Grab Bags?

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Originally Posted by josh@outbackreps

Wow!!

I am glad people like Joe know it all !!

The true on these babies bags have been posted in other threads on her in the past, and I have gone over great detail on imports in general.

Just to be clear :

There are no mites in Africa!

C.H Babies do not have ticks either, they are not in the wild, the are hatched in a "captive" situation in West Africa. Being a loose term this could mean a large incubation room at a exporters facility, or it could be a large pit/ dug out area with damp bedding for the eggs to hatch. Either way they are not crawling around getting ticks or parasites. They hatch and are shipped generally before they are 3-4 days old.

These animals feed very well, and when compared to domestic have about the same feeding response and growth rates. The big perk on these animals is they introduce new bloodlines to existing animals on the market.

On the subject of them being picked threw in Africa : We have never stated that these baby bags will have ghost, albinos,pieds, phantoms, or anything like that. That would be stupid to say, the collectors in Africa are there to make money.
If a animal is visual that they see it being crazy then they will sell it as a special. ($50,000 not so much..)

What you can get in the baby bags is nice broken stripes, dark aberrant animals, granites, yellow bellies, high golds, odd patterns and a lot of potential morph animals. Potential morphs being animals that are different but not know what they might really be.

By sending out aberrant and fancy animals in the normal groups they are creating their own demand for their product. Baby ball volume increases by people wanting to get to see whats in the unopened bag. Letting a few nice animals go when packing bags makes sense for the exporter as it creates a demand for babies, and specials as well.

As for the bags here, babies come in at around 2500-4500 per order.


With them comes 500 Savannah's, 200 Niles, 200 fat tails, and a 100 or chameleons. The time it takes to sort soak and set up all the lizards, and fancy balls alone is back breaking. When 2500-4500 babies come in we pull the bags from the crate, (unopened) smell the bag to make sure there are no obvious DOA animals (about 1 out of every 1000 animals is DOA) and put it into a shipping box for FedEx to pick up.
The time to pick threw the bags, pull a animal that we are going to try to retail, pack the bags back up, ship the babies out and not get any happy customers is not worth it. Even if there was a albino in the bag it would not be worth while.

Babies are shipped in such volume that they need to come and go before the next group arrives.
We buy specials every year in large volume so picking threw a "normal" bag is like going to a snake show with lavender albinos and pied but only putting a normal baby male on your table..not only does it make you look bad, and upset your clients but also is far from profitable.


Like them or not, c.h and wc have their place in our industry and they ll can do very well when the right care is taken with them.

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So Josh you say they dont have ticks and such in Africa right? Why not explain this diseased sickly thing your trying to pawn off before it dies. http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=32&de=838513

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Originally Posted by joepythons

So Josh you say they dont have ticks and such in Africa right? Why not explain this diseased sickly thing your trying to pawn off before it dies. http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=32&de=838513

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:O is that an open wound on the back?! Nasty kink too for such an expensive animal...

yeah I saw that post also, Im knew to the ball python world but learning fast. and that open wound does not look to good. Not saying it can't be treated but expensive for the risk. Also ready to breed now? Shouldn't he be QT first?

Back on the subject of "grab bags". I have purchased at least 5 bags in 2007 and 2008 when Michael Cole would bring them in. (thats 50 animals) I was actually there one year when the crate was cracked open and pulled the 3 bags I purchased that year out of the crate. I still have 15 or so of these animals in my collection. Some have layed eggs some haven't yet. I got a couple visual granites some reduced pattern/ interesting pattern animals. A couple of these have proven to be heritable.

In the bags I got about half and half males and females, none had ticks or mites and I gave them their first meal here so they didn't have internal parasites either. CH females are always great animals to have in your collection to help keep blood line fresh. But you have to know how to start baby balls and be comfortable getting babies started.

1500 seems like an awful lot of money on an unperfect animal but i dont know what these go for usually so i may be completely wrong.

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Originally Posted by kellysballs

CH females are always great animals to have in your collection to help keep blood line fresh. But you have to know how to start baby balls and be comfortable getting babies started.

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Another good point I forgot about. Grab bags really aren't for beginners, at least in my opinion. Imported bps, especially ones that have never been fed, can be a real headache. I for one wouldn't do it, but if someone who was prepared for the time and effort, no one is stopping you! I'm also not a gambler and therefor don't go for grab bags of any sort, so my opinion is pretty biased on the subject. If you like to gamble it's definitely a fun way to do it! People just have to be prepared for the amount of work imports are. You can't stick them in a tank and expect them all to start eating.

And forgive me, the high end/new morphs are picked through before they are sent to grab bag people. Josh, are you saying that you don't look through the grab bags at all before they are sent? So they are already pre sorted to a certain number of bps?

How much are these grab bags anyhow?

Oh, and I must say it's comforting to know they babies should be healthy. I have seen pictures of those egg farms, and didn't think of them as a clean environment, but I suppose they are closed off from the outside world. Thanks for your info.

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Originally Posted by SlitherinSisters

Josh, are you saying that you don't look through the grab bags at all before they are sent? So they are already pre sorted to a certain number of bps?

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Yes that is what he said.

This is a sad case of $$$ > health of animal. AT LEAST treat the poor thing before you slap it up on kingsnake. It looks like it is kinked and has some kind of sore...I was actually considering one of his other ads too..not anymore!

grab bags are 150$ for 10 babies. I was considering getting a couple of bags to be honest but after that pic I'm abit on the fence

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Originally Posted by SiQ'

grab bags are 150$ for 10 babies. I was considering getting a couple of bags to be honest but after that pic I'm abit on the fence

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I suppose that's not terrible. $15 per snake, at least if they all turn out to be normals you aren't screwed.