped up in a Workman's Comp suit against him and know that by the time it hits the court room the company may have already been put under. Even if its still viable I know I likely won't see a dime since the state fines will kill the company by themselves.

With that said , I normally don't talk about it because I don't want anyone thinking I can be lowballed on my prices because I'm desperate. Food is still on the table , roof over my head and I'm in no way so desperate that I gotta dump prices to put a few bucks in my pocket.

From what we produced this past season the Blood Boa ( $5k ) is the last up for sale and I'm just as happy to pull her and keep her. Even when I was working I had child support for 2 kids coming out , taxes , weekly gas money , weekly food money , bill money etc. but I found a way to buy what I wanted.

Elasticity on my prices is there but depending on the animal , the elastic may not stretch as far as it would on a 5 year old pair of undies. The elastic really doesn't stretch that far on the higher quality animals we produce. If its an outstanding animal , the price will reflect that and the amount of leeway as to what I would accept on it will not be as much as it would be on an animal in the B range. If they want it , they get the offer in the area that I will accept or I wait until someone who does comes along. I never kidded myself that I could sell every animal for exact asking price in 3 months or less. I built into my production the means to sit on a higher priced animal until I got either what I wanted for it or I was tired of seeing it and was willing to drop a few bucks on the price.

I'm opting to have a wait and see approach on how the economy pans out. As it stands , I pretty much got what exactly what I wanted out of what was produced this year and have no complaints. If my $5k snake sells , it sells and I make more this coming season and hold back from that. If she don't , I won't be a year behind on the project I want her for.:thumbsup:

As for price dumpers selling all their animals ....
I'm seeing the same animals up for sale week after week that have been dramatically slashed in price. I'm net seeing them moving all that fast if at all. I think folks are holding out for a deal but not so good it devalues anything drastically.

[hhmoore]

I know there are a few posts I haven't gotten to, but I'm only here for a minute and I want to toss this back out.
A breeding sized female is worth 1000. Now, even in 3 years, a breeding-sized pastel is going to be worth more than 250, because that's the basic price for a normal breeder female. The cost of normals hasn't changed that much over time, and that caps off what you would expect to lose on the low end of the market.
Two things: 1) think about what the cost of a female pastel hatchling was in 05, and 2) $250 isn't the base price of a normal breeder female...if it was, I wouldn't be sitting on a handful that I couldn't move @ $150. Check the classifieds - people are dumping them. Since I stopped advertising mine, I have seen 04s and 05s listed anywhere from $50-125... I'll hand them out in the park before practically giving them to somebody else to breed.
Nah, skip the shipping, I'll just eat them here.

[hhmoore]

Also, I DO understand that if I was of a different mindset, I could breed a spider and mojave male to 3-4 females each...and that the resultant offspring would have some value. I just don't have any real desire to produce BPs. At one point, I was infatuated with bumblebees, which is why I have spiders and pastels...and I will still probably do a couple of pastel x spider pairings this year. I don't dislike spiders, but I will probably get a few in the planned breedings, so there is no reason for me to breed that spider male to normal females to get MORE spiders and MORE normals. (Please keep in mind that I never had any plans of breeding that group of normal females, nor did I plan on keeping them once I got stuck with them - I was just lazy and didn't advertise them).

[WingedWolf]

Of course, pastels were worth a ton several years back...they drop every year just like other co-doms. But at the price they are now, that drop is slowing to a crawl.

The fact that you can't move your normal females at $150 (assuming they're 1500 gram breeders) probably has to do more with the slowness of the market than with an actual lack of sales. Just as an example, I need two more females before the end of the season, and we're planning to pay up to 300 apiece for them, because we want giant females who lay giant clutches, rather than smaller ones that will lay 4 to 6 eggs. I'm not buying them right now, because I don't have the money yet. I WILL...I just don't have it at the moment. I don't think you're going to have them forever--people are shopping for normal females, it just may take them longer than usual this year.

Consider that the slowness of the market means it's taking others longer to sell THEIR animals, and that's the money that they need to pay for your females--you're going to be selling those to breeders, not to people looking for pets, after all. They're still going to want those females.

It's easier to justify hanging on to a 10 grand animal for as long as it takes to sell it, because the feed cost for it is a drop in the bucket. But then, you can't say you can't make back what you invested into the spiders and pastels just because you don't want to produce BPs. ;) I fully understand why you're just waiting so that you can make some bumblebees and be done with it...but for that, you're just doing it because you want some bees, and not to make money, because by the time you're making bees, bees will have dropped a lot too.

[hhmoore]

Of course, pastels were worth a ton several years back...they drop every year just like other co-doms. But at the price they are now, that drop is slowing to a crawl.
Of course the drop is slowing to a crawl...there isn't much further they can go. They have been mass produced, without concern for the quality of the end product, which has led to the production of a whole lot of butt ugly pastels. I still hope that one day people will come to their senses and, as Seamus suggested, think not about whether they can breed something - but whether they SHOULD. I do recognize much of what made BPs popular, even if I didn't fall for the hype (thankfully, that whole phenomena occured during my dormant period...when I hit the first show of my return, I was amazed). I've anticipated, and still hope the day will come, when there is will be a different price scheme in effect for pastels...where selective breeding will once again pay off, and people will realize the difference between breeding stock and "pet quality"

The fact that you can't move your normal females at $150 (assuming they're 1500 gram breeders) probably has to do more with the slowness of the market than with an actual lack of sales. Just as an example, I need two more females before the end of the season, and we're planning to pay up to 300 apiece for them, because we want giant females who lay giant clutches, rather than smaller ones that will lay 4 to 6 eggs. I'm not buying them right now, because I don't have the money yet. I WILL...I just don't have it at the moment. I don't think you're going to have them forever--people are shopping for normal females, it just may take them longer than usual this year.

Consider that the slowness of the market means it's taking others longer to sell THEIR animals, and that's the money that they need to pay for your females--you're going to be selling those to breeders, not to people looking for pets, after all. They're still going to want those females.
Oh, I know people are looking for them...they just don't seem to want to pay for them, lol. I've had numerous inquiries, most of which ended up with some statement to the effect of I really want them, I just don't have the money. Now, with that statement in mind, think back to what I described earlier regarding my salesmanship. After 3-5 of those responses, I was grumbling about people wasting my time, and why the hell don't they know they don't have any money before they email back and forth for 3 days (and I understand that SOMETIMES, there are unexpected circumstances - those don't bother me...in fact, I can empathize). Once I was at 10-12, I was done. I pulled the ads...and when people contacted me asking if they were still available, I told them no. I calmed, and went through the drill with a few more people - only to experience more of the same. Screw it, those girls are staying for now. Maybe I'll trade them off for something at a show, maybe I'll advertise them as free to a good home locally, maybe I WILL eat them. At this point, I'm not even thinking about it...the rack is already here, they're already in it, and they don't take all that much extra time (besides, I've had them for 3 yrs...they're pets now, not ball pythons)

But then, you can't say you can't make back what you invested into the spiders and pastels just because you don't want to produce BPs
I acknowledged that, over several seasons, I COULD make back that investment. The point was that, even as adults, they aren't worth what I paid for them as babies 3 yrs ago; and that I'm not going to fall into breeding things just for the sake of the money. (I think...who knows, I was pretty busy/distracted when I posted those) I accepted that, in the course of making bees, I would produce normals, pastels, and spiders. I started with good pastels and spiders, because I am a proponent of selective breeding...that doesn't justify me producing extras just because I have those normal females available. Sure, a lot of people do. If I had a strong interest in BPs, I probably would, too. Under the circumstances, though, it doesn't make sense.

You're right, the bees were for me, because I wanted to. The price of bees has dropped significantly already (and, yes, I'm very disheartened by the ugly bees I have seen :crying: ).

[BryonsBoas]

Selective breeding and responsible breeding seem to be old hat now a days. When I got my pastel BP , males were $1k , females $2k and sold like hotcakes by the thousands. Because they LOOKED like pastels then. Without selective breeding the quality goes down quickly and the price will follow. I can't expect anyone to pay $1k for a pastel that hatched turd brown. I can't see paying $100 for a turd brown pastel now either.

I'll spend my money with someone who selectively breeds over mass production. From what I am seeing the $$$ signs overrode any possibility for some folks to take a few minutes to read up on the morph's attributes and spend some extra time & care to pick the best mates for it. Its really evident selective breeding took a back seat by most if you think about how many folks bought CH buy the hundreds to raise up as breed stock for co-dom projects.

Boas take the same hits as well. When pastels REALLY hit the scene , you couldn't find a normal boa in an ad to save your life. Everything just had to be a pastel since pastels were worth more. Add in a few really cool co-doms and away it went. Arabesques and Motleys were bred to anything with a pulse in mass numbers and now finding a good Arab that typifies the original look is near impossible.

All of this has taken its toll. When folks produce far more than they can handle just because the big boys do, then the market takes a hit. They never stop to think that the big boys have overseas markets. When the hobby breeder dumps his 10 Mot litters on the US ads ( multiply hobby breeders by 100 , 1000 etc ) , the big boys have other means to move stock and really don't feel the pinch in the same way we do.

Its easy to say you can sell $100 snakes faster than a $1000 snake but as a hobby breeder or small operation , we don't produce enough $100 snakes to keep us as viable financially as a larger operation can.

I've seen folks who are quite ready to spend a little extra $$$ for a very nice quality animal that will be selectively bred. I've seen others that don't care how the animal looks as long as its genetic and the price is as close to wholesale as they can get. Others still have no clue either way and pretty much stay in the middle. If they can get a deal on a nice animal , great , if not someone has something close if they even know enough about how the mutation works to have an idea of what to look for.

Add this up and there is plenty of room for varying prices across the board.

I've anticipated, and still hope the day will come, when there is will be a different price scheme in effect for pastels...where selective breeding will once again pay off, and people will realize the difference between breeding stock and "pet quality"

A few breeders do this to some extent. The animals are graded by quality and the price reflects where that animal sits on their scale. This is a model we've opted to adopt to price our animals. The better looking ones being priced higher with less wiggle room compared to lower grades. I find this style of pricing effective , especially if the breeder is working with good stock to start, which produces the better looking babies across the board while offering prices in a variety of ranges that customers can use to fit good stock within their budget.

My better half scans the ads more than I do but we both have taken to looking at the breeders who have been long term in the hobby / industry to build the business model we choose to use. I feel by following what those individuals , who have seen good times and bad more than once , have done to succeed then I can't go too wrong as long as I keep an open mind when I really feel the need to be flexible.

Too many folks are in a panic right now. I think if this lasts long enough , the diehards will remain while the faint of heart fall to the wayside. I think the staying power to keep the market viable isn't cutting 50% or more off of the price but holding steady to realistic drops in price. Once those cuts are made , there is no going back when the economy gets better.

[WingedWolf]

I agree completely, and hope that the majority of the breeders out there do as well. It would be a shame for everyone to drop prices insanely, and then have the market recover in 2 years...and there you are.

I like to buy the best animal I can afford...which will hopefully be a much nicer one next year than it was this year...and so on. What sort of look you go for in a morph has to also depend on what you mix it with, though. High yellow pastels are, _I_ think, prettier than the ones that brown out. But what if you're mixing it with a cinnie? Or a burgundy? Etc. There may be a purpose served in having a low yellow pastel. You have to experiment to find out what different looks you can produce.

It's also tough to selectively breed co-dom morphs for things when you are crossing them to normal females. You can pick a female that's a good match, but in reality you just have to wait and see to find out how the babies will turn out. It may take 12 years for you to even make a dent in developing a high gold or light tan, or high yellow line of normals to improve morph lines. You can't always just breed morphs to morphs, either, that makes it awfully hard to see what's going on. NERD's got high yellow line normals--it must have taken them ages to develop them.
Take the best, brightest lemon pastel NERD has and breed it to a drab female, and you're going to get 'ok' lemon pastels. I've found it hard to select breeder females with some of the attitude in the market. "Pictures aren't available, they're just normals". >.<

I've seen things marketed as 'lemon pastels' that just plain aren't, anymore.

The 'morph morph morph' attitude is understandable, but compared with, say, leopard geckos, ball python breeding is WAY behind when it comes to selective breeding for various traits. There's a huge area there waiting to be filled. It'll take a really long time to do it, but once you have a selective bred line, you've got something tremendously valuable.

Envision a line of ball pythons that consistantly throw super high yellow reduced pattern females that grow large and lay 10+ egg clutches in 5 years. :D
How much would that be worth to you? "Just a normal". Right. lol

Morphs will continue to come and go...I wonder if there will ever be a slow-down in finding new ones? There are enough crosses to keep people entertained for decades. Which is another reason why I'm not worried about price drop-outs.

[The BoidSmith]

In my opinion ball pythons are overpriced (bear with me I'm into ball pythons). But it's not me that dictates that, it's the market. If an animal posted in a heavy traffic web site is up for sale for weeks with no takers, then you are priced off the market. You can wait with the animal until a "new generation" of reptile keepers is born (joke) or you can accept a lower offer in your animal. This flexibility will be different for different individuals. Some can subsidize their hobby/business with external income and can thus wait longer for an animal to sell at a given price; some cannot. My perception is that the longer an animal is out there at the same price the chances for it to sell decrease constantly. Or in Einstein's words: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. ;

Best!

[Seamus Haley]

Take the best, brightest lemon pastel NERD has and breed it to a drab female, and you're going to get 'ok' lemon pastels. I've found it hard to select breeder females with some of the attitude in the market. "Pictures aren't available, they're just normals". >.<

I've seen things marketed as 'lemon pastels' that just plain aren't, anymore.


No such f#$%in' morph.

[shrap]

Dan,

I hate to say it but you sound like a disgruntled buyer that thought they were going to be able to take advantage of a poor economy to get high end animals for cheap. When your plan to take advantage of breeders in distress didnt pan out like you hoped, you decide to blame the market for not being able to get that animal you feel you are entitled to at the price you felt you were entitled to get it at. Not trying to be insulting to you in the least, just saying what it looks like to a degree.

Simple supply and demand and competition will dictate prices. Look at Pastels, Albinos, Spiders, etc, etc, etc, etc, that have taken really big nose dives over the last couple of years. Supply overtook demand and you had countless different breeders producing them, so the prices came down. And the same is happening to all the other base morphs and many of the more dated designer morphs.

If you are trying to get in on a morph/designer morph that supply is still limited on, you are going to pay a premium. That is just basic economics. Remember when CD players first came out? DVD players? The cost was outrageous. $800-$1000. 5 years later they were literally under $100 because supply caught up with demand and many different companies were producing them which created competition. So if you want that limited supply item you are going to pay a premium for it. Or you can wait until that item is no longer in limited supply and pay a lower price.

Just my two cents on it.

[Laura Fopiano]

Agree 100% and this is why I am able to keep going year after year, and will continue to breed leopard geckos, which are my passion. I really like what you have said about widespread attention and care, and I agree. The supply/demand/overproduction "thing" has happened before. What usually ends up happening is that you will see a large number of aspiring leopard gecko breeders having a "Collection Sale" and getting out of it because they are frustrated. It's not easy to sell leopard geckos unless you have something really unique or unusual, or a brand new morph, and/or are a very well known breeder. I actually tell/warn my customers about this. Sometimes I think I am not the best salesperson but they always buy anyway.
And then there is the flip side of that coin. Trying to find a simple patternless male or blizzard male to finish off some of my projects is like pulling teeth. The biggest "new thing" on the market has over shadowed the pure joy of being able to keep these special creatures. Seems that so many jumped in head first with out realizing the cost of feeding and housing. Because we breed our worms and feeder rodents, my supply is readily available and is not an issue.

I am more into my lizards then the high end collection of boas that I brought across the country when I moved here. My lizards know me and respond to me. The pip of the baby after years of hard work is more exciting to me than the prospect of selling them. For that single moment, I don't feel like I have wasted my time.

The animals that Bryon and I produce also gives us trading power to get the crriters that we covet. We maybe be BnL Exotix, but we are very different from our keeping styles and what we really love.

The passion for the boa's that I brought across the counrty is still very intense. When I purchased them I did so out of the love of the breed not the money or greed. I love the motley boa, it is my favorite morph and I payed a good chunk of change for them 2 years ago. Same thing with my Sabogaes. I went straight to the breeder for them. And the same with my hpyo 100% het blood boas.

And in the spring all of our efforts will not be wasted but worth it when I see those beautiful babies. At then end of the season, it will be a labor of love and not greed that keeps me motivated to improve on selective breeding and what worked and what didn't.

[shrap]

The pip of the baby after years of hard work is more exciting to me than the prospect of selling them.

The prospect of selling them is hands down the part of this I dislike the most. I literally dont like thinking about it until I have to. To this day every baby my critters produce pulls at a heart string when I am boxing them up. I hate them leaving home.

About ten years ago I let my pure bred Russian Blue cat be bred by someone else's pure Russian Blue and we split the litter. My cat was the female of course. So by the time the kittens were weaned I was too attached to let any of my half be sold. So we went from 1 cat to 4.... and immediately to the vet to get them all fixed!!

[The BoidSmith]

Dan,

I hate to say it but you sound like a disgruntled buyer that thought they were going to be able to take advantage of a poor economy to get high end animals for cheap. When your plan to take advantage of breeders in distress didnt pan out like you hoped, you decide to blame the market for not being able to get that animal you feel you are entitled to at the price you felt you were entitled to get it at. Not trying to be insulting to you in the least, just saying what it looks like to a degree.

Simple supply and demand and competition will dictate prices. Look at Pastels, Albinos, Spiders, etc, etc, etc, etc, that have taken really big nose dives over the last couple of years. Supply overtook demand and you had countless different breeders producing them, so the prices came down. And the same is happening to all the other base morphs and many of the more dated designer morphs.

If you are trying to get in on a morph/designer morph that supply is still limited on, you are going to pay a premium. That is just basic economics. Remember when CD players first came out? DVD players? The cost was outrageous. $800-$1000. 5 years later they were literally under $100 because supply caught up with demand and many different companies were producing them which created competition. So if you want that limited supply item you are going to pay a premium for it. Or you can wait until that item is no longer in limited supply and pay a lower price.

Just my two cents on it.


It's just an opinion and my perception on the industry right now. What I'm trying to understand is the thought process of buyer and sellers as I'm currently in the process of co-writing an assay in the topic. :)

Best

[KelliH]

And then there is the flip side of that coin. Trying to find a simple patternless male or blizzard male to finish off some of my projects is like pulling teeth. The biggest "new thing" on the market has over shadowed the pure joy of being able to keep these special creatures. Seems that so many jumped in head first with out realizing the cost of feeding and housing. Because we breed our worms and feeder rodents, my supply is readily available and is not an issue.

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.

[shrap]

It's just an opinion and my perception on the industry right now. What I'm trying to understand is the thought process of buyer and sellers as I'm currently in the process of co-writing an assay in the topic. :)

Best

Is it really any different than any other industry though? When the economy takes a long downturn like it is now, essentials always seem to go up in price while non essentials take a small dip in price. Not a large dip. If the economy rebounds quickly and you panic dropped during the downturn you are now stuck at those panic prices. It is always better as a seller to drop your prices slowly instead of taking a panic plunge. As a seller that is how I look at it.

This country really has not seen a truly prolonged recession since the 70's. The market place has changed so much since then that we are really are entering unknown territory as far as being able to predict how businesses will be able to adjust and withstand a prolonged recession. Hopefully we wont have to find out the hard way.

[WingedWolf]

In my opinion ball pythons are overpriced (bear with me I'm into ball pythons). But it's not me that dictates that, it's the market. If an animal posted in a heavy traffic web site is up for sale for weeks with no takers, then you are priced off the market. You can wait with the animal until a "new generation" of reptile keepers is born (joke) or you can accept a lower offer in your animal. This flexibility will be different for different individuals. Some can subsidize their hobby/business with external income and can thus wait longer for an animal to sell at a given price; some cannot. My perception is that the longer an animal is out there at the same price the chances for it to sell decrease constantly. Or in Einstein's words: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. ;

Best!

There's no such thing as 'overpriced' when it comes to...well, anything. Prices are what the market will bear. Something will sell for the highest amount that people will pay for it regularly.

How can one really tell if the reason an animal isn't selling at its current price is because it's too expensive...or just because no one who's looked at the ad so far actually wants it? You have to look at what others are pricing things at, and make your own judgement on that. Your problem might not be high prices--it might be that you're not advertising correctly.

And seriously--snake morphs, especially ball pythons and boas, are a big herpetocultural pyramid scheme with a mattress at the bottom called 'the pet trade'. I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of that. Who buys morphs? MOSTLY other breeders--for ANY of them. What is an albino ball python worth to someone who's looking for a pet? Probably not much more than a normal. Same answer for ALL of the other morphs, whether they are currently worth 90 bucks or 20 grand. These snakes are worth so much money because they are worth money to breeders, who want to turn around and sell the offspring to make more money.

People who honestly have no expectation of making even a bit of extra cash from breeding are EXTREMELY rare. There's little other incentive to breed snakes--I mean, if you want a bumblebee, and you buy a pastel and a spider right now...why bother? You can just buy a bumblebee in three years for what you paid for the parent snakes.

It's not quite the same as breeding dogs...having a few snakes and breeding them to 'improve the breed' doesn't work very well, because there aren't enough questions about snake genetics worked out yet...nor any stable 'lineages' to purchase stock from. A really small collection isn't going to allow a person to do very much to create a new look through selection, particularly when there's 3 years between generations. The folks having the most success with creating a new look through selective breeding are those who have huge collections to pick animals from, who can afford to hold back a ton of 'maybes' and who are planning on doing this for a LONG time.

"Because it's fun to see what will hatch" is a valid reason--just not a very common one.

[Cat_72]

What is an albino ball python worth to someone who's looking for a pet? Probably not much more than a normal.

I see what you are saying here, but I do have to disagree somewhat. There will also always be that person who wants something "different" or "special" and has no interest in breeding it. There are still plenty of people who will pay $1500 for an English Bulldog...why should they when there are so many $50 Labs in the paper? Then there's the idiots who spend $2000 on a "goldendoodle" (or whatever the mutt of the day is), because it's new, or unusual, or not like what the Joneses down the street have. Does that make sense?

There's little other incentive to breed snakes--I mean, if you want a bumblebee, and you buy a pastel and a spider right now...why bother?

It IS possible that for some people, the snakes themselves ARE the incentive, that some people actually DO just enjoy having snakes, and hatching babies is the absolute, bestest most fun part of it. :shrug01:

[hhmoore]

I see what you are saying here, but I do have to disagree somewhat. There will also always be that person who wants something "different" or "special" and has no interest in breeding it.
I used to be "that guy"...to an extent, I still am. When I was doing a lot of exhibitions, I wanted a variety of interesting animals. I paid from $400-1500 for single specimens that I had no intention of breeding, simply because I liked them. Some of those animals never went on display, so I can't really argue that I wanted them for that purpose. (*I know that doesn't sound like a whole lot of money, but that was practically a different era)

It IS possible that for some people, the snakes themselves ARE the incentive, that some people actually DO just enjoy having snakes, and hatching babies is the absolute, bestest most fun part of it. :shrug01: Yup. I mentioned earlier that I would probably be carrying 30+ babies into next season...the part I didn't say was that at least half of those are being held back for my own little projects. No, I don't plan on raising them all to adulthood, but I'm not letting them go until they are old enough and large enough to tell which are the best of the group (I've already got my choices picked, I just want to make sure I am right). This is a project for me - it's not going to be worth much of anything, financially. If the snakes weren't IT for me, I couldn't really get away with my sporadic advertising or deciding not to sell things because I don't feel like dealing with people.

[Seamus Haley]

It's not quite the same as breeding dogs...having a few snakes and breeding them to 'improve the breed' doesn't work very well, because there aren't enough questions about snake genetics worked out yet...nor any stable 'lineages' to purchase stock from. A really small collection isn't going to allow a person to do very much to create a new look through selection, particularly when there's 3 years between generations. The folks having the most success with creating a new look through selective breeding are those who have huge collections to pick animals from, who can afford to hold back a ton of 'maybes' and who are planning on doing this for a LONG time.

"Because it's fun to see what will hatch" is a valid reason--just not a very common one.

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.

[The BoidSmith]

There's no such thing as 'overpriced' when it comes to...well, anything. Prices are what the market will bear. Something will sell for the highest amount that people will pay for it regularly.

Your second statement implies the market or demand regulates prices. Thus overpriced exists and is when your price is not in line with what the market bears. Maybe an individual can use the leverage of his/her reputation to ask somehow more than the market price, but there’s a limit to that also. If I place an ad for a male baby pied ball python for $4,000 believe me, it will be there forever. A more real example there’s an individual that was part of the longest threads in the BOI that has had a snake for sale for over 6 months. Same ad, same picture, same snake; he not only did not sell her when it was priced at $500 but he raised it to $600 around a month ago. Needless to say he is overpriced and he doesn’t have the reputation leverage.

[Cat_72]

If the snakes weren't IT for me, I couldn't really get away with my sporadic advertising or deciding not to sell things because I don't feel like dealing with people.

I know exactly what you mean....scenario at my house:

Other half walks in while I'm watering or cleaning baby racks.

OH: Sell any more of those hatchlings?
Me: Uh, no.
OH: None?
Me: Um, not lately.
OH: Why?
Me: I suppose I should get around to putting ads up....
OH: You sell more when you actually put ads out. You can't keep them all.
Me: Yeah, I suppose I should put some up this weekend. (Not really listening, busy laughing at the baby trying to bite at me)

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. :D

[Mooing Tricycle]

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. :D

Should we send you daily reminders in your PM Box? LMAO :rofl::thumbsup::dgrin:

[Southern Wolf]

(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 :D

[Laura Fopiano]

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.
:eek: I'm soo embarrassed!!
I sent you and email and left you a phone message :blush:

[jayefbe]

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.

[WingedWolf]

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.

[jayefbe]

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.

[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.

[jayefbe]

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.

[WingedWolf]

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.

[jayefbe]

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.

[The BoidSmith]

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.

Twenty six out of three and you say it so casually! That has to be some sort of a record even for well-known breeders!

[WingedWolf]

Oh, no---we're well aware of how amazing it was. We have a really big normal female, and she laid THIRTEEN perfect, fertile eggs. Our other girl dropped 7--all fertile, and the other 9 with 3 infertile.

We are well aware the odds-gods favored us...especially when 11 of that clutch of 13 hatched out pastel. ^_^

We aren't figuring on such insane odds in our projections, lol.

I don't think the ball market will EVER resemble the leo market. Leopard geckos grow up far too fast, and are far too prolific. The 3 years it takes a female ball to reach adulthood keep the market from turning over crazily the way that one does.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Leopard geckos grow up far too fast, and are far too prolific.

I wouldn't say prolific. I've never had a Leo have more then 3 successful clutches (1-2 eggs a clutch) in a single year. My Cornsnakes on the other hand have given me 13-23 eggs in a first clutch and then can go on to double clutch without any encouragement. :ack2:

[Seamus Haley]

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?

Yes and no. Ball pythons as a species display a great deal of phenotypical elasticity, with a high degree of variability in terms of pattern and tone falling well within the normal range for the species. That aspect of variability is going to be inherent in any pairing and add an element of random chance to the development of any offspring. However, ball pythons in the wild often tend to display some of those more variable tendencies of color and pattern as being common to a localized population. Not to the same degree that insular locales of other species will, since there are few signifigant geographical barriers... but as tendencies. Some of the things which are currently being sold as codominant and incompletely dominant genetic traits or many of the "minor morphs" are really just expressions of these genetic tendencies within populations that have experienced natural selection as a response to very slightly different environmental pressures. So selectively breeding with the idea of enhancing a particular tendency is certainly an attainable goal, even if it's not a trait which is as easily genetically mapped or predicted as a simple recessive.

Also... this thread is in the general business discussions and there are more than just ball pythons out there.


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.

For some traits which are expressed as absolutes, the future expression of that trait won't be negatively impacted if it's bred into stock which does not initially share it. Many of the pattern and color traits seen in the species are not absolutes though- there can be a great deal of visual difference between exceptional specimins that have been carefully propogated to maximize the quality of those traits and low grade stock that was bred without any thought given to selection. For a specific example, I believe you personally work with pastels- compare your stock, produced with your cavalier attitude towards selectively breeding to the quality stock from a breeder who took the time to emphasize the trait. Your animals can barely be distinguished from the WC normals found in every Petco across the country. Theirs are clearly something special.

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.

Ah, I see... because it's time consuming, it's not worth doing. Consistant results won't happen immediately, although the more selective a breeder is in choosing their stock, the quicker those results will be acchieved.

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.

Thank goodness you were here to explain that example to me. Because I have never, ever bred an animal in my life and you have just decades and decades of exhaustive experience piled ontop of a comprehensive education.

There was an episode of the Cosby show where the youngest daughter Rudy wanted to drop out of school. Bill asked her what she would do for a career with a third grade education. She replied that she would teach second grade. Ah those whacky Huxtable kids.

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.

Again you seem to be arguing that it's not worth doing because it takes effort and attention. That kind of thinking is not something that you should be spreading around. If you want to produce garbage animals as fast as possible, keep it to yourself so the rest of us don't have to re-educate anyone who didn't know enough to ignore you.

[WingedWolf]

I'm aware that we have 'just pastels' this year. We did produce a few decent animals from those pairings, though, but of course the last ones to sell aren't the best ones. I hardly think that's relevent to this--as I explained, we had one male to pick from last season, our very first. We could have chose to breed nothing at all, but I'm happy enough with the results from choosing to do so, and we have kept 4 pastel females to hold back, picks of the litters so to speak. I'm intrigued to see what will happen when you mix cinnamon with high-yellow pastels as compared with mixing it with the pastels that are more brown. My guess is you will get two very different looks in the resulting pewters. In any case, again, not relevent.

I did not once say, or imply, that selective breeding was NOT WORTH DOING for a small hobbyist. What I said was that it would take a ferociously long time, and would be exceptionally HARD for a small hobbyist to do properly, without excessive inbreeding. I think a minimum number of snakes have to be involved to it the right way, and that MAY be more in some cases than the average hobbyist is willing to keep.

Selective breeding in general is going to take a long time. I don't think that there are any supportable reasons for attacking newcomers for not doing selective breeding when they haven't even been breeding for a full generation yet...that's kinda silly. How do you know they aren't doing selective breeding? You have to start with something first.
We had high hopes that our huge high-gold female would improve the pastel line we had. Instead, all but one of the best looking babies were produced by our other two females. We're not going to find that out by not trying it. Now we know more about what to expect from 3 of our girls.

You have no cause to attack me for what you THINK I am doing, Seamus--it was quite uncalled for. You should ask what I am actually doing. There shouldn't be anything personal in this thread, it's about pricing in the herp markets.

It's true that leos don't have any more offspring per season than ball pythons, but those offspring grow to adulthood much faster, so the generation turnover is pretty brisk. A price dip that takes the ball python market 3 years to go through only takes the leo market one year. That's what leads some people to impatience--which I consider to be a far more serious problem than selective breeding issues. I went to a show yesterday, and one guy had an adult ball python female. 2 other tables had animals they claimed were adults, but all of them were around 800-1100 grams. Now, how on earth does an 800 gram female qualify as an adult?! I asked one of those vendors if he had any larger females, and he tried to convince me that it was just fine to breed an 1100 gram ball pythons, because 'in the wild, they sometimes breed at 600 grams!'. >.< Then I got a line about how no in their right mind would EVER EVER let a female over 2000 grams go, and I would never find anyone selling them. <lol>

My roomate talked to someone bragging how he bred his 1000 gram female pin to a bumblebee. Roomate rightly asked if he was trying to kill her--and this guy replies that he does not CARE, so long as he gets a spinner blast from her.

Selective breeding takes a long time to show progress, but breeding animals too young is a lot more immediately obvious--greed over the welfare of the animals. That just makes me mad.
I mean, it may take a person quite a while to make sure their animals are super-pretty, but they can control from the outset whether or not they are HEALTHY.

It takes going to a show to really reveal where the problems are. I got to see people selling hatchlings that were 3 inches from death's door, because they had clearly never eaten in their lives, and were probably 2 months old. Part of the whole 'just normals' mentality. I don't understand how someone can put an animal like that on the table and try to SELL it to someone.

Call me strange, but I don't consider any living animal to be GARBAGE. And I don't stand for treating them like they are.

[KelliH]

It's true that leos don't have any more offspring per season than ball pythons

Say what? I get an average of 8-10 clutches a year from my girls, that's 16-20 babies per season. Their first seasons are usually less productive but normally from there until they are about 5 or 6 years old they produce really well. How long did you breed leopard geckos?

[crotalusadamanteus]

I'm just curious....When did "Size" equal "adulthood"? People can make a Boid snake LOOK like an adult as far as size goes, but adulthood comes with maturity. Maturity comes with age. You can't determine if a snake is an adult by size alone.

[shrap]

I'm just curious....When did "Size" equal "adulthood"?

I could go so many places with that.....

[WingedWolf]

Size AND age combined = maturity. And no argument is going to make me think it's ok to breed an 800 gram female.
I don't think it's right to breed large 2 year olds, either. I think the snake should be at least 3.
Boys, sure--a year old is fine if they're eating great, and are over 500 grams. But people breed these girls too young and too tiny, and then wonder why they always get 3 egg clutches from them.

Kelli, I bred leopard geckos for a couple of years. I wouldn't have my females laying that many clutches, I feel it's too hard on them. One female would produce 3 or 4 pairs of eggs, and then I would adjust the temps and light, move the male, and shut them down for the season. I had one female try to keep on going, I had a heck of a time getting her to quit laying...she just wasn't responding to the lighting changes, and wound up laying 7 clutches. That female wound up doing poorly in the long run.

But that just illustrates my point--people CAN produce a lot more leos in a year than they can generally produce ball pythons, and in a lot less space. And then those babies only take about a year to grow up. That's the reason the leo market is so much more volatile.

[shrap]

The more you talk Donna the more you show exactly how much you do not know.

Oh and by the way.... I have bred many large two year olds. Never had a clutch under 6 eggs from any of them. Maybe you should try educating yourself a bit more on the subject of reproduction.

[jayefbe]

Size AND age combined = maturity. And no argument is going to make me think it's ok to breed an 800 gram female.
I don't think it's right to breed large 2 year olds, either. I think the snake should be at least 3.
Boys, sure--a year old is fine if they're eating great, and are over 500 grams. But people breed these girls too young and too tiny, and then wonder why they always get 3 egg clutches from them.

Kelli, I bred leopard geckos for a couple of years. I wouldn't have my females laying that many clutches, I feel it's too hard on them. One female would produce 3 or 4 pairs of eggs, and then I would adjust the temps and light, move the male, and shut them down for the season. I had one female try to keep on going, I had a heck of a time getting her to quit laying...she just wasn't responding to the lighting changes, and wound up laying 7 clutches. That female wound up doing poorly in the long run.

But that just illustrates my point--people CAN produce a lot more leos in a year than they can generally produce ball pythons, and in a lot less space. And then those babies only take about a year to grow up. That's the reason the leo market is so much more volatile.

Yeah Donna, tell Kelli how to breed leos. :thumbsup:

[WingedWolf]

Hey, there's no way I can say it without pissing SOMEONE off. If you want to breed a 2-year-old, that's your choice. I didn't say that it was a terrible cruel thing to breed a 1500 gram 2-year-old--I said that _I_ didn't think it was right. And I wouldn't do it. I DO think it's detrimental to breed a female under 1500 grams. (Exceptions made for the occasional super-short 4-year-old with a good appetite who just might be unusually small). I think a female will produce larger clutches and withstand breeding better if she is at least three, and is over 1500 grams.
What exactly did I do in this thread to deserve that personal attack, Shrap?
It's not as though this opinion is unique to me, plenty of others share it. They certainly aren't lacking in education on reproduction (which is an amusing way of putting it anyhow).

I figured someone would feel personally threatened if I said I thought 2 year olds and females under 1500 shouldn't be bred. That doesn't change my opinion of it, and certainly doesn't make my opinion wrong. Nor does someone saying they did it and had no apparent problems. I don't think it's in the best interests of the animals.

I love how people are getting on my case here for putting the welfare of the animals before fast/high quantity reproduction. It's like, 'selective breed so you don't make ugly animals...but it's ok to breed vast quantities of pretty animals no matter how hard it might be on the females!"
Come on...lose the double standard. If you want to breed as many animals in a year as you possibly can, and breed your animals as early as conceivable, fine--I still reserve the right to think that's not in their best interests.

[shrap]

Donna, there is no point in even talking to you when you cant even stick to what you say. You constantly change the parameters to try and justify your stance. You are wishy washy to say the least and I personally have no desire to waste my time on people like you.

[crotalusadamanteus]

It wasn't an attack. It was a disagreement. Didn't you learn the difference in the Hell forum?

Oh and my point exactly.... Exceptions made for the occasional super-short 4-year-old with a good appetite who just might be unusually small) Happens often enough.

[WingedWolf]

The more you talk Donna the more you show exactly how much you do not know. <--personal attack, and nothing more. Not a disagreement.

The hell forum has no business being brought up here, and I would have thought people were professional enough to keep such things seperate. If I wanted an argument with personal attacks and name-calling, I would have posted there. This is supposed to be a civil discussion about the market--it's wandered into the quality of animals being produced, and I thought the way some people are reproducing animals too young and treating them like waste products when they are 'just normals' was relevent to that as well. In the drive to produce lots of expensive animals, the welfare of the animals is not being put first (and in some cases, such as those show vendors, is not being considered at all). I'm aware my opinion on how soon, and at what weight, ball pythons should be bred is on the conservative side. Likewise, with the few leos I produced, it was as well. I am not saying people who don't stick with that are all horrible.

But unless you think breeding an 800 gram 2 year old ball python is A-OK, why would you take such offense to it?

[crotalusadamanteus]

Didn't take offense to anything. Don't care much for Ball Pythons as it were. Sorta girly to me. But I did disagree, and commented on what seemed like a blanket statement made by you about judging age by size.

[Seamus Haley]

I love how people are getting on my case here for putting the welfare of the animals before fast/high quantity reproduction. It's like, 'selective breed so you don't make ugly animals...but it's ok to breed vast quantities of pretty animals no matter how hard it might be on the females!"

The two aren't mutually exclusive, nobody suggested that they were except *you*. Selective breeding doesn't simply cover appearance either- it means taking the best possible animals and propagating them, while keeping animals with negative traits from adding to the gene pool.

Donna, really... are you functionally illiterate? Some kind of disorder? If you're mentally disabled, you have an excuse.

[WingedWolf]

And at that point, I stop posting, yet again, and hope that the moderators will step in and deal with the fertilizer.

I really can't abide people who can't keep a debate civil. :NoNo:

[Seamus Haley]

And at that point, I stop posting, yet again, and hope that the moderators will step in and deal with the fertilizer.

I really can't abide people who can't keep a debate civil. :NoNo:

I really can't abide people who are completely incapable of even the faintest glimmer of comprehension.

Guess that makes us about even, huh Rudy?

[Cat_72]

I love how people are getting on my case here for putting the welfare of the animals before fast/high quantity reproduction. It's like, 'selective breed so you don't make ugly animals...but it's ok to breed vast quantities of pretty animals no matter how hard it might be on the females!"
Come on...lose the double standard. If you want to breed as many animals in a year as you possibly can, and breed your animals as early as conceivable, fine--I still reserve the right to think that's not in their best interests.

You are completely missing the point. NO ONE is getting "on your case" about the fact that you have the welfare of the animals in mind. What they ARE trying to tell you is that selective breeding has nothing to do with breeding vast quantities, nor expecting lesser specimens to be "treated like garbage". A butt-ugly pastel is just as much a living, breathing animal as a bright and beautiful one....but that certainly doesn't mean that butt-ugly snake should be bred to pass on those butt-ugly genetics. He would make a fine pet for someone...but some would insist on breeding it, just because they want babies. Isn't that greed as well?

You raise your voice against "quantity" breeders, but shouldn't QUALITY be important as well?

[KelliH]

I wouldn't have my females laying that many clutches, I feel it's too hard on them. One female would produce 3 or 4 pairs of eggs, and then I would adjust the temps and light, move the male, and shut them down for the season. I had one female try to keep on going, I had a heck of a time getting her to quit laying...she just wasn't responding to the lighting changes, and wound up laying 7 clutches. That female wound up doing poorly in the long run.


Hmm, maybe it was a husbandry thing or something about their diet/supplementation or something because while there may be the rare female leo that for whatever reason is just not a good breeder, that's not the case with most females. I do understand the point you are trying to make of course, but earlier you stated that leopard geckos do not produce as many offspring in a season as ball pythons do, and that's just not true in the case of serious and professional gecko breeders.

I love how people are getting on my case here for putting the welfare of the animals before fast/high quantity reproduction. It's like, 'selective breed so you don't make ugly animals...but it's ok to breed vast quantities of pretty animals no matter how hard it might be on the females!"

Who said anything about breeding vast quantities of animals and fast/high quantity reproduction?

[KelliH]

A butt-ugly pastel is just as much a living, breathing animal as a bright and beautiful one....but that certainly doesn't mean that butt-ugly snake should be bred to pass on those butt-ugly genetics. He would make a fine pet for someone...but some would insist on breeding it, just because they want babies. Isn't that greed as well?

Exactly! Well put.

[WingedWolf]

Actually, I AGREED with a person who said that leopard geckos produce about the same number of babies each season as ball pythons. Average being 6. My biggest female ball gave me 13 eggs. I did my best to be careful with my leos in their first and second breeding seasons. The age and size of the animals makes a big difference too, just as with balls.

What constitutes 'pretty', or 'ugly' in ball pythons is in the eye of the beholder. Take clowns, for example--I think they are ugly, every one of them. <lol> I don't plan to breed clowns, because I just don't like them. Obviously lots of other people disagree. I don't like G-stripes, but my roomate loves them. Some people like 'lemon' pastels, and other people like "Graziani" pastels--they have two quite different looks to them.

I bred a 'not bad' male pastel to 3 normal females, and produced several decent pastels (including one that is actually pretty good), and some that weren't so nice. I learned which of my normal females is likely to produce babies with lighter or darker colors, with reduced or busy patterns. Was I disappointed by the fact some of the hatchlings weren't that bright? Sure, I was. Especially when I had hoped that beautiful high gold normal would brighten them up. But that illustrates too, selective breeding takes decades to do properly, you just can't predict the outcome of pairing 2 unrelated snakes until you do it. The fact that someone has some snakes up for sale that aren't top-notch doesn't necessarily mean that's what they started with. I think most folks KEEP the top-notch hatchlings, yes?

There are people out there who are just collecting whatever morphs they can, and throwing them with random females to produce as many babies as possible. And it's common practice to throw all of the 'just normals' in a big pile and not bother to keep track of who their parents are. I disagree with that on principle, too. It's all part of one big problem--folks who care more about the bottom line than about the animals themselves. Fortunately, most of those are the folks who are likely to bail out sooner if the market DOES dive.

Who said anything about people producing tons of animals, and breeding them young to get as many as they can as fast as possible? I did. It's all part of the same problem. That problem isn't going to actually fix itself until consumers start becoming more picky. Right now, there is a market for less than perfect morphs--whether people coming in at the ground level, or folks looking for a pet, or some of those less than ethical breeders who just want to produce gobs of hatchlings. MOST people aren't doing graded pricing, at least not to any significant degree. I do think we are going to see that changing in coming years. I hope there's never a point where such animals are considered 'worthless', because it would be a shame to see them treated in that fashion.

No one has decided to sit down and write a standard of beauty for morphs. Trends are developing, but that's about it. You have a lot of people developing their own lines for various morphs that can look quite different from one another. You can decide "this pastel is very brown, he is only good for keeping as a pet". Or you could decide "this pastel is very brown, I wonder what will happen if I cross it with a chocolate?" I don't think that issue is quite as clear-cut a problem as folks tossing a pile of normal hatchlings into a bin without regard to parentage or whether they're even eating.

[Cat_72]

selective breeding takes decades to do properly, you just can't predict the outcome of pairing 2 unrelated snakes until you do it. The fact that someone has some snakes up for sale that aren't top-notch doesn't necessarily mean that's what they started with. I think most folks KEEP the top-notch hatchlings, yes?

NO, selective breeding does NOT take decades to do properly.....it means STARTING with the best quality stock you can buy, not some butt-ugly pastel because he was cheap. And no, not everyone keeps all of their top-notch hatchlings, especially males.

There are people out there who are just collecting whatever morphs they can, and throwing them with random females to produce as many babies as possible.

Very true....and I don't agree with that either. However...those are the same folks buying the butt-ugly pastels, because they are cheap, and a GOOD breeder would not put them into their gene pool.

And at that point, I stop posting,

Really?

Right now, there is a market for less than perfect morphs--whether people coming in at the ground level, or folks looking for a pet, or some of those less than ethical breeders who just want to produce gobs of hatchlings. MOST people aren't doing graded pricing, at least not to any significant degree.

Just because you sem to think there is a "market" for them, that means that you should breed them? It's attitude like that that keeps these "less than ethical" breeders you speak of going. And graded pricing has been common for a long time.....not sure what you've been looking at....? They don't specifically call it "grade 3 pastel" or something of the sort, but a person sets prices according to the quality, with the butt-ugly ones being cheap.

You're talking in a circle, and not going anywhere. Donna says, "it's ok that I breed butt-ugly pastels, because there's a market for them with the less than ethical breeders who mass produce babies and those mass-producing breeders are evil because they don't care about the animals but since they create a market for the butt-uglies I shall breed them......." and so on and so forth. WTF?

I hope there's never a point where such animals are considered 'worthless', because it would be a shame to see them treated in that fashion.

If you're so concerned about people regarding butt-ugly pastels "worthless" and "treating them like garbage"...why the :censored: do you support breeding them??

[WingedWolf]

All right, apparently the adults have left the building, and it's going to be nothing but personal attacks here, so I give up entirely at this point. The moderators apparently aren't paying any attention, or don't care.

I don't consider my male pastel to be 'butt-ugly', and I consider some of his offspring to be decent. I don't really care what YOU think of them, as obviously you aren't buying them. You've turned this discussion around into something about MY animals. Having a civil debate around here is apparently useless, because the trolls...well, they infest every forum, and once you all decide you don't like an individual, you make a point of hounding them wherever they go.

And honestly--you can sit and spin.

If you don't see a problem with the way people treat and consider normal ball pythons, that's also your view. I treat mine with the same care I give to my expensive morphs.
I have nothing but contempt for those who do otherwise.

[Cat_72]

If you don't see a problem with the way people treat and consider normal ball pythons, that's also your view. I treat mine with the same care I give to my expensive morphs.

Please show me where ANYONE here has said that normal ball pythons should be treated any less humanely than a morph? :shrug01: I specifically said that a butt-ugly pastel (or normal, or whatever) is just as much a living being as any other, and should be treated as such. They simply should not be bred. I'm not sure why that is so difficult to understand. Selective breeding - SELECTING only the best quality specimens to reproduce. Simple concept.

If you could make the effort to understand what others are saying, and keep your own posts from rotation in ideals, we COULD have a civil debate. Part of having a civil debate is giving consideration to what the other poster says. I agreed with you on a couple of points, and noted such, and honestly tried to understand what you were trying to say....I just couldn't. :ack2:

Kind of on a tangent, I had one of those "Sit and Spin" things when I was a kid.....used to laugh and spin til I was sick to my stomach....my kids had to have one when they were little too. Good, simple fun. :thumbsup:

[hhmoore]

All right, apparently the adults have left the building, and it's going to be nothing but personal attacks here, so I give up entirely at this point. The moderators apparently aren't paying any attention, or don't care.
And just what is it you expect the moderation staff to do, Donna?

[crotalusadamanteus]

I think you are supposed to step in and tell people to agree with her, or else. :shrug01:

That's sorta how it comes across to me anyway.

[hhmoore]

From a moderator perspective - I haven't really seen much worth fussing over in this thread. All things considered, I think people are conducting themselves pretty darned well.

From a personal perspective - I don't agree with some of Donna's statements and explanations...but there are some that I do agree with. I think it is human nature to apply one's own thoughts and experiences in a discussion of this nature. However, when one does so to the extent that subsequent topics are personalized, its a downhill slide. Donna - you don't have nearly the experience of some of the people you are trying to go toe to toe with. Instead of becoming defensive, and offensive, try listening and considering. You've still got a lot to learn...and IMO the goings on in HELL don't have a whole lot to do with this discussion. People, for the most part, are disagreeing with what you are saying based primarily upon content - if it had to do with the impressions you've made elsewhere, the thread would have died, or had to be killed.

[WingedWolf]

So, the personal attacks going on here are either invisible to you, or A-OK? Gotcha...
I wasn't aware Ad-Hominem was permitted all over the forums here. Now I know. Since I personally see no point in taking part in any debate where such tactics are used and supported, there's really no point in my posting in any debate, anywhere on this forum.

The 'experience' of the people I am disagreeing with apparently is with beating down dissenting voices rather than making reasoned supporting posts for their positions. The sad part is that I haven't actually disagreed with the people who are launching attacks on me here, save on the small point that it takes longer to start a selectively-bred line of ball pythons than one pairing, and that you need to hold back a lot of animals to do it properly. (Essentially, no matter how spiffy your starting morph stock, if you're breeding a morph to a normal, you can't predict the quality of the resulting hatchlings--because very few people are keeping track of bloodlines on normals).

Yes, you can start out with top of the line morph stock, but you might still wind up with some animals that don't look the way you intended, depending on random traits contributed by any normals you pair them with. That was my only point of disagreement with them.

Because juvenile tactics are allowed here, what's the point in even trying to give an opinion? A reasoned position is worthless if the winner is the person who can make their opponents look bad through personal attacks, and not the one who actually makes logical points.

So, I'm giving up. Doubtless some of these folks will congratulate each other on having driven off yet another person they don't like. If you think experience has something to do with it, you're deluded. These folks don't actually know what my experience level is, beyond the fact that I have bred a few trios of leopard geckos, and have started last season with ball pythons. They don't know how long I have been keeping reptiles, or what species. None of that actually mattered to them. I'm not volunteering it, either, because "Oh, well, I bred more than you did, and my collection is X animals bigger than yours!" is not a valid argument either. I'm impressed when someone can actually explain their position using that little thing called logic, and treat others who participate in a debate with respect.

If they can't do that, then I don't care if they are methuselah of reptile-keeping, all the experience in the world isn't going to make what they say worth a dime. 'Because I said so, and you're stupid" just doesn't cut it.

I was enjoying this debate before the trolls descended on it, but now I see that I won't be allowed to enjoy any discussions on this board, since I have pissed those people off. Why bother trying?

[shrap]

Waaa waaa sniffle sniffle waaa.

Maybe someday you will grow up and and be a big enough person to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.

[LakesideBoas]

So, the personal attacks going on here are either invisible to you, or A-OK? Gotcha...
I wasn't aware Ad-Hominem was permitted all over the forums here. Now I know. Since I personally see no point in taking part in any debate where such tactics are used and supported, there's really no point in my posting in any debate, anywhere on this forum.

The 'experience' of the people I am disagreeing with apparently is with beating down dissenting voices rather than making reasoned supporting posts for their positions. The sad part is that I haven't actually disagreed with the people who are launching attacks on me here, save on the small point that it takes longer to start a selectively-bred line of ball pythons than one pairing, and that you need to hold back a lot of animals to do it properly. (Essentially, no matter how spiffy your starting morph stock, if you're breeding a morph to a normal, you can't predict the quality of the resulting hatchlings--because very few people are keeping track of bloodlines on normals).

Yes, you can start out with top of the line morph stock, but you might still wind up with some animals that don't look the way you intended, depending on random traits contributed by any normals you pair them with. That was my only point of disagreement with them.

Because juvenile tactics are allowed here, what's the point in even trying to give an opinion? A reasoned position is worthless if the winner is the person who can make their opponents look bad through personal attacks, and not the one who actually makes logical points.

So, I'm giving up. Doubtless some of these folks will congratulate each other on having driven off yet another person they don't like. If you think experience has something to do with it, you're deluded. These folks don't actually know what my experience level is, beyond the fact that I have bred a few trios of leopard geckos, and have started last season with ball pythons. They don't know how long I have been keeping reptiles, or what species. None of that actually mattered to them. I'm not volunteering it, either, because "Oh, well, I bred more than you did, and my collection is X animals bigger than yours!" is not a valid argument either. I'm impressed when someone can actually explain their position using that little thing called logic, and treat others who participate in a debate with respect.

If they can't do that, then I don't care if they are methuselah of reptile-keeping, all the experience in the world isn't going to make what they say worth a dime. 'Because I said so, and you're stupid" just doesn't cut it.

I was enjoying this debate before the trolls descended on it, but now I see that I won't be allowed to enjoy any discussions on this board, since I have pissed those people off. Why bother trying?


When you make a "blanket" statement and someone disagrees with you, pointing out why I might ad, it is not an attack, it's a discussion.

If you make a statement, stand beind that statement, or if you feel you might be wrong, say so. Your inability to do either of those things is apalling.

You are the first person to pull the "poor me" card and start waving it around. You are the one who seems incapable of conducting a civil conversation around here. Because someone doesn't agree with every utterance you make does not label them a troll.

[LakesideBoas]

Oh and one more thing (Kelly's probably going to fall out of her chair) out of two pair and one trio of Leos last year I got 56 viable eggs and hatchlings. I had six eggs go bad (incubators and cats don't mix).

The parents are still with me and happy and healthy this year taking a break from breeding--not because I don't think they'll do well and maintain their health--but because I simply don't have room for any more babies.

[jayefbe]

So, the personal attacks going on here are either invisible to you, or A-OK? Gotcha...
I wasn't aware Ad-Hominem was permitted all over the forums here. Now I know. Since I personally see no point in taking part in any debate where such tactics are used and supported, there's really no point in my posting in any debate, anywhere on this forum.

The 'experience' of the people I am disagreeing with apparently is with beating down dissenting voices rather than making reasoned supporting posts for their positions. The sad part is that I haven't actually disagreed with the people who are launching attacks on me here, save on the small point that it takes longer to start a selectively-bred line of ball pythons than one pairing, and that you need to hold back a lot of animals to do it properly. (Essentially, no matter how spiffy your starting morph stock, if you're breeding a morph to a normal, you can't predict the quality of the resulting hatchlings--because very few people are keeping track of bloodlines on normals).

Yes, you can start out with top of the line morph stock, but you might still wind up with some animals that don't look the way you intended, depending on random traits contributed by any normals you pair them with. That was my only point of disagreement with them.

Because juvenile tactics are allowed here, what's the point in even trying to give an opinion? A reasoned position is worthless if the winner is the person who can make their opponents look bad through personal attacks, and not the one who actually makes logical points.

So, I'm giving up. Doubtless some of these folks will congratulate each other on having driven off yet another person they don't like. If you think experience has something to do with it, you're deluded. These folks don't actually know what my experience level is, beyond the fact that I have bred a few trios of leopard geckos, and have started last season with ball pythons. They don't know how long I have been keeping reptiles, or what species. None of that actually mattered to them. I'm not volunteering it, either, because "Oh, well, I bred more than you did, and my collection is X animals bigger than yours!" is not a valid argument either. I'm impressed when someone can actually explain their position using that little thing called logic, and treat others who participate in a debate with respect.

If they can't do that, then I don't care if they are methuselah of reptile-keeping, all the experience in the world isn't going to make what they say worth a dime. 'Because I said so, and you're stupid" just doesn't cut it.

I was enjoying this debate before the trolls descended on it, but now I see that I won't be allowed to enjoy any discussions on this board, since I have pissed those people off. Why bother trying?

You are such a fucking idiot. You're the one making ad hominen arguments. You've never defended any of your viewpoints, nor have you even understood other people's responses to you. You've done nothing but convey an undeserved sense of arrogance and condescension. It's simply amazing how ignorant you are of how you act, and how you carry yourself on this site. This isn't something that only "trolls" feel, I'm sure people can stand you in the everyday world either. We've just been honest enough to call you out on your shit. It's awfully tiresome having to read inane, thoughtless, wrong, and condescending posts from someone who DOESN'T KNOW SHIT!

Fuck, gain some perspective. We all don't dislike you just because we don't agree with you sometimes. It's because your opinions aren't based on anything but your uninformed hunches and hearsay.

FUCK you are annoying.

[jayefbe]

You are such a fucking idiot. You're the one making ad hominen arguments. You've never defended any of your viewpoints, nor have you even understood other people's responses to you. You've done nothing but convey an undeserved sense of arrogance and condescension. It's simply amazing how ignorant you are of how you act, and how you carry yourself on this site. This isn't something that only "trolls" feel, I'm sure people can stand you in the everyday world either. We've just been honest enough to call you out on your shit. It's awfully tiresome having to read inane, thoughtless, wrong, and condescending posts from someone who DOESN'T KNOW SHIT!

Fuck, gain some perspective. We all don't dislike you just because we don't agree with you sometimes. It's because your opinions aren't based on anything but your uninformed hunches and hearsay.

FUCK you are annoying.

Whoops, I'm gonna get it for that. I thought I was in hell.

[Dennis Hultman]

Yep, please be more careful. Let's keep it in hell and get back to the original topic.

Thanks.

[deborahbroadus]

So, the personal attacks going on here are either invisible to you, or A-OK? Gotcha...
I wasn't aware Ad-Hominem was permitted all over the forums here. Now I know. Since I personally see no point in taking part in any debate where such tactics are used and supported, there's really no point in my posting in any debate, anywhere on this forum.

The 'experience' of the people I am disagreeing with apparently is with beating down dissenting voices rather than making reasoned supporting posts for their positions. The sad part is that I haven't actually disagreed with the people who are launching attacks on me here, save on the small point that it takes longer to start a selectively-bred line of ball pythons than one pairing, and that you need to hold back a lot of animals to do it properly. (Essentially, no matter how spiffy your starting morph stock, if you're breeding a morph to a normal, you can't predict the quality of the resulting hatchlings--because very few people are keeping track of bloodlines on normals).

Yes, you can start out with top of the line morph stock, but you might still wind up with some animals that don't look the way you intended, depending on random traits contributed by any normals you pair them with. That was my only point of disagreement with them.

Because juvenile tactics are allowed here, what's the point in even trying to give an opinion? A reasoned position is worthless if the winner is the person who can make their opponents look bad through personal attacks, and not the one who actually makes logical points.

So, I'm giving up. Doubtless some of these folks will congratulate each other on having driven off yet another person they don't like. If you think experience has something to do with it, you're deluded. These folks don't actually know what my experience level is, beyond the fact that I have bred a few trios of leopard geckos, and have started last season with ball pythons. They don't know how long I have been keeping reptiles, or what species. None of that actually mattered to them. I'm not volunteering it, either, because "Oh, well, I bred more than you did, and my collection is X animals bigger than yours!" is not a valid argument either. I'm impressed when someone can actually explain their position using that little thing called logic, and treat others who participate in a debate with respect.

If they can't do that, then I don't care if they are methuselah of reptile-keeping, all the experience in the world isn't going to make what they say worth a dime. 'Because I said so, and you're stupid" just doesn't cut it.

I was enjoying this debate before the trolls descended on it, but now I see that I won't be allowed to enjoy any discussions on this board, since I have pissed those people off. Why bother trying?

I actually do agree with a lot of what you are saying. Part of the problem (as I see it) is we tend to personalize our experiences and state them as fact (they are facts in our experiences).

Stick it out, you'll be fine.:yesnod:

Now about selectively breeding...I do it all the time!! I select and then I breed!:rofl::rofl: I am JOKING fellas.:rofl:

I have thought the same as you..when it comes to selectively breeding, you can buy a "top of the line" Morph and breed it to a very pretty normal with all the desired traits (blushing, color, temperament) and still throw some "pet" quality animals. From my experience even having two top quality morphs will also not always guarantee quality hatchlings (although my pieds and mojaves were spectacular if i do say so myself).

So simply saying we shouldn't put two "butt-ugly" animals together isn't explaining a lot, because what could be "butt-ugly" to one is not necessarily "butt-ugly" to someone else.

But this is all old news to these "older heads" and nothing new. Humor us as we try and wrestle our way though what we are learning, please?

[KelliH]

But this is all old news to these "older heads" and nothing new. Humor us as we try and wrestle our way though what we are learning, please?

You know what, I like what you said there. :thumbsup:
We were all newbies once.

[crotalusadamanteus]

You know what, I like what you said there. :thumbsup:
We were all newbies once.

:iagree::iagree:

It's just that there is a little bit of difference in saying "I'm sorta new" to whatever, and telling everyone around you, they are wrong, She is right, we're all bashing her, although nobody else can see it, because we must all be blind.

The former shows a bit of maturity, and ownership of your ignorance. That's not a bad thing at all, and also deserving of a little extra patience. :thumbsup:

[jayefbe]

:iagree::iagree:

It's just that there is a little bit of difference in saying "I'm sorta new" to whatever, and telling everyone around you, they are wrong, She is right, we're all bashing her, although nobody else can see it, because we must all be blind.

The former shows a bit of maturity, and ownership of your ignorance. That's not a bad thing at all, and also deserving of a little extra patience. :thumbsup:

Totally agree, and this is the point I was crudely trying to make earlier. I do also want to apologize for my aforementioned post, it was totally inappropriate for this forum. I forgot where I was and wouldn't have spoken so strongly otherwise.

[Todd Thompson]

How do I unsiscribe? You idiots are killing my inbox.
Thanks

[hhmoore]

We idiots?
Unsubscribe via your User CP

[shrap]

How do I unsiscribe? You idiots are killing my inbox.
Thanks

So do you make it a habit to insult people while you are asking them for help?

[deborahbroadus]

Totally agree, and this is the point I was crudely trying to make earlier. I do also want to apologize for my aforementioned post, it was totally inappropriate for this forum. I forgot where I was and wouldn't have spoken so strongly otherwise.

I would have given you karma for that apology..unfortunately, I can't put out anymore for a while:o. I'll get back to you!:thumbsup:

[crotalusadamanteus]

How do I unsiscribe? You idiots are killing my inbox.
Thanks

You must read your email well. There is generally an unsubscribe link provided. :rolleyes_

[Todd Thompson]

You must read your email well. There is generally an unsubscribe link provided. :rolleyes_
Thank you, that did it.

[deborahbroadus]

How do I unsiscribe? You idiots are killing my inbox.
Thanks

Actually, there is a way to prevent this. All you needed to do is reroute specific emails to go into the folder of your choice where you could have then read them at your leisure (I think most email servers have this capacity).:rolleyes:

[Southern Wolf]

you can also set it up in your CP to do daily or weekly emails... instead of instant.

[Cat_72]

I have thought the same as you..when it comes to selectively breeding, you can buy a "top of the line" Morph and breed it to a very pretty normal with all the desired traits (blushing, color, temperament) and still throw some "pet" quality animals. From my experience even having two top quality morphs will also not always guarantee quality hatchlings (although my pieds and mojaves were spectacular if i do say so myself).

So simply saying we shouldn't put two "butt-ugly" animals together isn't explaining a lot, because what could be "butt-ugly" to one is not necessarily "butt-ugly" to someone else.

But this is all old news to these "older heads" and nothing new. Humor us as we try and wrestle our way though what we are learning, please?

*sigh*

I used the whole "butt-ugly" term in an attempt to "dumb down" (not calling anyone in particular dumb) the concepts that were already explained in more um, technical type terms before that weren't seeming to be grasped.

One would assume that it is obvious common sense that although even breeding two top-quality specimens together doesn't necessarily guarantee a whole clutch of the same, it gives much better odds than purposely breeding with lesser specimens.

The whole idea of selective breeding is to try to produce animals with the best chance of not only being "pretty", but genetically sound and healthy as well. Purposely introducing lesser quality genes into the gene pool, whether it be a "butt-ugly" (not looking as the morph should look, there are obviously generally accepted standards of what each morph is supposed to look like) animal, or one that has some sort of genetic defect, defeats the entire purpose of selective breeding.

[WingedWolf]

I actually do agree with a lot of what you are saying. Part of the problem (as I see it) is we tend to personalize our experiences and state them as fact (they are facts in our experiences).

Stick it out, you'll be fine.:yesnod:

Now about selectively breeding...I do it all the time!! I select and then I breed!:rofl::rofl: I am JOKING fellas.:rofl:

I have thought the same as you..when it comes to selectively breeding, you can buy a "top of the line" Morph and breed it to a very pretty normal with all the desired traits (blushing, color, temperament) and still throw some "pet" quality animals. From my experience even having two top quality morphs will also not always guarantee quality hatchlings (although my pieds and mojaves were spectacular if i do say so myself).

So simply saying we shouldn't put two "butt-ugly" animals together isn't explaining a lot, because what could be "butt-ugly" to one is not necessarily "butt-ugly" to someone else.

But this is all old news to these "older heads" and nothing new. Humor us as we try and wrestle our way though what we are learning, please?

I know, I know, but I don't think I'm tempermentally suited to deal with the stuff going on here...when I think 'let's talk reptiles', 'knock-down-drag-out' flame war just isn't what I had in mind. Nor people bashing my animals.

This is one of my pastel hatchlings, by the way:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r159/WingedWolfPsion/Snakes/2008%20For%20Sale/23-TiaPasMale3-b.jpg

I don't think he turned out all that bad. Too bad he's a boy. :) He's sure not 'ugly'.

I just don't need this much stress here, you know? I haven't done any of the things I've been accused of doing. If my opinions turn out to be wrong, I'll learn that down the road at some point--but honestly, I haven't said anything radical, and there are plenty of other people who have the same opinions. That's the part that really confuses me about all the attacks here. I could understand it if I had some radical new idea I was throwing out without having tested it, but geeze...there are some folks around who just aren't happy unless you agree with THEM.

Why SHOULD I put up with it? I don't think I'm going to stick it out, not this time. I CAN play rough, too...but I just don't think I WANT to right now. lol

[shrap]

Imagine that, Donna once again twists everything that everyone says into a nice neat package to further propagate her own delusional world.

Again, maybe one day Donna will be able to look into that mirror I was talking about earlier and be honest with herself.

[BryonsBoas]

Since you are the only one who has posted a pic.

That is typical of what pastels have become. Orange = brown in most cases. The pastels of today leave a lot to be desired , and while your boy is pretty as a BP , he is not what I would define as a pastel.

Take that pastel and add in morph mills and you get pastels and other morphs that no longer resemble the original morph. Those , I believe , are the two biggest reasons that the prices dropped so drastically so quickly. When breeders are pumping out 200+ clutches and the hobbiest breeders are pumping out 5 - 20 clutches and 99% of the visual morphs are sub par in definition to the morph itself and what the gene can do , then the market declines in price just to move them.

Selective breeding isn't that hard. When ever possible look at the sibs of the animal your looking to buy. If you are able to see pics from the past few clutches / litters then you can get a really good idea of what expect from using any critters from those parents.

Using the Clown morph as an example .....

If you want really pattern reduced clowns or hets that throw reduced pattern clowns , look at the breeder's founding stock , then look at the litters he produces. If the breeder has produced 10 clowns but only 1 is truly reduced pattern , most likely it will be a shot in the dark that working his hets or visuals will be what you want. If he produced 10 clowns , all reduced pattern, then his stock is definitely what you are looking for.

Selective breeding really isn't as hard as described by some in this thread nor is it as time consuming. Start by asking the questions of the breeder , get pics , do a little research on the breeders site and don't be afraid to go elsewhere to get what you want if that breeder doesn't have it. Pick the best stock you can. Let the morph mills race against each other and bide your time picking the best to work with. True selective breeding pays in the end.

If the boy you posted was the cream of your crop , then you have a very long road ahead to bring your pastels back up to what they should be. You can try to claim , as you have on other things but back peddled , that breeders have not defined the morphs or how they should look , but in reality , quite a few have. You either haven't looked hard enough or haven't looked at all.

What you call an attack 99% is nothing more than those with the knowledge from hands on experience or research calling you out on a minimally researched argument. Its honest and generally straight forward. If you can't take it for what it is , then stick to your rocks and get out of reptiles. While some may be more diplomatic , I have a full appreciation for blunt honesty and use it quite often.

[deborahbroadus]

*sigh*

I used the whole "butt-ugly" term in an attempt to "dumb down" (not calling anyone in particular dumb) the concepts that were already explained in more um, technical type terms before that weren't seeming to be grasped.

One would assume that it is obvious common sense that although even breeding two top-quality specimens together doesn't necessarily guarantee a whole clutch of the same, it gives much better odds than purposely breeding with lesser specimens.

The whole idea of selective breeding is to try to produce animals with the best chance of not only being "pretty", but genetically sound and healthy as well. Purposely introducing lesser quality genes into the gene pool, whether it be a "butt-ugly" (not looking as the morph should look, there are obviously generally accepted standards of what each morph is supposed to look like) animal, or one that has some sort of genetic defect, defeats the entire purpose of selective breeding.

I understand what you are saying.

Actually even though you used the term..my repeating the term wasn't a spin off of anything you said or even directed at anything you said, because almost everyone is using the term. I, too, simply used the term most often used.

The first time I came across the term was on Bob Clark's forum.

[johns6068]

I have a full appreciation for blunt honesty and use it quite often.


:iagree:


It is so much nicer to have it that way then sugar coating things. I much rather know ones brute honest opinion. Then have someoone make up something to tell me so I feel good. This doesn't mean I have to agree with them each time either, but I perfer an honest opinion over a fake one anyday.

[Cat_72]

Since you are the only one who has posted a pic.

That is typical of what pastels have become. Orange = brown in most cases. The pastels of today leave a lot to be desired , and while your boy is pretty as a BP , he is not what I would define as a pastel.



Selective breeding isn't that hard. When ever possible look at the sibs of the animal your looking to buy. If you are able to see pics from the past few clutches / litters then you can get a really good idea of what expect from using any critters from those parents.

Great post, Bry. :)

That's one thing I neglected to mention - while that boy is a pretty baby now, even if not a great example of what a pastel should be - you have to remember that the majority of pastels will brown out at least to some degree, and lose that great baby color they have as they mature. If it's "so-so" and orangey instead of bright yellow as a baby, chances are it's not going to make a nice adult pastel. Add that together with the fact that apparently there are some pretty brown siblings already....and it's not an animal I'd add into my gene pool.

Breeding for quantity, or not taking the time to pick stock selectively, has seemed to lower the standards newer folks coming into the hobby seem to have....but just as Bryon said, taking the time to only buy, breed, and sell the best quality WILL bring its own rewards. Top quality demands top price, even when the market is "saturated" with a certain morph....as well as the pride in producing some of the most beautiful kids out there.

I don't just look at the pastels, though they are probably about the most noticeable example....look at the spiders (man, there are some "butt-ugly spiders out there now too, lol), the mojaves, the clowns, many of the morphs that you see being advertised today, and then compare those animals with the way they looked the first couple of years they were on the market. A big change, for certain....usually brought about by those who didn't think about the quality, only being one of the folks to hurry up and produce a bunch of them before the price dropped.


I understand what you are saying.

Actually even though you used the term..my repeating the term wasn't a spin off of anything you said or even directed at anything you said, because almost everyone is using the term. I, too, simply used the term most often used.

The first time I came across the term was on Bob Clark's forum.

Thank you, Deb. :)

Again, maybe one day Donna will be able to look into that mirror I was talking about earlier and be honest with herself.

One must have a reflection to see it in the mirror, no?

[Seamus Haley]

A handful of snakes this year--my babies were all still growing up! Actually, we produced 26 hatchlings, from one male and 3 females.

One male...

A bunch of yelling about inbreeding... apparantly because she was under the misimpression that selecting quality stock as the basis for a project demanded it.

Take a normal female with this girl for $210 + shipping!
Take a pastel male with her for $250 + shipping, or take BOTH a pastel male and a normal female with her for $270 + shipping!!

In an ad she posted here, on this very site.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?p=620988#post620988

Why would someone adamantly against breeding related animals be selling siblings in pairs?

[KelliH]

.....

[deborahbroadus]

It is sad that we do contradict ourselves, sometimes without even realizing it. I know that I have one of the most contradictory personas around! One minute I can be "pro" a thing, the next "anti" as I learn more.

at one point, I adamantly insisted that I would not breed my Spiders..LMAO..but as new information came ....the "maybes" took root..and the curiousity just flourished and...I DID IT. So you could probably find information on me stating that I was for or against a thing and then later find out that I did it. I don't think that makes one a hyprocrite because one of the things that makes us human is our perogative to change our minds...switch horses in the middle of the stream..or simply change sexes!

Simply imo, because she sold siblings in a batch does not mean that she was a hyprocrite (please don't bite too hard!!). She may not be trying to control what someone else does with their animals. I don't know..how much control are we supposed to have over what someone else does with the animals we sell them? They could put the females with completely unrelated males that they may have.

[deborahbroadus]

:iagree:


It is so much nicer to have it that way then sugar coating things. I much rather know ones brute honest opinion. Then have someoone make up something to tell me so I feel good. This doesn't mean I have to agree with them each time either, but I perfer an honest opinion over a fake one anyday.


Wait till YOU fall on the wrong side and it's aimed at you. It is quite different to be on the receiving end of a lot of "brute" talking.

(here's a tissue......to wipe that smudge of brown off your nose):rofl:

[shrap]

I agree with where you are coming from Deb.

But changing your stance due to further education, personal experiences, etc, is not being a hypocrite. That is called learning and having an open mind.

As far as Donna is concerned I dont know how anyone can label her a hypocrite when Donna cant even keep to the same story or set of beliefs for more than a post or two. Nutjob is the word that comes to mind.

[deborahbroadus]

Now..back on topic:

All that said, I have seen some awesome animals (imo) that I wanted. I saw a Pastel/Het Ivory that I wanted..but it wasn't up to my specifications. I am looking for a Yellowbelly/Het Clown breeding sized female.

Based on my own reactions and the reactions of the few breeders that I know...I don't think that people will slow down buying animals too much..at least not the die hard herpers! :)

[shrap]

Wait till YOU fall on the wrong side and it's aimed at you. It is quite different to be on the receiving end of a lot of "brute" talking.

(here's a tissue......to wipe that smudge of brown off your nose):rofl:

Sorry Deb, but I will take brutal honesty over wishy washy BS any day of the week. I grew up with brutal honesty. My parents didnt play. They were very clear, concise and used no uncertain terms. I am a better human being for it.

[deborahbroadus]

I agree with where you are coming from Deb.

But changing your stance due to further education, personal experiences, etc, is not being a hypocrite. That is called learning and having an open mind.

As far as Donna is concerned I dont know how anyone can label her a hypocrite when Donna cant even keep to the same story or set of beliefs for more than a post or two. Nutjob is the word that comes to mind.

:rofl:(at the last part) Sometimes..the words are tricky. Thanks for explaining.

[deborahbroadus]

Sorry Deb, but I will take brutal honesty over wishy washy BS any day of the week. I grew up with brutal honesty. My parents didnt play. They were very clear, concise and used no uncertain terms. I am a better human being for it.

Oh trust me..so do I. My parents also didn't play...and they backed up their words with straps. Harald doesn't sugar-coat anything. He just lays it out there.

ummmmm...working with people, children, babies...seeing what words can do to self-esteem, self-image..so many broken babies and people..I do believe we can be honest and kind at the same time.

This desire to be honest without trying to destroy is not wishy-washy in my opinion (and lest you get the wrong image..I can and do blister with words when I am stepped on too much) I consider it as being kind. I wouldn't call my own daughter a "stupid b*&ch" for wearing something I didn't agree with or not making sense (sometimes kids make the least sense of anyone) or not thinking before she did something (SHE ONCE TOTALED A BRAND NEW CAR OF MINE THAT I HAD HAD ONLY ONE FREAKING WEEK!!) so I certainly do not see the need to talk like that to anyone else...but believe me there have been times when I have wanted to!!

So are strangers less deserving of kindness than our children, or do we apply that same butal honesty to our children? Am I misunderstanding the term "Brutal Honesty?"

[shrap]

Am I misunderstanding the term "Brutal Honesty?"

I guess we all can have differing opinions on the definition of brutal honesty. To me brutal honesty is simply saying it how it is. Being a straight shooter. Using no uncertain terms.

Name calling and expletives are not a part of brutal honesty to me. That goes into another category altogether.

Now sugar coating honesty to me goes something like this:

Your wife asks you if her butt looks fat in a new pair of jeans she just bought. As a husband, if you have been married longer than 5 seconds, you KNOW the answer to that one regardless of what the truth is.

[deborahbroadus]

I guess we all can have differing opinions on the definition of brutal honesty. To me brutal honesty is simply saying it how it is. Being a straight shooter. Using no uncertain terms.

Name calling and expletives are not a part of brutal honesty to me. That goes into another category altogether.

Now sugar coating honesty to me goes something like this:

Your wife asks you if her butt looks fat in a new pair of jeans she just bought. As a husband, if you have been married longer than 5 seconds, you KNOW the answer to that one regardless of what the truth is.

THAT IS NOT TRUE!!!:rofl::rofl: You can be honest!! You can say something like, "Honey, you know I love you no matter what you are wearing, but I do think (insert preferred clothing here) shows off your assets the best!:yesnod:

[hhmoore]

**writes that one down for later use**

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I've been reading about this whole Pastel thing...Can anyone post a progression of what would be considered a "nice" Pastel (hatchling, yearling & adult)? I think I have photos of my Conrad, and I was curious how he measures up.

[crotalusadamanteus]

Your wife asks you if her butt looks fat in a new pair of jeans she just bought. As a husband, if you have been married longer than 5 seconds, you KNOW the answer to that one regardless of what the truth is.

Funny too, all you ever hear from women, is they just "want a man that's going to be honest, faithful" etc. Then they ask something like that, and you say, "yup, they sure do", and you don't get any for a month. :shrug01:

Probably explains why I'm single more often then not. I don't know how to sugar coat stuff without a good fifteen minutes of serious thinking. By then, they know you're up to something. :shootfoot

[deborahbroadus]

Funny too, all you ever hear from women, is they just "want a man that's going to be honest, faithful" etc. Then they ask something like that, and you say, "yup, they sure do", and you don't get any for a month. :shrug01:

Probably explains why I'm single more often then not. I don't know how to sugar coat stuff without a good fifteen minutes of serious thinking. By then, they know you're up to something. :shootfoot


If it takes 15 minutes of serious thinking to come up with a "kind" statement, then when she asks, wreck her, drag her into bed and love her up..then when her clothes are wrecked..say, "here baby, wear this."

You may have to "beg" a bit first before you get to the "wrecking"..tell her you'll help her get her clothes back together after y'all are finished!:thumbsup::rofl::rofl:

*the above response reassures her that she's sexy as hell in ANYTHING! *

[Southern Wolf]

don't think that people will slow down buying animals too much..at least not the die hard herpers! :)

I know I havent... in the last 2 mos I have purchased 6 corns, 3 BP, 6 leos, 3 beardies, 2 hoggies, 1 Speckled King

I think thats bout it.

[deborahbroadus]

I know I havent... in the last 2 mos I have purchased 6 corns, 3 BP, 6 leos, 3 beardies, 2 hoggies, 1 Speckled King

I think thats bout it.


I haven't slowed down either...just become more picky as I learn more! The way I am thinking;

Prices have dropped (partly) because of the hobbyist. This is a good time for those that are prepared to get their own breeding stock together to prepare for the next "up" of the economy.

The hobbyist won't stay in long because it's not making money as fast as he dreamed, he had no plan, and no back up finances to tide him over during the "lean" times (but that doesn't mean he won't be back after he sells everything he has now to tide him over during the "lean times) We are in the midst of a "Changing of the Guard" and things have no where to go but UP.

[Southern Wolf]

Yep.... the only thing listed above that is gonna be pet quaility only is the Speck. She ate her mate lol.... I think that is why the guy was getting rid of her.... kinda ticked him off.

The rest Im working on my breeding stock.

[LakesideBoas]

Funny too, all you ever hear from women, is they just "want a man that's going to be honest, faithful" etc. Then they ask something like that, and you say, "yup, they sure do", and you don't get any for a month. :shrug01:

Probably explains why I'm single more often then not. I don't know how to sugar coat stuff without a good fifteen minutes of serious thinking. By then, they know you're up to something. :shootfoot

I never ask that question therefore he's not abliged to come up with a fitting lie! :D

[crotalusadamanteus]

I never ask that question therefore he's not abliged to come up with a fitting lie! :D

Good woman right there. Don't make your man lie to you ladies. :thumbsup:

[The BoidSmith]

Retail Economics 101: Lessons and Strategies of a Recession

http://www.econ.iastate.edu/research/webpapers/paper_12995.pdf

The first two pages are quite interesting as they deal with consumer attitudes that can be applied all over the board.

Best