"Fancy ball python"

I'm from Virginia Beach, VA and we have a store here called animal jungle. Although I don't shop there for my snakes or anything else (bad experience with them, as they sold me a very sick ball python that died the next day and I had no idea it was sick.) My girlfriend and I decided to go look around their reptile room and see if we should give them another shot. Not only did I notice every single enclosure had shed, and waste inside but it was just plain filthy in their tanks. I also came across a woman holding a normal bp and a fancy bp. I asked the associate what a fancy bp was and the only answer he could give me was that it was fancy because of the markings. It looked exactly like the normal the woman was holding and was 50 dollars more. Can anyone explain what the neck a "fancy bp" is? Is it even a real thing? Or is it something stores put a label on to try and get more money?

Fancy bp is a name they give to ball pythons at certain pet stores so they can make more money. I used to think they were just normals. But my local petsmart sells "fancy" ball pythons and so far I have seen "fancy" describe mojaves, pastels and even an orange ghost. All seemed relatively healthy too. Just goes to show that you can't judge all box stores based on one observation.

"Fancy" Ball pythons that you see in pet stores are usually just low end, single gene morphs. I used to do ordering at the pet store I worked at and the listing just said "fancy ball pythons", so you never knew what you'd be getting. Sometimes we would get a normal thrown in there too. Although if you want to give BPs another shot I would look into a local breeder rather that the pet store you got your previous one at. :)

If you're in the market register over at VAHerps.com and check out their forums. There are quite a few private breeders in your area who will give you a great deal on a healthy, well-started morph.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

If you're in the market register over at VAHerps.com and check out their forums. There are quite a few private breeders in your area who will give you a great deal on a healthy, well-started morph.

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Thanks a lot buddy! I appreciate it.

I believe they are so called royal pythons [emoji16] don't let them scam you especially petco and pet smart who where I live they sell babies for 89 and LLL reptile sells them for 29

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Originally Posted by Kalua

I believe they are so called royal pythons [emoji16] don't let them scam you especially petco and pet smart who where I live they sell babies for 89 and LLL reptile sells them for 29

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"Royal Python" = "Ball Python"

Not sure why you're upset.

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Originally Posted by Kalua

petco and pet smart who where I live they sell babies for 89 and LLL reptile sells them for 29

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stores like that value hatchlings and juveniles more than adults and charge higher prices because they probably paid 20-30 per animal. a store near me(not petco or petsmart) has 2 BP's one adult and one baby, the adult is $69 and the babdy is $89. LLL charges less because I think (not 100%sure) they have a breeding facility. Jen is often on here from time to time if she see's this, she can confirm or deny that though

Went into my local petsmart the other day for Article Mice and they have a young Pinstripe for $199.00. Seemed a little pricy to me, they had a few normals for $89 as well.

If you go on the petsmart website they advertise the "fancy ball pythons" in store. From what I've seen they are just very overpriced normals or poor quality pastels. The pet store that I got Kaa from had huge normal males and females for $68, yet the baby normals were $110. I don't get it. :confusd:

A baby will live longer. In every sense of buying a pet besides breeding a baby should be worth more then an adult in my opinion but even with other species its sometimes the case. The correlation would be an interesting one to look at to help determine the strength that breeders bring to the BP market though. It would be hard to gather the stats. I'm not saying it would reveal answers just would be interesting. With Chameleons people pay more for an adult because they have full color.
You can go to PETCO's website and they will show you all of the animals that they have the option to sell at their stores. They only offer a limited range of "fancy" ball pythons. They also have Green Tree Pythons and Red Tail Boas. I've been monitoring the petstores in my area for a while now and although a normal BP is priced at 90 dollars they often have sales where you can pick one up from 40-60 dollars. I've seen some pretty decent normals there and have debated asking to pop them in the store. The closest breeder to me will sell me females for about 40 now but they're obviously ones he doesn't want to breed as their usually very dark and don't have any real interesting characteristics.

That is a very interesting observation about them living longer. I would still think that known adult females in Mom and Pop stores would still be more expensive than the babies though, as most of those were given up by people who could no longer care for them and were very healthy from what I observed. But then again, most of them are normal females. The petsmarts near me have had the $49.99 sale on bps for a couple of months now. I don't think I could go through with buying one however, almost all of them are on death's door despite the employees trying their best. They do seem to care about them but they just won't take those f/t.

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Originally Posted by Kalua

I believe they are so called royal pythons [emoji16] don't let them scam you especially petco and pet smart who where I live they sell babies for 89 and LLL reptile sells them for 29

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They may sell them for $29. But then you have to pay for shipping (if you don't live by one) and that's what $60?

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Originally Posted by Montypython696

They may sell them for $29. But then you have to pay for shipping (if you don't live by one) and that's what $60?

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I'm not sure I'm fortunate enough to live between 3 of them haha.

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

"Royal Python" = "Ball Python"

Not sure why you're upset.

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I'm not upset I was just stating that they're also referred to as royal pythons haha.