Popularity of certain morphs?

Lately I have been noticing the drop of populatiry of certain "single" morphs yet they are more common. Certain morphs that have been worked on for years are also dropping on popularity. Certain morphs like spider, pastel, lesser, pinstripe and especially the normal I have noticed seem to be harder to sell. When they are combined they are a little easier to sell but I have a buddy who bred a few Queen Bees (Pastel, Lesser, Spider) a combination of very common morphs is also hard to sell.

I was curious about other morphs. The albino and piebald being couple of them, of course others but these two (though they are recessive) are ones I am particularly wanting to really talk about. Albino is super easy to come by now and have been combined with A LOT of other morphs. Same piebald, though I generally see a lot of people wanting them but will there come a day when they are so common not many people will be amazed about them? Especially lately as other morphs are being bred to come out to look pied but are not, for example the Champagne Gargoyle. (Champagne seems to be the biggest example of a pied looking BP when mixed with other morphs). So what do you guys think? Are there other morphs you have noticed that are dropping in popularity? Do the dropping popularity of other popular common morphs effect your breeding and available housing? And last but not least, what are the chances of the popularity dropping of certain gems like Pied, Clown, Albino, GHI, and so on?

This may not have anything to do with it, but talking to people locally who own snakes it seems like nobody wants to deal with spider morphs just because of the wobble.

Well recessives will hold their value longer than codoms/dom morphs. Pied and albino are both recessive, so therefor a little harder to make. Pinstripe, spider, lesser, pastel ETC are all 50/50 when bred to a normal (unless super pastel or super lesser of course). They're a dime a dozen and very easy to make more of. Pied and albino you need at least one copy in each snake. Plus then when you add recessives to codom projects, you up the difficulty in obtaining that combination, so therefor it's a more valuable animal.

To me, it costs the same to feed and house a 1,500 dollar snake as a 100 snake. My first ball python is a pinstripe. I will never breed him because it just doesn't make any sense to put him to my girls. So I went out and bought a four gene animal with pinstripe in it, that allows me to make a variety of combos I would like to make and add morphs I wanted to my collection all in one snake.

Champagnes aren't as popular as pied because champagne really takes over all other morphs. Pied takes them over a lot too, but there are plenty of morphs that alter the look of pieds more drastically than they would champagne. Banana pieds, axanthic pieds, black pastel pieds, pastel pieds, fire pieds, enchi pieds, etc.

And I buy and plan to breed what I like. If I was following what was popular, I'd be changing my stock constantly. Breed what you like and breed for quality and they should sell. I'll be sticking with making as many combos as I can a combo of axanthic firefly. Like pied ax fireflies, leopard ax fireflies, clown ax fireflies. I really love the look of clown, leopard, axanthic, and pied so those are what I'll be centering around with adding other morphs to those.

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Originally Posted by Marrissa

Well recessives will hold their value longer than codoms/dom morphs. Pied and albino are both recessive, so therefor a little harder to make. Pinstripe, spider, lesser, pastel ETC are all 50/50 when bred to a normal (unless super pastel or super lesser of course). They're a dime a dozen and very easy to make more of. Pied and albino you need at least one copy in each snake. Plus then when you add recessives to codom projects, you up the difficulty in obtaining that combination, so therefor it's a more valuable animal.

To me, it costs the same to feed and house a 1,500 dollar snake as a 100 snake. My first ball python is a pinstripe. I will never breed him because it just doesn't make any sense to put him to my girls. So I went out and bought a four gene animal with pinstripe in it, that allows me to make a variety of combos I would like to make and add morphs I wanted to my collection all in one snake.

Champagnes aren't as popular as pied because champagne really takes over all other morphs. Pied takes them over a lot too, but there are plenty of morphs that alter the look of pieds more drastically than they would champagne. Banana pieds, axanthic pieds, black pastel pieds, pastel pieds, fire pieds, enchi pieds, etc.

And I buy and plan to breed what I like. If I was following what was popular, I'd be changing my stock constantly. Breed what you like and breed for quality and they should sell. I'll be sticking with making as many combos as I can a combo of axanthic firefly. Like pied ax fireflies, leopard ax fireflies, clown ax fireflies. I really love the look of clown, leopard, axanthic, and pied so those are what I'll be centering around with adding other morphs to those.

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Sure and I get that, I have pastels, lessers, pinstripes and so on in my collection as well but the first pinstripe ever bought was $20,000.00. Now they are no more then $200. Take the pied who was once a $45,000.00 and is now $450. But I am not talking about price, I am talking about popularity.

The single gene morphs that have been around for a while aren't in as much demand simply because everyone has one already. Most of us have them mixed with another morph. For example, I don't have any spiders, but I have a bumblebee and a spinner. I have one straight pastel, but he's not a good example of pastel and browned out quickly, so he's a pet not a breeder. I have pastel in plenty of other critters anyway.

The breeder market on the morphs that have been around for 10+ years is pretty saturated, which is why they don't cost much more than the normal BP's.

some morphs are getting less popular because they don t mix well with most of other morphs. champagne is the main example. desert lost popularity because of the female breeding issue even if it s the number one dominant morph. banana will lose popularity as well when people will understand how they age and the sex link problem. recessive morph doesnt drop much in popularity or price tag. except albino and g stripe.

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Originally Posted by darkranger69

some morphs are getting less popular because they don t mix well with most of other morphs. champagne is the main example. desert lost popularity because of the female breeding issue even if it s the number one dominant morph. banana will lose popularity as well when people will understand how they age and the sex link problem. recessive morph doesnt drop much in popularity or price tag. except albino and g stripe.

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I have noticed g stripes going down in price. I wonder if it has anything to do with the super stripe?

I agree with you that there is a diminished demand for single gene animals and other specific morphs due to oversaturation of the market. As someone already stated there is practicality to caring for a 3 gene animal compared to 3 single gene. I however, have a different philosophy. I prefer starting any addition of a morph line to my collection with single gene snakes. The reason being that I can accurately rate the quality of the morph based solely on that gene without the influence of others to distort it. The best example I can give to explain is that of an Ivory or a BEL. The lousiest quality YBs or Lessers when crossed will produce the Super version, an all white snake. Looking at the super form how would you determine how nice the parents looked. The same could be considered when looking at other two or three gene animals. Now once I have added the gene to another in my collection, I can reduce my stock. Provenance is important and so as long as I have photos of the base gene animal, I can show Buyers the potential of the gene. That's just me though.

I find the biggest problem with people who "can't sell X" is because their advertisements don't reach far enough or their opinion on what their animal is worth is different from everybody else. Also as far as online goes you can't expect to sell too many 100 dollar animals when you pay 50% on top of that for shipping.

Only trend I have noticed is higher priced animals are harder in general to sell than lower priced animals. I will sell 20 under 200 dollar animals before I sell a more expensive animal normally. but that is to be expected. Last show I vended at I sold 3 normals before I sold my first morph. I produce spider, pastel, lesser, pinstripes every year, they haven't dropped in popularity from my perspective. Sure the online community might not want them, but people that don't want to invest that much money into the hobby don't seem to have a problem buying them. However I don't produce 20+ of each morph every year either.

Maybe it is because I have produced so many more than other morphs but lesser seems to be one of the best animals to sell, price is affordable and look different enough from the normal to catch peoples eye. I don't go back home with them too often.

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Originally Posted by lunasjy

I have noticed g stripes going down in price. I wonder if it has anything to do with the super stripe?

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My opinion it is a subpar recessive pattern morph. I think any clown combo looks better than the same gstripe combo. Why would i work with gstripe when I can work with clown?