Super Morphs

[Griz/Rosco B.Pythons]

Why is it that a morph like fire is about 50-100 dollars depending on the snake but a super fire is around 500? Is it because it looks better? Or is it a good snake to breed? I don't understand some of the prices for some morphs.

[Eric Alan]

Why is it that a morph like fire is about 50-100 dollars depending on the snake but a super fire is around 500? Is it because it looks better? Or is it a good snake to breed? I don't understand some of the prices for some morphs.

Both. A Super Fire is a white snake with black eyes, which is visually appealing to the masses, and has the guaranteed ability to pass along the Fire gene to all of its offspring which is desirable to breeders. Fire by itself is a common base morph which, to a person off the street, doesn't look much different than a normal ball python and can only pass along the Fire gene to half of its offspring. When it comes to pricing, it's all about supply and demand. These things are especially magnified when the Super form is vastly different visually from the corresponding single gene form.

The same logic can be applied to recessive genes. The homozygous ("visual") form of the gene will always command a much higher price than the heterozygous ("het") form of the gene.

[Griz/Rosco B.Pythons]

Thanks for the explanation mate. Much appreciated.

[Macropodus]

It's elementary, my dear Watson. Actually it's an elementary aspect of economics: Supply & Demand.

At some point in the future "super fires" will saturate the market and will retail at PetCo/PetsMart for <$100. "Super-duper fires" will then be all the rage and will sell on FaunaClassifieds for >$500.

Professional reptile breeders are in a race against each other to produce colors/patterns which are rare or non-existent.

Re "looks better"... that's entirely subjective.

Re "a good snake to breed" ... for what purpose? To turn a profit? Probably yes. However, I think we should first educate ourselves more on the unintended consequences of inbreeding, genetic erosion, etc. Spider morphs, for example, exhibit a very obvious and physical flaw. How many other morphs have flaws which are less obvious and/or not physical?

The healthiest breeders are probably normals, but try turning a profit (or even breaking even) with normals.

[Eric Alan]

At some point in the future "super fires" will saturate the market and will retail at PetCo/PetsMart for <$100. "Super-duper fires" will then be all the rage and will sell on FaunaClassifieds for >$500.

Only not. Super Fire is the most complete example of the Fire morph. There will be other genes, yes, but the Fire gene itself is leveled up as far as it can go.

Professional reptile breeders are in a race against each other to produce colors/patterns which are rare or non-existent.

Perhaps. However, I like to think that we're all in this together.

Re "a good snake to breed" ... for what purpose? To turn a profit? Probably yes. However, I think we should first educate ourselves more on the unintended consequences of inbreeding, genetic erosion, etc. Spider morphs, for example, exhibit a very obvious and physical flaw. How many other morphs have flaws which are less obvious and/or not physical?

The behaviors linked with the Spider morph are not a result of "inbreeding, genetic erosion, etc". The Spider morph has been out-crossed probably more than any other morph, yet the behaviors still exist. Said traits are genetically linked to the mutation itself - nothing more. In regards to your comment on the larger "unintended consequences of inbreeding, genetic erosion, etc", the color and pattern morphs that are desirable in this hobby are largely unaffected by out-crossing, making it a regular practice. A Pastel looks like a Pastel because that's its phenotype - not because it's been line-bred to look like a Pastel. To make a correlation, it's not like we're trying to line breed mixed-breed dogs together in order to eventually end up with one purebred animal. Also, it's important to point out that inbreeding itself does not cause issues. It only brings out underlying issues that had been present the entire time.

The healthiest breeders are probably normals, but try turning a profit (or even breaking even) with normals.

I don't even know where to begin. That's like saying the healthiest humans have straight, thick hair and broad noses because that's what the Neanderthals looked like. It's just not true. For the most part, the mutations which we are so fond of in this hobby have zero impact on our animal's quality of life in captivity.

[PitOnTheProwl]

The price on some of these morphs also reflects the amount of work that has gone in to the project itself.
Dom and codom are always easier than recessives can be. Especially when you are mixing several.

[cchardwick]

Actually the prices vary a lot and can change rapidly... For example, It could take 6-10 years to make axanthic clowns from scratch (double recessive). But once you have it you can breed it to itself and get all axanthic clowns. So the price could be really high for a short time and then crash quickly. New strikingly beautiful co-dominants sell really high when they first come out and come crashing down fast as people mass produce them. With new recessives some people hold on to the visuals and sell only hets for big money, dragging out the time to market. Most of the time more genes command a higher price, depending on how good they look. If some or all of the genes are not in high demand then the price is lower.

Now I believe that one of the major things that drives prices is competition. I've seen snakes sell for $1,500 consistently for a couple years, then some guy comes a long and decides he wants to get rid of his one and only crazy morph, so he sells it for $500. Suddenly everyone is trying to match or beat that price and it falls over $1,000 overnight. When you sell a high end snake for cheap on a site like Morphmarket you are actually hurting everyone. I've seen people sell so cheap they crash the market for that morph overnight and almost immediately breeders are forced to sell all of their adult breeders because it doesn't make sense to breed that morph anymore.

I've never seen anything as crazy as ball python price fluctuations. And that's not just ball pythons but all snakes. I've heard of people spending over $20,000 for a pair of snakes and once they grow them up and get babies the price drops to less than $200 before they can sell any! In my opinion investing in snakes is a huge risk, you have to do it for the love of the animals and if you are lucky you can make some money.

[Macropodus]

I just had a look at MorphMarket for the 1st time. I've been perusing FaunaClassifieds and MarketKingSnake for years. But this MorphMarket has really got me thinking that BP breeding is mostly a rich, gambling man's game. $17,500 for a one 2 month old female Rainbow Enchi Ghost. Okay, seen enough.

[Eric Alan]

I just had a look at MorphMarket for the 1st time. I've been perusing FaunaClassifieds and MarketKingSnake for years. But this MorphMarket has really got me thinking that BP breeding is mostly a rich, gambling man's game. $17,500 for a one 2 month old female Rainbow Enchi Ghost. Okay, seen enough.

Huh? All MorphMarket is is a better organized, easier to navigate, classified site. Fauna and KS are classified sites as well. If you've been looking at Fauna and KS for years, you should be familiar with the ups and downs of BP pricing. MorphMarket has nothing to do with that...

Side note: the Rainbow gene is one of the newest and hottest genes out there. Your impression of the market using that as your baseline is similar to looking at Silicon Valley and thinking that's how the rest of the country lives.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

It's elementary, my dear Watson. Actually it's an elementary aspect of economics: Supply & Demand.

At some point in the future "super fires" will saturate the market and will retail at PetCo/PetsMart for <$100. "Super-duper fires" will then be all the rage and will sell on FaunaClassifieds for >$500.

Professional reptile breeders are in a race against each other to produce colors/patterns which are rare or non-existent.

Re "looks better"... that's entirely subjective.

Re "a good snake to breed" ... for what purpose? To turn a profit? Probably yes. However, I think we should first educate ourselves more on the unintended consequences of inbreeding, genetic erosion, etc. Spider morphs, for example, exhibit a very obvious and physical flaw. How many other morphs have flaws which are less obvious and/or not physical?

The healthiest breeders are probably normals, but try turning a profit (or even breaking even) with normals.

I could make a lenghty post but I will sum it up with one thing we agree with

we should first educate ourselves

....once you do you will change your perspective on what is called inbreeding and the fact that Spider wobble issue is not the result of it neither are issues such as duck billing in Super Black Pastels, or other issues encountered in some specific mutations.