Are breeders shooting themselves in the foot?

[Raven01]

A different thread on the pro's and con's of the tendency of some to advocate for "the hard and fast rules" that we use to steer new keepers in the right direction and hopefully help them prevent/avoid any serious difficulties got me thinking about how it also applies to another very common thread topic here.
Namely, that of prices on new morphs dropping "too quickly".

After thinking about it I have to say breeders sticking to the "charge more for your females" is directly responsible in part for the speed at which new morph prices drop.
Look at it this way, which has more value to any breeder interested in getting involved with a new morph?
A female that may take an extra season to get up to weight and can only produce one clutch with the gene at a time or a male that can breed multiple females and almost always reaches sexual maturity faster?

Every single male sold can represent multiple clutches each year. Those clutches will be competing with your own on a market that is quickly seeing more snakes available than there are people willing to pay X amount of dollars for.
While any female sold will have a good chance of taking an extra season to produce only one clutch to compete with your own.

So, both from a supply and demand view and a value to the purchaser, logically speaking males should be the more valuable snakes.

I don't expect this will change anything, or that breeders will suddenly change strategies. It is just an idea I am kicking around in light of thoughts on how sometimes we accept ideas without entirely analyzing them critically.

Well, that is my 2 cents. What are your thoughts on the subject?

[Archimedes]

The females do all the hard work. :p

Nah, in all sincerity, I hadn't thought of it that way before. I do wonder what led the first/big/more proninent breeders to start charging more for females than males. I know, in my breeding plan, I will be paying more for a multigene male than I did for my single-gene female, so that may have something to do with it. The more genes a male has, the more variety per clutch, which evens out to the flat rate you would get for a single or 2-gene female. So, you have the potential to spend the same amounts of money on both a powerhouse male and a reliable female breeder.

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[OctagonGecko729]

Male BPs do go for more then females, you just aren't examining the correct price ranges and timing. Once a morph drops below 1k a lot of its investment value drops with it. People try to buy powerhouse males. People who have 5k to spend on a project aren't going to purchase low end males and high end females.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is.... Males as a gender are sold for more almost always but males of a particular morph when compared to their female counterpart may or may not be priced higher depending on the current state of the market.

[Blue Apple Herps]

Male BPs do go for more then females, you just aren't examining the correct price ranges and timing. Once a morph drops below 1k a lot of its investment value drops with it. People try to buy powerhouse males. People who have 5k to spend on a project aren't going to purchase low end males and high end females.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is.... Males as a gender are sold for more almost always but males of a particular morph when compared to their female counterpart may or may not be priced higher depending on the current state of the market.

I think this is probably it. New co-dom morph males do go for a lot because you can produce more quickly. But once they become more common, the its the females who become valuable b/c you need them to make the supers.

But I also think the supply of females is probably a little lower, especially over time. Hence price sometimes can get to be more. You only need one male to make a bunch of clutches, but a female can only make one clutch.

So a breeder may have 3 females for every male. Assuming 50/50 sex ratios, that means there are 2 males out there without a partner, which means excess supply, which means lower prices. I know I hold back just about all of my females (unless I get a funky clutch that is female heavy) so I can raise them up to make the supers.

So to answer your question, I don't think males are under valued and females are over valued.

[Raven01]

Of course co-dom and recessives would change things up a bit. That would mostly apply to breeding size females though rather than hatchling I would think since she could quickly be bred and then bred back to male offspring.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course co-dom and recessives would change things up a bit. That would mostly apply to breeding size females though rather than hatchling I would think since she could quickly be bred and then bred back to male offspring.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course co-dom and recessives would change things up a bit. That would mostly apply to breeding size females though rather than hatchling I would think since she could quickly be bred and then bred back to male offspring.

[Pythonfriend]

i see all aspects of this in the market.

for breeding, you need lots of females and a few males. but they hatch out in a 50/50 ratio. the females produce the eggs and the number of females determines the number of eggs, while a single male can contribute its genetics to lots of clutches.

so in the powerhouse animals, with new and rare genes or with awesome multi-gene combinations, the males are more expensive. and in morphs and combos that are more common and where the price had time to come down, the females are more expensive.

basically when a new and expensive morph hits the market, like lets say bamboo, there is demand for everything, but the males will be much more expensive because they allow you to produce more bamboos, and faster. once the price starts coming down and the morph is more available, you start to feel that the market for breeder females is larger than the market for breeder males, and it eventually shifts.

[sho220]

Male BPs do go for more then females, you just aren't examining the correct price ranges and timing. Once a morph drops below 1k a lot of its investment value drops with it. People try to buy powerhouse males. People who have 5k to spend on a project aren't going to purchase low end males and high end females.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is.... Males as a gender are sold for more almost always but males of a particular morph when compared to their female counterpart may or may not be priced higher depending on the current state of the market.

I thought I'd finally gone senile when reading this so I checked out a bunch of ads and breeder websites, and males are almost always listed cheaper than females...

[bigt0006]

The new codom gene males ive seen are priced higher then the females all the highways ive seen the males cost more then the females

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[OhhWatALoser]

I thought I'd finally gone senile when reading this so I checked out a bunch of ads and breeder websites, and males are almost always listed cheaper than females...

remember when male bananas were listed for 30k and combo females were under 10k?

[OctagonGecko729]

I thought I'd finally gone senile when reading this so I checked out a bunch of ads and breeder websites, and males are almost always listed cheaper than females...

Yeah, i apologize for the lack of clarification. The message I made was in a hurry which is why it is hard to follow. What I meant was that "investment" males always sell more then females as a gender. An example. I have 10k to invest. I purchase 5 females for 1k each and then a male of 5k. The male that is 5k is more expensive but it is also a different combo then the females in your project. That male may or may not be as expensive as his female counterpart depending on where the market is at that point in time but he will cost more then the females he's breeding.