Scaleless

I guess it would be a good Investment as everyone else needs to raise a female scaleless heads to produce the scaleless

Then there's this, BHB can shout from the roof top about the scaleless BP being a mutation, not a deformity, but it still won't make it true. Scaleless equals deformity, and I for one will never have one in my collection. I don't think I'm alone in that line of thinking. Just something to factor into your business plans...

I agree with slim, as humans that are controlling how these animals breed, we should not be propagating this kind of mutation / deformity. Scales are what makes a reptile a reptile and they have been a successful adaptation for millions of years for a reason. They are one of the earliest complex skin structures in vertebrates (amphibian / permeable skin like what is present in agnathans) and evolved long before animals came onto land. For something to be that successful and biologically important, we as breeders have no right to try and create organisms lacking it just because "they're cute".

IMO, this is not just true for reptiles. Breeding anything with an obvious and prohibitive deformity should not be as practiced as it is (i.e. snub-nosed dog/cat breeds). The animals are not as healthy and as a breed usually suffer more genetic issues than breeds that do not have as much selective modification.

I don't think comparing the market on the scaleless morph to banana or bamboo is accurate when looking at price, demand, and risk. I think this is more of a desert female situation. Here's why:

Initially deserts were hot, and no wonder - it is a cool morph and produces awesome combos.

But then... there were the whispers about the females having problems procreating, and as that story blew up over several months and it was confirmed that females can't successfully breed, prices took a nosedive.

A few breeders tried different techniques - keeping the female warmer or cooler, or gene stacking - to get females to successfully breed, but AFAIK those efforts were in vain. Today very few people want to work with the gene.

So, now we come to scaleless. Yes, it's cool... but the rumor mill about health problems has started and the project is still in its infancy. Most buyers - even those that could afford the loss - aren't going to throw away thousands producing snakes that don't thrive and can't be sold.

well, I have to admit that prior to this thread I was unaware of the rumors swirling around the scaleless gene (and I'm guessing OP was as well). naturally this results in a quicker decline of the price and should the rumors prove true, an equally quick exit of the morph from the hobby.

nonetheless, the fact is that co-doms have quick and precipitous falls in price. with so many breeding BPs on a small scale these days, the price declines are quicker than in years past. if someone is looking at a co-dom morph as business opportunity, it is my opinion that the current asking price for heterozygous scaleless is the about the worse possible entry point even if there are no issues/rumors. this is when they become affordable to more than a handful of breeders and they will be semi-common in 2-3 years. those semi-common single genes animals will be selling for 1K in 2-3 years. asking prices on single gene bamboo have fallen 75-80% in the past 3 years. of course there's still $ to be made if that's the goal. five 1k snakes will be break even on your 5K investment (all other expenses aside). co-dom combos and recessive hets will of course bring more.

Thank you everyone for the discussion. Just to be clear, my idea of doing sound business with balls is to be able to play and if possible not have it cost me too much. Serious effort to making real profits are focused on what puts bread on the table. A little of what Slim said and something that my buyer said to me kind of clicked together and I did not like the result. My buyer said "yeah, go for it people like weird stuff. i can sell them." I do not want to produce stuff just because it is weird. It has to be able to thrive (in captivity) and be able to be taken care of by the average buyer. As of yet, spiders are as close to the thriving line as I want to get. Even those I am hesitant to see sold to people that do not already have bps. So far the lack of evidence, the discussion, and the way the prices are moving point to too high a risk for a hobby breeder. I breed because I enjoy the animals and tinkering with the genes. I think this amount of risk I see in scaleless would suck the enjoyment out of it.

On their Facebook page WHS Reptiles has announced that they have produced a healthy scaleless clutch. The pairing was WHS Pastel Scaleless Head bred to another WHS Pastel Scaleless head, producing:
1.0 Pastel Scaleless
0.1 Super Pastel Scaleless
1.1 Scaleless Heads
0.1 pastel

It will be interesting to see those hatchlings grow up. Although viable or not I'm still not a fan of the scaless.

The price for scaleless heads just went up again lol they look pretty damn cool out of the egg but im sure alot of other people like myself are waiting to see how they age

https://www.facebook.com/34095564268...type=3&theater