BALL PYTHON EYE CANDY!!!! (Big pics!)

Okay let me explain myself lol ...
Yes I know morphs are expensive because they're rare ...
Im just a sad little man without an albino ... so I vented a little ...
Hopefully sooner then later, the prices will drop on them.

I didn't mean to be rude to Gen, if it seemed I was. I'm sorry :(
Gen's an awesome and VERY helpful person.
I love you Gen *Tear*

No worries, it's all good! :)

When comparing the price of Albino ball pythons to the price of Normal ball pythons you have to remember that the normal ball python price is not the price of production by captive breeding. They export up to 150,000 normal ball pythons a year harvested from Africa. If this export where to stop, I bet normal ball pythons would be $200 just based on how much work it is to reproduce them in any number and the high demand for this neat little snake.

So, why should albinos be more expensive? On the supply side there is a higher investment in breeding stock. If someone has breeders capable of producing albinos chances are they paid a lot for them years ago.

However, at this point enough breeders have albinos so that the price is set by demand and not by a small group of breeders. Basically albino ball pythons are considered really cool looking by enough potential keepers that the high price is needed to ration the limited supply. If you could get everyone to strike the price would go down but I think that right now there are enough people willing to pay the current price to use up the current supply. As more breeders do the work to grow up more albinos and breed them the price will fall until it gets low enough that large numbers of new breeders are no longer willing to start albino projects. Who knows what that stabilization price will be ($500, $1,000?) but it will be a lot more than for normal ball pythons which can be produced by digging up eggs and gravid females with cheap African labor.

So if you did talk Kara into marking her albino ball pythons down to $200 now how would she decide who gets her supply, maybe a lottery? Just remember that the price rations the supply and high prices fuel the work needed to increase the supply in the future. With slow producing ball pythons it all takes a while. In 12 years albinos have come down from $10,000 to $2,000 (80% drop). It might take another 12 years for them to drop another 80% to $400 or they might stabilize higher than that if the cost of production is viewed to be higher and stop going down altogether.

Thanks for the info, Randy!

Okay, Randy made me see the light ... but I'll still hope that prices drop in the near future ...
I aslo take any donations of ablino balls you want to donate to me.

I'm still holding out for The Snake Keeper to come up with a stable Ivory population I can afford....*sigh*
Oh for an ivory homo girl....