What's New in the Hobby??

I do feel like too many people are breeding BPs and oversaturating the market. It seems to have happened in just a couple years---I first started researching getting a BP in 2014. I went to a reptile expo in 2014 and there were only a few BP breeders, and their prices were pretty high. I didn't buy anything. I went to the same expo in 2015 and it seemed like every other vendor had BPs, and they were super cheap---normals for $15, and I got a pretty little cinnamon lesser for $100. One expo isn't the whole story, but just look on the internet, even on craigslist. . .

Anyway, I'm sort of happy because I just want a cheap, pretty pet :D. But on the other hand, I feel like there are going to be a whole lot of unwanted BPs flooding the rescues in a couple years. I'm not sure everyone involved is entirely committed :/.

I really don't understand the whole "the market is flooded" talk when I'm going online and seeing crystals selling for 6, 700. That's just one example, but it seems like prices have been holding pretty steady for the past three years or so (that's how long I've been looking).

I'm a smaller breeder that concentrates on a few projects that I like and seem to sell pretty well. There was more money in it five years ago but we knew that wouldn't last forever. My inventory is down to two snakes that I put on my site about a month ago. Stuff is selling pretty well in my opinion, not overnight or for thousands of dollars but stuff is selling. There is excitement out there but you wouldn't know that sometimes by skimming Facebook or certain forums. I have a waiting list for a couple of my better projects and I get almost daily e-mails and PMs about my new morph. I'm sure the guys with Sunsets and Scaleless Heads would say the same. I actually stopped posting about the King of Dinkers because the e-mails, PMs and questions were almost overwhelming. In addition, if half the people on my waiting list come through it will be a year or so before I would need to advertise them for sale. I'll keep doing this as long as I'm excited about what I produce and seeing what other people produce. Who isn't excited to see more Sunset combos or what happens with the Scaleless. Not to mention all the other new combos that will hatch this summer. You can enjoy this hobby or business regardless of your goals or your budget.

600-700 for a snake, I really can't honestly share my opinions on that as this place is full of snake lovers.

All I will say is Supply vs. Demand...and the supply is far greater than the demand, meaning that the buyer sets their budget and then finds a supplier that for whatever reason accepts the offer.

Just like when I bought my car and saved $8000, I just emailed every dealership within 100km and said "Cash buyer, Best price as of Aug 1st wins"

Cash is king.

Breeders often need $$$ for rent, food (both human and animal), hydro...

when i start to breed, i just hope to break even to pay for supplies and gear and have fun. if i get lucky, i hope to make enough profit to buy a Monarch. :)

as for those leaving, i don't have an analyze on the whole community/industry. but i will say that there are new peeps popping into the forum almost daily. they're buying snakes, some starting a collection and even some asking for pairing/breeding advice. i like my time here - i post, chat, joke, pm a bunch. people come, people go. it's just the ebb and flow of alotta things.

One thing that I've noticed is when there were more morphs worth a huge amount of money ex. Bananas selling for like 5 digits, there seemed to be more people getting into the hobby/industry. While the decrease in new people entering the hobby isn't be the best thing for breeders it might be a good thing for the hobby in general. IMO this likely means there are a lot less people entering this hobby just looking to make a quick buck. The people who are getting into the hobby now are hopefully doing it for the love of the animals which should be better for the hobby and might even be better for the breeders long term as the markets won't be as flooded and the prices shouldn't drop as fast.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eric Alan

Scaleless is still all the rage, and the Banana/Coral Glow thing was an anomaly. With the influence of the sex-linked clutches, and it being an incomplete dominant trait, more people than ever were able to pop out Banana/Coral Glow animals very quickly which saturated the market, causing the "free fall" of the prices. Everyone points to that as their reference when they talk about the bottom falling out of the entire BP market.

---

Not trying to single you out Eric, just using your post as a reference for my points here.

People have been warning about the bottom falling out for ages (I can find threads on fauna back to 2004* about spiders balls "I think they will keep dropping until they level out in the $2500-$3500 range") with a lot of those types of threads appearing around 2005/2006 and then continuing. Threads about how people are 'dumping their collections' seem to pop up every other year or so with fear of so many people getting out, but there are always new people that get interested to step into their places.
*I don't recall seeing much about that prior to then but I was mostly involved in boas and corn snakes back in the early 2000s

Market crashers are real (it was one or two big breeders that crashed the bananas, they knew what they were doing, getting their bucks and moving on to the 'next big thing'). Any codom/incomplete dom trait is going to fall quickly. Just a few years ago when I got my butter pin, I paid $950. Now I see people selling 2 gene doms for under $150, even under $100. I used to say how if breeders weren't willing to hold off breeding constantly and weren't willing to keep their prices up a bit that they would go the way of the corn snake ($25-75 multi recessive gene morphs). I was speaking about boas at that time but it holds for any 'popular' snake IMO.

Regardless, all of this talk seems to be going away from what the OP was asking, what changed in the last few years? Personally the only other thing I can think of, besides my prior comment about lack of participation in forums due to other social media avenues, are auctions. Snake auctions are a rather new thing that have popped up over the last few years. It can be both good and bad and overall, I've seen a lot where the snakes go for well below market value (not just BPs). Otherwise it seems to be the same old, same old.

and on a personal preference note - scaleless snakes, no thanks! :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril

Regardless, all of this talk seems to be going away from what the OP was asking

---

Not at all; this is the kind of discussion I was looking to start up. It's convos like this that will definitely help me reaquaint myself with what the current trends and ideas are in the hobby.

Snakes are kinda vilified here in NY, so there aren't many expos or events to go to; this is prety much the only insight I have into the BP world.


But all this definitely makes sense; It's one of those things where having an extremely profitable market is awesome, but once everyone notices it there's no way it can last forever. My main hope is that when things level out, it may be easier for average people to have access to some of the rarer/more beautiful morphs. That was alway my thing back home; the local family run petshop would try and purchase unique animals from breeders, but no average person is gonna pay $400 for an albino BP when the albino Corn Snake next door is only $50.

When I first bought my axanthic pastel female I paid $500 and that was a steal since they were hard to find. I waited nearly a year. Then I looked and looked trying to find someone who breeds ax fires since non were for sale. Waited a whole year for the right clutch to hatch and got my axanthic fire male. At the time I started with the ax pastel female axanthic fireflies were like 6/7k. Now they're at 2k... but that's also the SK line from JD. So maybe VPI could fetch a bit more I'm not sure. But at this point what I bought the male and female for would of theoretically bought me an axanthic firefly and then some...

Even the big chains are so our of touch and when you take the time to talk to them, they just carry one of each because they have to as a part of their franchise agreement.

I live in Canada, which is very similar. I travel to the US all the time and I notice very little different outside of you guys being the most overly patriotic group ever...

Petsmart sells Ball Pythons between 89.99 and 129.99 here, commons no het. They are also tiny maybe 150-200 grams at best. They simply keep one for the impulse buyers. Crested Geckos sell in the same range 69.99 to 89.99. Again just a basic crested. The crested will be tiny, not even longer than your longest finger.

If I do a quick search on kijiji or craigslist, I find no shortage of really nice crested geckos for 30-50 bucks and no shortage of some really nice BP morphs for as low as 40-100 bucks, some will let recessive morphs go as low as 20-25 bucks.

To go 1 step further, I'm going to my first Reptile Expo on Sunday in Toronto and I fully expect to see the dreamers out in full force hoping to catch that poor guy that gets trapped into overpaying to make his girlfriend/wife happy. I'm sure I will see reptiles that I can pick up elsewhere for 40-50 bucks selling for 200, 300 even 500.


As for the ones bred in some guys basement, As a consumer...why wouldn't you take the cheaper price and the better value?

Being a breeder and keeping your finger on the pulse of the people with money to spend is next to impossible, you will always be a season or two behind.

I've seen this play out in so many different hobbies in my lifetime.

It will continue. But the bulk of us who actually keep pets and treat them almost like family members, will continue to show up here and post.

Prices got so cheap, I couldn't resist getting into snakes. Same reason I got my Crestie 2 years ago :)

Sorry, I'm outspoken. Most don't like me because I speak my mind.