Morph target market

[TJEvans]

Hello all......

Wanted to start a discussion about the target market for high end morphs of {pick your favorite snake}.

To begin with, I for one am amazed by Piebald ball pythons, and would LOVE to own one. My only problem is that it first off costs too much, and second off, I have absolutely NO desire to breed them at all. For the last half a decade, Ball python morphs have been restricted to breeders only. Kingsnakes and Cornsnakes are very pet owner friendly. One can buy pretty much any morph of either just to own as a pet. The Ball Python on the other hand is now strictly an investment animal.

The other parallel I see happening is on the BOI. I would wager a bet that about 90% or more of the posts on the BOI are between dealers (breeders) and dealers (breeders) Not just on Ball Pythons, but on all transactions. Good guy posts and bad guy posts alike.

With that said, Has the reptile "industry" intracised (is that a word) itself, making the majority of the transactions internal within the same community. Dealers buy from dealers and sell to dealers, or breed then sell to dealers. If this is so, what will the ultimate outcome be. will there be anybody out there that wants anything if they already have it? For instance, with the Pid Balls. If Joe was the first person breeding them, then sells babies to Sue, who breeds some, then sells babies to Dean, etc, etc, down the line. Who will ultimately be the person buying Pied Ball Pythons. Who is the ultimate taget customer? knowing the length of time to raise a Ball Python and the clutch size, it will be a LONG time before Pied Ball Pythons will be available to the general public to be owned as pets. Even then, people will be more inclined to buy if they have the intention on breeding them.

Being a reptile owner myself (now down to one mountain kingsnake) I have bought only 3 animals that I NEVER intended on breeding (not including mammals). Even after buying them, I thought "Hey, maybe I could make more of these." Is there anybody that frequents this site that is simply a reptile owner....never had intentions of breeding anything, or making ANY money from your livestock?

thoughts on this are appreciated.

Thanks
Todd Evans

 

[dwedeking]

The reptile industry is different from most industries in that a large percentage of it's participants are hobbiests so you don't have the clear cut lines of seller/customer as you do with other industries. Also this hobby has a natural trend towards breeding. First you develop an interest in the animals, then you take care of one, then it progresses to a desire to breed them as part of the learning curve. Human nature is to see what is on the next level. Now that you've bred them you need to find homes or risk moving the furniture to the garage to house everything. So you've moved to the other side of the counter and become a seller.

There is a constant influx of new members to this hobby. And while a high end morph may not be the target first time purchase it is common for a certain percentage to become addicted and move into higher end snakes. The reptile/amphibian industry is the only sector of the pet trade to grow in the last three threes as reported in Pet Product News (a trade magazine) a few months ago.

So there will be a growing market for high end morphs and while it may take longer at some point what is high end now will be common and the "new" morph will be the rage.

For what it's worth, we started breeding veileds as an afterthought, mostly "Hey, it's a good way to pay for crickets", that was about 100 lizards ago (and when the furniture wasn't in the garage).

 

[WebSlave]

Well, the interesting thing about this sort of discussion is that this business is filled with all kinds of ways to get started in it.

In my case, I had no intention of ever even selling corn snakes!

I read in a book somewhere way back then, that the way to tell if a wild animal is pretty much acclimated to it's life in captivity is if it will breed in captivity. So I decided to see if my corns were acclimated well enough. Bear in mind that this was the mid to late 70s at the time.

Yup! They were certainly acclimated! Now what was I going to do with those babies?! Next thing I knew, people were calling my on the phone wanting to know if I would be willing to sell some baby corns to them. When I told them I was sold out, they asked to be put on a list for next year. One thing led to another, and suddenly I was SerpenCo. If Ms Cleo had told me back then that I would be producing 5,000+ babies per year and doing this full time, I would have laughed my fool head off at the idea.

But back to the original question, yes the newer stuff is always going to be more expensive. In many cases, it is just because it is what the market for them will bear. In others, particularly with multi-homozygous animals (3 or more genes) it takes quite an investment in resources to produce these animals, and many people just want to get paid for the work they put into making these things. Sure someone else can make them, but with triple heterozygous animals, with only a 1 in 64 chance of getting ONE of them, I say more power to you. Likely enough, you will be kicking yourself in the behind 4 years from now when you had a chance to be in on the ground floor by buying full homozygous animals.

But that's just my opinion in the matter.

 

[TJEvans]

Why do you think it is that people that purchase reptiles are more prone to get the breeding bug......and what about brokers?

I mean.....I have a dog, and not once did I have the urge to make more dogs. in fact, most people that do, end up giving them away, just to get rid of them. same with cats, birds, fish (usually an accidental breeding)

I've had the bug myself. My first reptile was a golden Tegu......trust me, not once did I ever think "you know, there should be more of these little monsters around." Needless to say, I didn't want to breed them for fear of people losing fingers to their deceptively powerful bite. That was a pet (sorta) just a cool little guy that was strictly hands off, yet had a tank that was so pretty that any artwork on my walls wouldn't compare to the live display. Then I got a boa.....just a normal common boa. She was my pride and joy, peaceful, friendly, beautiful. I had thought about breeding her, but simply didn't have the time or energy to go any farther than thought. After that I moved in with George Diaz fom Beyond Utopia Serpentarium.......at the time, he had almost 50 snakes....mostly venomous. We bred some of them, and displayed a lot at local carnivals and such. We started looking for animals to breed to make a little more money to support the display business.......that's where we ran into a wall.....breeding venomous reptiles seems to be strictly a breeder to breeder business. We needed to find animals that we could breed that somebody else wanted to breed. Unfortunately, the only place we could find quality stock were fom other breeders....endless cycle starting to develop. It appears to be the same with some of the more sought after BP,s and Boas are strictly sold from breeder to breeder, then back to, or to another breeder......

Where does the breeding cycle end? When will people that just want them as pets, actually be able to buy one.....Will they ever, or will you still be expected to breed it?

Thanks
Todd Evans

 

[dwedeking]

Things lead to breeding more in reptiles than more common mammals because of the newness of owning reptiles. Cats and dogs have been domesticated for a lot longer so there is little "newness" in keeping them.

If you get 100 new reptile owners. Out of that 75 keep the interest and get a second reptile. Out of those 75 only 15 have the space, money, desire to get a $4,000 snake. So you can see how the high end morph becomes a highly specialized niche (your delimma was multiplied by working with venomous snakes).

We sell "bread and butter" veileds and lower end bearded dragons at a good clip no matter the economic situation. Our higher end/ rarer species will take more time to find a buyer, that has the money (more prone to economic conditions) at the time we have the animals.

Another dilemma is that many people sell to the same market that they buy from. Look at the common advertising mediums that the average hobbyist uses. Reptile shows and the common reptile websites. Want to reach a different crowd them you need to advertise in different areas.

 

[JungleHabitats]

more thoughts

I got started about 11-12 yrs ago really big into reptiles , i had ALWAYS since i could walk have a fascination with the scaley animals that people feared.My first snake was a 6-7ft black snake that i dove into the hot summer rocks in my driveway under a car to catch i was about 5 or so if i remember correct.As dwede stated and rich its a "what can i do with this factor" with reptiles. the thought for me to breed hit me after about 8 years of owning snakes. My first was a meaner then HELLo african rock python that a friend who was closing his shop found that had escaped months earlier from there i got a cute lil female boa that i kept for 10.5 yrs .Breeding actually struck me from having picked up a rescue male boa at the time i didnt know or really care what was male or female just that they were a awsome pet to have ( and also were good for running overwelcomed guests out of your home) well i had come across a old friend that had a Burm python and he asked if i would be interested in buying ababy as she was gravid .I was like sure then after actually watching thissnake lay eggs and then to see them hatch i was like a crack head HAD to have more anddo it own my own for a sense of accomplishment. and to say hey look what i did. after talking with several petshop owners who all attimately denied the fact that i would be able to have them breed due to saying " they dont breed well in captivity" fuled the urge to do so . well my first attempt of breeding happened by the simpliest of ways .i had never seen them actually mating but came home July 4th of 2000 and found 26 baby boas ALL over my snake room it was the most gratifying feeling to know that i could do something so" complicated" as i was told to make happen.
For morphs yes they are expensive but right now my view is to make my own sure i couldspend my $$$ and buy one and be content ( im telling a fib ill never be content now )but to actually breed them and to see how they turn out and see if you hard work paid off is the bug that bites us . nothing more gratifying then waiting 105 days and then get all figgity when there not here yet wondering ok whats going on .. then to flip on that light and see them being born is like WOW ya wanna run tell iton the mountain so to speak.Breeders sell to breeders forthe simple fact that they make the deal to get dibs on offspring to add new blood on there lines and filter out excessive inbreeding i agree that it seems almost EVRY ball python is het for this that or is a this that morph and honestly i have never been a big BP fan just not bag of marbles i guessso there has never been a intrest in buyin even a normal much less a hi dollar morph BP one day not sure when the morphs will come down to an " affordable ranger but in honesty it will take many more years due to the fact that most breeders are sharing with there breeder friends to perfect what they want which again will fill the tab on a new and better /stronger morph craze ..... i cant wait who knows ... lol maybe usboa people can have "Spyder Boas" one daylol

 

[midnightline]

In my case, what really got me addicted to reptiles (and breeding reptiles) was the whole genetic aspect. I find genetics theory and practice fun, ergo I couldn't help myself. That and it's neat to work with such colorful and varied animals. Plus there's always the 'aww how cute' whenever you see those babies show up, and a sense of accomplishment in knowing you played a part in it. But it's mostly the genetics aspect for me. (Yeah, I know... I'm a geek. )

-Kat Hall

 

[meretseger]

I have quite a few species that are just pets and I never plan on breeding. Even though I'd probably be able to make a few hundred off of them each year. But breeding is just fun, it's not something for the most part you're 'expected' to do, even if you have a piebald bp. It's your money, and if you want to spend it on a snake that's just a pet, that's great. Now if you have a very very rare species or morph, you are kind of expected to breed it, just so other people can have one too. Other than that it's a personal choice that a lot of people tend to make.

Erin B.

 

[bpc]

I believe that 99.99999999% of the high-end morph market is other breeders. Not many "normal" people are going to spend thousands of dollars on a snake just because it looks cool. That being said, I have heard that Tom at Cypress Creek once had a 9 year old walk up to the table and talk his mom into buying him a $3000 albino ball! Wish my luck ran like that!

Personally, I try to breed animals that I can sell for $150 or less. I LOVE tiger and super tiger retics, I bought a tiger last year and a super this year. I waited to buy into them for two reasons: cost to me and cost to my eventual customers. Having tried dabbling with high-end (more medium-end really) things over the years and not having much success, it just got too expensive. Even when I was succesful breeding those animals, I would have to sit on the babies forever, because no one wanted to spend that type of money. Sure there were lots of offers of trade but never anything I needed. Why should I spend tons of money to jump into a morph early, only to be left sitting on babies I can't actually sell?

I figure by the time my retics breed the price for the babies I'll produce will be down to about $100-150 for tigers and around $250 for supers. I'll get into the albinos and such when they get down below $500 as well, but not before. I figure it is much easier to find 10 customers with $100 to spend than it is to find one with $1000.

I have one other theory on this topic as well. I think jumping into a morph early can be dangerous for another reason. The person selling those high $ morphs will usually be looking to stay in business for years to come. If you are looking to stay in the business you are not going to be selling your "best stock." So I often wonder if the animals that come onto the market are really what we'd call first quality animals. By the time the price drops below $500 people are just selling the whole clutch. Bailing-out so to speak, before the "market crashes." I find it funny (and profitable) that many breeders think they can't make money on animals which produce $50 babies.

 

[Steph Scranton]

I have to agree that breeding, for most people, is just for fun. That and maybe to help fund the cricket bill for a week. lol. It's just so exciting to open the incubator and see a new little head looking up at you.

When you buy a reptile (high end or not), you are not obligated to breed it. But can you really resist the urge not to? lol...

If I went out an bought my dream car, I don't have to drive it but I will because it would be FUN!!!!!

 

[DISCERN]

well Todd......

I am a reptile owner that has a collection of 28 snakes that I will most likely never breed. I used to breed back in 93-96, but now just enjoy taking care of snakes in a somewhat big collection.

I do miss breeding very much in some aspects, like the excitement of waiting for the eggs to hatch and to see what you get each year. Thing is...I decided to just buy one of whatever snake I really couldn't live without and have as much as I can without it being a hassle, and it has worked out for me pretty much. I also thought that it would be better for me to concentrate on other things in my life I am working on in my spare time, like writing music, etc, then to have a huge amount of baby snakes that I may not get to give the time they deserve to. Back when I bred, I of course had more time to devote to rearing hatchlings, etc. Now, I have more things on my plate, so I sold off most breeders and kept what I really couldn't live without, and decided to build up my collection from there. I do get ragged on by my breeder friends though, as they wished I would breed, but buying one of what I like rather than a pair lets me have more, so to say.

I enjoy pituophis the most, in fact they changed my hobby and made it 100% more fun, and my second fave is graybands. Those two kinds get me like no other. I go to many snake shows, including Daytona every year, and am very fortunate to know some of the coolest people in this hobby. I enjoy just having a collection and not dealing with the breeding aspect, but do miss the excitement of seeing eggs hatch, and selling a snake to an individual. I figured thought that how I am doing things now is the best thing for my snakes.

I have thought the exact same things about this hobby as well bro! Breeders selling to breeders seems to be the cycle of things. It isn't a bad thing at all.....in fact, I really don't see how our hobby could have survived this long anyways without breeders being the main customer to other breeders.

Take care and great post!

Billy Fraser