Why are females more expensive?

I always see females going for higher price and I've never understood why. You get one maybe 2 clutches from her a year, while you could have him stud dozens. Can someone please explain?


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Because they are the egg layers. Actually for the exact reasons you've listed. A male can sire multiple clutches while a female can only do one per year. They also take longer to mature.

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

Because they are the egg layers. Actually for the exact reasons you've listed. A male can sire multiple clutches while a female can only do one per year. They also take longer to mature.

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in addition, you typically needs far less males than females. you can have 15 females and 3 males as a decent ratio but 15 males to 3 females is a waste of resources because you can use at max 6 snakes where as the 15 females to 3 males you can use 18 snakes. hope that makes sense.

Demand

If the morph is new, males are worth more because the can sire multiple clutches and breed sooner. Then there becomes a point where demand for the single gene male goes down, but the females still lay eggs so they still hold value in breeding.

To explain the economics behind it;

Average sex ratios are going to be 50/50, or one male to one female born. As you already said, one male can sire a dozen clutches a year, while a female can maybe produce 2. If I wanted to produce a dozen clutches in a year, assuming I needed to buy all the snakes to do so, I'm going to have to buy up to 12 females and one maybe two boys. By the laws of economics, this means my demand for females is going to be high, while my demand for males is low, even though the supply for both is the same.

high demand + low supply = higher prices
low demand + high supply = lower prices

Females are sold for a premium because people need them and the breeders know it. Males are sold cheaper because they're harder to get rid of.

Don't you know females are HIGH MAINTENANCE? :sarcasm:

Reinz beat me to it...lol