What would you do?

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Originally Posted by Crawly's Mom

If she ended up being gravid by the fire or the butter, then yes I might be interested as they would contribute to my future breeding plans for Nuclears. That was why I was hesitant to go up. He said he'd dropped the price to 300, which to me still felt high for a normal female. I was thinking of offering lower and then maybe doing a contract? Something that says if she is in fact gravid by one of his males and produces a clutch, that we split the profit from the clutch. But what is a fair offer for a normal female?

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Problem is it's craigslist you will likely NEVER hear from him again so if the "Possibly" gravid female is not gravid you will over pay for a normal female.

I understand you have certain breeding goals and I would assume you are taking breeding seriously if so craigslist is not the place to start, buy from reputable breeders, invest in quality animals this will pay off in the end.

That is why I didn't want to pay the 300 he was asking for. I was going to maybe offer 150 with the clutch contract. So that if she was in fact gravid he would still get something from it, but if she ended up not being gravid then I would not be out 300 for a normal female.

I have been keeping an eye on craigslist for breeding weight pets that people just never intended to breed at all. Since I am just starting out and have a spider male and plans to buy a co-dom male within the next month or two. So normal females are a nice way of getting started without putting in thousands of dollars that I may just end up losing... if that makes sense.

I would offer 150 if I needed a normal female for my breedings and had a quarantine set up to accommodate her. I personally bought a possibly gravid female for 125 but I wanted another female normal so her being paired with something was just a bonus, maybe. But I will see. I wouldn't offer a clutch contract unless you don't want to pair her with anything after her quarantine period. And you are ok with not breeding her this season.

~ Karl

Well the clutch contract I would offer would stipulate it would only be valid with a clutch produced by one of his males. Since he has no males that I would have. She has been paired with a yb, black pastel, butter, and a fire. I have a spider and I am going to invest in a lesser pastel male or butter pastel male. BUT the male I pick up in the next month or two will have some growing to do before he can breed, obviously! So aside from the butter overlap there would be no chance of confusing the daddy. I wouldn't do a clutch contract for her first clutch produced for me, just anything that might be a result of what he produced.

Though again his reluctance to send me pictures makes me nervous. :\

You do make it sound a little shady and you gut seems to be telling you this isn't quite right. THere are generally good reasons why you have gut feeling and it seems like your gut is telling you this isn't right but your head is trying to convince you that it is. Always go with your gut.

If you really do want it, don't even factor in that it could be gravid. It is only a POSSIBLY gravid female so only offer what you would want to pay for a none gravid female. Don't expect it to be gravid, just treat it like that might be a bonus if you jsut buy a normal ball. If he doesn't like that offer then don't go for it. In the BP world your future will always be open to other options. If you don't get this one something else will come along. Also if he really does need the money then just paying the price for a normal should be ok to him. Him waiting to sell won't get him the money he apparently needs right now so if it is ok for him to wait, really it should be ok to him to just wait and make more money hatching the clutch himself. So if doing that him self is something he doesn't want to do then the female is probably not really gravid.

The fact that he won't send you pics is a major red flag. If this is a deal that you are going to get shipped to you DON"T DO IT. If you have to meet in person to make the switch then that would be ok so at least even if you tell him you will buy it, if once you meet, the snake looks fishy you can still back out. Don't give him any money unless you get the snake first.

And if this was me i would just give him a low price or jsut walk away completly.

I agree with most people on here, but there's some other points I can think of. If he's in need of money quickly, it would be generally a lot easier selling a breeding size morph male than a possibly gravid female. Also as pointed out, the possible gravid girl WOULD be worth much more to most keepers, due to time of growing a female, possible eggs from morph males, etc etc.

No pics, so far not being very talky on the subject, high "asking price" (for normal), kind of low weight for "big clutch" producer, and the craigslist stigma are all red flags. Don't get me wrong 2000g is still a good sized girl, but you're more than likely not getting 8-10 good sized eggs out of her, and I've done plenty of deals on craigslist, but some people on there are just shady.

If you decide to go with it, I highly doubt he'd be willing to sign a clutch contract, but only thing you can do is talk to him about it.

Sounds a little weird.

Thank you everyone for your input. I am stepping away from it. I asked him once more for pictures of the female and he said he will see if he can get around to it, if he has time. To me if you cannot even bother to take a picture, even a quick snapshot with a cellphone, then you are not really that interested in selling or you don't want people to see the condition of the snake ahead of time.

Something just feels shady here... so I am gonna go with my gut and say no thank you. :)

I'd say to offer him $150 because that is the price i've seen a lot for an adult normal female on kingsnake.com and tell him you'll split the profit IF she is pregnant and has a clutch.

Never mind, I did not see your last post.