Is the high price market dying?

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Originally Posted by mricyfire

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

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Even at 10K, you'd still be amazed ... I was just on the phone with a friend not 15 minutes ago that dropped 12k on a single ball python this morning ... and he's never posted on an internet message board and never been to a reptile show ... he likes to say the he's "no one of consequence" ... the big sales happen more than you think. ;)

-adam

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Originally Posted by jkobylka

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

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Is this like red rover? Can I draft people into service?

One thing about a registry... it does not have to be a closed registry.

It could be set up such that anyone could register a snake with an unknown pedigree. Maybe it was WC or CH, maybe it was a rescue and they just don't know the history. It doesn't matter. The important thing is that any offpsring it produced would have a known pedigree, although only one that goes back a single generation, at least on one side.

Other snakes would (eventually) have pedigrees that go back many, many generations. If you accidently produced an axanthic from breeding 2 "normals" together, you could look at their pedigree and see that way back, they had VPI axanthic in their line, so you'd know which line to cross it with. Other things, such as lines of spiders that spin a lot, or ones that don't, would become apparent.

I believe this kind of thing has been done before, with appaloosa horses. Originally (and possibly still? I'm not sure) any horse that showed certain traits that make it an appaloosa was allowed to be registered. Having an open registry apparently worked out ok for appaloosa breeders, it could work for BPs as well.

Also, some registries allow for half-breeds to be registered. So even if your WC or CH can't be registered, their offspring can be. Then the next generation would be registered as being 3/4 "purebred". And so on. I believe that registries that allow this kind of registration usually have a point where an animal is considered "purebred", but examination of the pedigree would reveal it is actually only 31/32 "purebred" (or where ever the break-off point is). This is another way to allow new blood.

So if a BP registry was not set up as a closed registry, we could be a lot closer to ready for a registry.

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Originally Posted by ctrlfreq

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).



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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This really is the best possible justification for a registry that I have seen. It allows for a lot more flexibility than, say, the dog and cat registries, while offering substantial benefits to people who choose to register their animals.

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

And I'm sorry to say, but I resent this comment. I don't want small hobbyists like myself to get in a financial black hole because their breeding and selling prevents them from making any money, even just to support their snakes(feeding bills, racks, electricity). I don't want Ball Pythons to become like Bearded Dragons or other money-pit reptiles. I don't mind spending what money I can afford on a nice snake(morphs or hets), and have it pay for itself through breeding and selling the offspring.

Even if it does become a money pit, I'll just keep them all and not sell a single one! I want prices to stay where they are, especially from a customer's point of view, because I want a return on my investment. I just want my snakes to support themselves and possibly give me a little extra money here and there to buy that special snake that catches my eye.

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I can understand where you're coming from, but I can also understand where N4S is coming from, too. Yes it would be nice to make back your investment, and at the very least, have breeding be able to support your hobby (pay for racks, rats, etc) so that it's at a minimum a wash for you as far as money goes. But I always tell people when these conversations come up that you can hope for that, but don't expect it to happen.

You may make all your money back, or it may be a money pit. That's why I always tell people they should only buy snakes that they can afford to make nothing off of as it could very well happen. Don't get me wrong, as a small breeder of cornsnakes for a long time, I completely understand where you're coming from - it's nice to have years where your net out of pocket expenses are zero and you even make a little bit extra.

That being said, I also am sympathetic to where N4S is coming from. Not everyone has $2K to drop on an animal, yet doesn't mean they don't still want that animal. I've been eyeing bumble bees for a while ever since I laid eyes on one. At the time they were wayyyyyy too expensive; even a pastel and spider at the time were way out of my price range, so I had to wait until I could finally afford the ingredients. So yeah, I'm glad they came down in price. And I'm glad that other morphs are coming down in price, too. It means that more and more of all those awesome morphs are becoming more avaialbe to more people. And I think that is a good thing.

This hobby shouldn't be accessible for only people with tons of money. Prices will continue to fall, as they should and I'm glad that they are. What I do not want to see is a crash in the market (which I doubt will happen). Big difference between the two.

How can you say you want prices to go down but you dont want a market crash? If the market continues based on this years drop in price the only market theres going to be is for 3-4-5 combo morphs... Its already so cheap to make a lucy which right now runs for 4-5k ... In a yr or two lucys are going to be like $1000 because everyone and their brother has a pair of mojaves they got for 750$. People arnt going to be willing to pay much for a single combo morph bc you can make it for cheaper.I like the registry system because it helps set apart the people who are serious in the business and the joe scmoe whose just trying to make money.

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Originally Posted by JoshJP7

How can you say you want prices to go down but you dont want a market crash?

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Ummmm, easy. Prices are going to go down; more supply = lower prices. And I think that that is a good thing. With respect to Lucy's they should go down in price next year a bit; what shouldn't happen is Lucy's drop to $1k next year or less; that would be a crash and wouldn't be good.

People are living a pipe dream if they expect to prices to stay high forever; and I disagree with people who want prices to stay high forever.

I heard a ball python was sold for 20 g's this year at daytona , think about it without telling you how much I make a year I can easily admit that if I made 4 times what I make now I would easily have a $30,000 dollar collection cause it's what I love. I do alright and in the last 2 yr's I've spent about 6,000 on my collection. Isn't it the same with car's , who are we to tell an athlete or doctor they paid too much for a lamborghini?

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Originally Posted by Emilio

Isn't it the same with car's , who are we to tell an athlete or doctor they paid too much for a lamborghini?

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I don't think anyone is saying that it's spending too much, but if Lamborghini's were produced in the numbers that BMW's were, for instance, their price would drop as they wouldn't be so rare; and I think that's the point of ball python prices dropping.

I could care less how much someone spends on a bp. If they want to drop $20k on an animal; more power to them.

I dont see how your explanation of your statement really explains how you can want one but dont see how it leads to the other... If people keep dropping prices to the extreme that happened this yr the market is going to be flooded... Soon theres going to be more breeders than buyers and theres your market crash... some morphs lost 500$ in market price in a single season... That drop is going to impact every combo moprh made with this base morph. I dont think prices should stay high forever but there needs to be a reationship between price of a base morph and what it makes. Too many small breeders arnt willing to hold onto their stock for long and just drop the price to get em out of the door.

Why cant there be lamborgini like balls that hold their value for many many years? I know as a breeder if/when I come up with something new Im not going to be running around telling people what made it so they can do the same.... Its the same thing as a patent... Prevents others from getting rich off of your hard work... with all that said this is why I say 3-4-5 combo morphs are going to be the future of BPs