Morph Q's

What you do at the show is purchase your animal's from the big guy's especially if your lookin for het's.And about Jimmy there's a market for everyone , there are Wal mart shopper's and Sear's shopper's.What I'm trying to say is there are certain income group's for all breeder's.Jimmy is not important , all this talk about Jimmy is called Hateing (Playa Hatin) P.S $200.00 for a pastel is preety darn low.That suck's but it's the reality of a free market there are example's of this all around us.

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Jimmy is not important , all this talk about Jimmy is called Hateing (Playa Hatin)

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I don't really see how someone low-balling prices on snakes to make up for a lack of quality or reputation in the industry could be considered a "playa"...

Now, people whining about NERD and RDR charging a premium for quality animals....now THAT is "playa hatin'."

Ssscales: I buy my hets from people I know, just at a cheaper price. The two males I bought from Ian are great boys so I'm very pleased with the quality of his snakes. I will, however, when I have the money, buy most of my homozygous kids from people like Adam. -Shrugs.-

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Now, people whining about NERD and RDR charging a premium for quality animals....now THAT is "playa hatin'."

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Exactly!
If anyone doesn't like what they are charging, don't buy it. But, don't whine about how they are charging so much for a snake or how you can't afford this snake or that one at that price. Don't ask why they don't drop that $25,000 snake to $500 for you to be able to afford it.

And for other breeders actually complaining about these successful breeders selling the same snake for more money than they are..up your prices, up your game, and compete head to head with them or stop whining!

I don't think most of these breeders selling on the low end are too concerned about the guys charging $1000 more than they are for snake X. Most of them are too busy looking for classifieds and breeders selling lower than they are.
Just my $0.02!

Just a couple of points (in a discussing kind of way, not an argument kind of way) ;) ...

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Originally Posted by ssscales

The thing is, there will always be a lot more and up and coming Jimmy's with very little overhead, maybe a pair of snakes to a small collection, breeding out of their spare bedroom or within their bedroom, advertising on KS and other classifieds

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I don't necessarily agree with that. If you look at other high end animal markets, the trends are repeated over and over ... big dollar animals are sold to the public ... many little guys/gals get into breeding and sell their animals way under market value to compete with the professional breeders ... most of the little guys/gals can't compete and eventually disappear ... the market stabilizes and the big breeders remain. Birds, fish, even the albino burmese market ... it's happened before and it will happen again with ball pythons.

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Originally Posted by ssscales

Breeder A sells his Spider BP for $2000, Breeder B is asking $3500 for the same quality Spider.

Both are good breeders, same tubs, same feeder supplier, both bought their adults from the same well known breeder 3yrs ago, both will answer your questions on breeding, care, etc, etc, etc.

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I don't see how this is even possible unless Breeder A isn't paying taxes??? Breeder B didn't pull that $3500 price out of thin air ... it's a price based on the breeders overhead (tubs, feeders, cost of spending time on the phone answering questions, etc) ... Breeder B isn't charging $1500 more than the bottom of the pile guys because he/she "likes" squeezing money out of his/her customers, he/she is doing it because that is the value of the animal.

I also don't agree that Breeder A selling those snakes for $1500 less spends the same amount of time answering questions on breeding, care, etc, etc, etc ... I actually know that for a fact to be incorrect, because I get the calls from the people that bought from Breeder A asking for help when breeder A isn't around or even when Breeder A has the balls (pythons) to tell his customers to call a big breeder for help (Kara and I were just talking about this).

The other thing I have witnessed is that Breeder A selling his animals for $1500 less than everyone else is far less likely to stand behind them if something goes wrong ... The big guys charging the real market value factor in things like replacing an animal that dies in transit due to carrier error, taking care of unexpected tragedies like an animal rolling 6 months after purchase because it had tumors that know one could have known about, and no questions asked returns if the customer isn't 100% happy with the way the animal looks when it shows up. The vast majority of the people you read or hear about being not happy with their deals are the ones that bought from the cheaper breeder. That's not an attempt to discredit anyone, you can go out on the BOI and see it as fact any day of the week.

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Originally Posted by ssscales

Breeder B has a few choices:
1) Lower his prices.

2) Discredit breeder A.

3) Hope someone justifies paying an extra $1500, 75% more than breeder A.

4) Shelf those animals till they are older or someone eventually buys them.

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1. Nothing wrong with lowering prices if you need to, but if that's your choice, why not offer the deals to your existing customers that have supported your business? Why give strangers "first crack" at lower prices on the classifieds instead of supporting the people that support you?

2. That's just a part of business and it happens all the time. Some people choose to send a positive message, others negative. Personally, if an individual wants to leave money on the table with every snake they sell, that's there problem ... but, as someone that supports the market and has hundreds of customers that have invested money into ball pythons, I do feel a responsibility to them to fight the bargain basement mentality in order to help them protect their investments ... something I am sure Jimmy could not care less about … good breeders will help their customers protect their investments.

3. Rarely have I ever seen a price difference that large ... Breeder A might not have any business sense at all, but he/she isn't blind.

4. Nothing wrong with shelving animals ... :D ... I just sold a nice sized group of 05's, at above my 2005 asking price ... So not only did I make more than Jimmy did last year, I made way more than he's going to make this year on those animals .... I like it! ;)

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Originally Posted by ssscales

It's like sitting in the Sears board room listening to VP's complain about Wal-Mart and Target prices. While they sit and complain about Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart grew another $10Billion.

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LOL ... If one of these bargain basement breeders rises out of the ashes and turns into the Wal-Mart of the ball python world, I will never say another word about low prices ... but I promise you that won't happen ... breeding snakes costs money ... taxes alone are 50 cents on the dollar ... racks, feeders, payroll, etc ... Wal-Mart can charge those prices because they are selling in such enormous volume that they can still make money after covering their overhead ... Jimmy is neither producing in volume or "truly" covering his overhead ... he's just pretending to be a snake breeder ... and sooner or later he'll be gone. ;) … and when he is gone, all of his customers will come running to the big breeders with their questions. :P

You're absolutely right ... it is a free market ... Jimmy or anyone can sell their snakes for whatever they want ... and just as they can do that, I can get on my soap box and tell whoever will listen that you can make money and be successful without doing that ... which in the end means more money in your own pocket … Smart right? :D ... I'm making money ... lots of it ... selling snakes for their true market value ... do you think I really care about what Jimmy is selling his snakes for? ... Nope, he's nobody to me ... What I do care about is my friends/customers and people that are as passionate about ball pythons as I am who believe that the only way they can "compete" is by lowering their prices .... It's just not true ... and I'm a living example. ;)

-adam

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Originally Posted by Melicious

Ssscales: I buy my hets from people I know, just at a cheaper price. The two males I bought from Ian are great boys so I'm very pleased with the quality of his snakes. I will, however, when I have the money, buy most of my homozygous kids from people like Adam. -Shrugs.-

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Maybe I look at it the other way around.........I've seen Adam's numbering and record-keeping system, NOTHING is getting mixed up over there and he could probably trace back some babies to 2-3 generations of parents. I'd be relatively more hesitant about buying hets from a wholesaler like Ian G, who would NEVER intentionally mix things up, but doesn't give the kind of personal attention other breeders do. I'm not saying Ian sold you normals, I'm just saying in my mind there's enough of a chance to move me to look elsewhere.

Now, as far as a homozygous animal goes...if you find one that you really really like and its not from a known breeder, you take a gamble on the health of the animal or the post-sale support, but at least you know for certain the genetics of what you are buying.

just my $1.55....

If Hadrian turns out to be normal, I spent a good amount of money on a beautiful male ball with gorgeous blushing.
And I knew in the beginning when I got into this hobby that I'd take a chance here and there. I do, however, have a little bit of sense. The first time I spoke to Adam on the phone, he spent an hour calming me down because I used a technique of his concerning a shed. THAT is when I knew that any of my high-dollar snakes would be coming from him. Just need the dough. O_O That, and I might hit Vaughn up here and there because he "seems" like a level-headed, ball-loving guy.

We all take risks in this hobby. I did with Hadrian, and I'm willing to see it pan out. If I get a few clutches of normals, then I still learned from my experience and I'll still have a beautiful clutch of babies. That's just as important to me as the possibility of albinos.

If you are happy with what you have, then its all worth it. Chances are, that one of those possible het girls you'll eventually produce won't turn out to be a possible at all...all of the sudden you'll have a visible morph AND get to change "poss" to "100%" !

Or...I'll spend the first six years of this breeding project banging my head against a wall. ^_^ Either way, I've got three healthy, beautiful scale kids who have just recently eaten and are nice and plump. I'm happy, I'm hoping they're relatively content, and that's all that matters.

Whether they're het or not, I hope they inherit Hadrian's beautiful blush and Ophelia's "abnormally" long tail stripe. ^_^

I would be amazed if 30% of the people on KS that are advertising are paying any taxes for their sale. How many of them actually have an LLC set up or any type of company license? These are mostly private sellers that maybe bought 1-2 Pastels last year for $1500-$2000, 8-10 normals as babies for $300-$600, they reproduced 30-50 babies, about 1/2 being Pastels and now they want to turn them around for $300 a pop. Should we take them outside of Daytona and beat the crap out of them?


Should we tell everyone how these guys will rip them off or will sell them sick animals?

Or have most of us forgotten how happy we were when we hatched that 1st clutch? Made that 1st $20.00 bill from that 1st Corn snake or Kingsnake clutch we hatched and sold for the 1st time?

I don't know, I think when it ALL becomes about $$$ and only $$$, we lose something. Sure, we all like to make money and $2000 is better than $20.00, but when every thread out there in every forum is about the market or prices or investment, it's somewhat disappointing.

I will admit, I've watched Ball Pythons develop into something amazing over the years! I was originally drawn into Ball Pythons for all the morphs, developments and new possibilities at 1st, but along the way I started thinking $$$$$$$$$$$!!

Buy two males of this and two males of that to back the 1st up, 10-20 females off the bat. I was already thinking of Super Pastels, Bumble Bees, Albinos, Pieds and have felt myself moving away from "WOW, I love those morphs and would love to reproduce them" to "how many can I put on the shelf/reproduce in 2-3-5 years?".

Don't pay me any mind, I just lost track of why I love these fascinating creatures and why working with them is a pleasure.