Is the high price market dying?

Im with you Becky... I dropped 5k over the past yr on morphs looking to get return on my investments... I dont plan on breeding for a couple years then gettin out... I'm 23 and plan on doing this for 10-20yrs bc I love animals and I love snakes... This is not only a hobby for me but I would also like to turn it into a successful business... I didnt just spend the last 5 yrs of my life and 25k going to college for business administration for nothing! I want to put what Ive learned into creating my own business and if I can make a hobby and a bussines become one then my college will pretty much pay for itself.

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Originally Posted by ctrlfreq

I'm not disagreeing that the price an owner puts on the animal represents it's value to them. Economically speaking however, such an amount would not be considered a viable "actual value" should the owner decide to leverage or protect the animal's value (getting the animal insured for example). In that case it would break back down along the lines of how much does it cost to reproduce or otherwise acquire another, just like it does for your house, car, or the Van Gogh painting you might pick up on a whim at Christie's auction house.

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Understood. :)

Lots of people spend lots of $ on snakes. 2k is a drop in the bucket.
A high price is very subjective. What is high to some is a bargain to others. It all depends what is high to you. A CHEAP home in southern Cali is $500,000-$600,000. I'm sure people in other parts of the country might feel very differently. Unless you go to Manhattan, N.Y. where a million is dirt cheap. I have lived in both so 2k on a snake doesn't faze me a bit.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

The only problem I can see is this: Who determines what a high quality animal is?

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That's a great question, especially since the range, quality-wise, is all over the board right now (both on what we accept as defining a "quality" animal, and then the literal quality of the animal in terms of health and care).

Second to this is the mindset behind the breeding. Are we looking to create perfect specimens, or are we looking to create designer animals? I think the two must be mutually exclusive, since the designer approach, by nature, seeks to modify the animals as much as possible by packing in as many possible morphs as possible.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Purebred dogs have closed lineages. In the majority of cases, you can only do registration with bred lines, and not with simple genetic morphs.

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I would imagine because of this particular requirement that the registry, by necessity, would have to start with the largest breeders declaring their bloodlines, and then closing the system to animals not of these lineages. Sure, you could breed a registered animal to a non-registered animal and have beautiful designer or pet quality animals, but like out-crossing registered and non-registered dogs, the offspring wouldn't be eligible.

As for the "breeds", I think BPs would more accurately be analogized to a class of dogs (toy breeds for example) than to any particular breed with it's few possible color and pattern combinations.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

What makes a spider produced by NERD higher quality than one produced by that guy down the street

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Right now, nothing. Within the context of a system of registered animals, it would be the quality garnered from knowing the entire history of the animal and it's ancestors (ie, things like disease and germ-line mutations that would be relative unknowns in capitve hatched and wild caught animals).

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

The quality of a morph is determined by its appearance, no?

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Now yes, but in a tracked system, other traits such as the infamous spider spin would also come into account. Like with dogs, I think the more high-level information we track, the more we will understand the animals, and more concise definitions as to what makes a quality animal would surface.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

There is no standard for what these morphs should ideally look like.

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This is probably the largest crux of the entire registry concept, but one that can obviously be overcome, although I'm willing to bet that it won't happen without causing a lot of people to become angry with the results. That said, if it formalizes the industry and normalizes prices, I can't imagine it's a bad thing in the long run.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

This is not something that the people who are 'flooding the market' are doing wrong. They saw a demand, and they're supplying it. This is natural competition.

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I agree, however the same could be said about the boom in the late '90s that resulted in the dot-com boom. Likewise, I see the BP industry inflating with literally thousands of small breeders getting in to capitalize on the demand that will, in many cases, very likely disappear before they've recouped their costs. Competition is good, but an industry without a baseline to make long-term business decisions on (ie, which morph should I purchase, which projects should I pursue) will ultimately see a number of fledgling businesses going under due not only to a lack of planning, but an inability to do so.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

I don't think there's any valid reason to be angry because someone else is offering something at a lower price, that's the way competition works.

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This one I'm up in the air on, specifically because we're dealing with animals, and if the prices are significantly lower than average, there is a fair expectation that something about their business is as well (ie, low-balling on the fixed costs associated with husbandry).

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Originally Posted by ctrlfreq

Huge, very insightful post...

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That is very well thought out. So get with it... I nominate you the president of the new oversight organization!

Justin

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Maybe not worth it to the general public, but if you did get that ridiculous price for them, they would be worth that to you and to the buyer that purchased them ... and in then end, the buyer and seller are the only two people that matter.

I believe that for every snake there is a buyer out there ... selling a snake is a matter of the seller and the buyer coming together and agreeing on terms ... anything beyond that is just background noise as far as I'm concerned. ;)

-adam

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I think this is within reason...i know i can't sell my normal for 750$ no matter how hard i tried.

SO what I am trying to say is there is a limit...which correlates to the value statement i made earlier

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

soooo not true ... you'd be amazed at the people that spend big $$$ on snakes and they aren't big breeders ... just ordinary people.

The ball python industry is a lot larger than what you see on internet message boards.

-adam

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Yea i will agree i did understate that...hell im about to blow that kind of money on a fire ball.

I shoulda said in the $10,000(per snake) and up range.

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Originally Posted by pfan151

I am a very small breeder and have spent well over 2k on many different snakes. You are way off on that one. Just 2005 I payed 7k for a pair of het lavenders, 3k for a pied, 2k on a pair of het caramels, and about 2k for a female lesser. All cash deals. I have a friend that just payed 7k for a few snakes a couple months ago. I have probably spent about 30k in total over the last few years and I know there are MANY others like me.

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and you my friend....well ur BALLIN!!!

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Originally Posted by mricyfire

I think this is within reason...i know i can't sell my normal for 750$ no matter how hard i tried.

SO what I am trying to say is there is a limit...which correlates to the value statement i made earlier

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What's "reasonable" to one, may or may not be reasonable to another ... some people "know" that they can't climb Mt. Everest no matter how hard they try ... but others have what it takes.

I guess I just look at the world differently than some.

-adam

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

I think a registry has been a long time coming, and I agree that one should be set up. There's always the question of 'who will run it?'
It's a lot of work to set up a registry organization. I DO think if you set it all up properly and legitimately, that people would buy into it just as they do the AKC.
The only problem I can see is this: Who determines what a high quality animal is? Purebred dogs have closed lineages. In the majority of cases, you can only do registration with bred lines, and not with simple genetic morphs. Closing a 'breed' means no more out-crossing...I don't think anyone's far enough along with any of the ball python 'breeds' to want to close the door on outcrossing yet.
What makes a spider produced by NERD higher quality than one produced by that guy down the street who just picked up a spider and bred it to a really nice import he grabbed, and got really neat looking babies? The quality of a morph is determined by its appearance, no? NERD breeds nice looking spiders, but that doesn't mean someone who picks up a less attractive spider and crosses it with a unique-looking import can't produce really good-looking spiders.

I don't think you can register 'spider' as a 'breed'. I think breeders can develop a reputation for producing a certain look in their own lines, but then what would be the point of registering them? You have people saying "I have NERD line male that I'm crossing with this ch female"...the end result isn't NERD line anymore, but does that make it lower quality? Not if it looks really spiffy.

There is no standard for what these morphs should ideally look like. That's clear in the thread on pastels, too, where you have two big lines that have a different look, and people tend to like both...some prefer one or the other, but the popularity of both is strong.

Is a spider better with a highly reduced pattern? Or maybe with a really strong and busy pattern? High white or low white? It depends on who you ask.
Stronger yellow is good? Not if you prefer them to be more orange, or more brown.
What determines the quality of a co-dominant morph? In most cases it's the result of crossing a normal with a morph. The results can vary tremendously.

Who determines quality? In my opinion, the buyer determines quality (apart from obvious issues like freedom from outright defects).
Obviously people wanted those lower cost spiders.

The price comes down because people breed the animals and produce more of them. Higher numbers available mean more competition among sellers. People aren't having trouble selling spiders--only selling them for more than buyers want to pay now.
If your spider is higher quality and worth more, than people will pay more for it. If they will not, then it ISN'T worth more, regardless of how you feel about its quality. If you're producing a higher quality animal, it has to show--buyers will decide that. They will pay more for it if it really is better.

This is not something that the people who are 'flooding the market' are doing wrong. They saw a demand, and they're supplying it. This is natural competition. Businesses generally hate competition, but I don't understand the idea that the competitors are doing wrong for competing.

In an ideal world, people would pay top dollar for your animals, preferring quality over quantity, and they would agree that your quality is better.
If they don't...frankly, they don't think your quality is better, or they never could afford them to begin with and wouldn't have bought from you anyhow.

I don't think there's any valid reason to be angry because someone else is offering something at a lower price, that's the way competition works.

If we're going to do registries for ball pythons, it will be after some lines are established that have a unique look achieved only through breeding, and those lines are then closed to outcrossing. That's going to be a long while down the road.

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