Oversaturation Of Market

I don't think it is any secret that the Ball Python market is grossly over-saturated. I never thought I'd see the day that a high white pied of any gender would sell for just $200 but those are the moving prices right now.

I was told by another breeder that this sort of thing happens every few years. People get in to it to make money and over produce. Then they get frustrated and quit and those that weather the storm see price go back up.

Is that your experience as well?

But honestly, I am thinking of scaling back my breeding collection greatly. Right now, I am not even making enough to cover the rats. It used to be self sustaining but not anymore.

It happened with everything else, I'm talking about other species. It's supply and demand. It should settle somewhere and go up a bit eventually.

I agree it looks pretty over saturated, the prices some of these animals are going for is pretty staggering. I mean like morph colubrid territory.

Ball pythons are absolutely bred indiscriminately, and as a result, a lot of normal and single gene snakes are going to be produced, driving demand down. Even recessives are being affected, though pieds have been around for almost 20 years I believe, so they were bound to come down in price eventually. That said, I paid $600 for my pied female this summer, after drooling over her for weeks. The seller stuck to her price and she did sell. I feel a lot of people are too anxious to get rid of their babies.

However, I think when all these pretty, cheap snakes start hitting pet stores, the hobby will see a spike in interest and some new blood may help move things along.

I've gotta admit that I greatly scaled back my collection. I've got a friend who also breeds a lot of balls and he didn't put together a single pair this past year. But yeah, it'll pick up again in a few years.

I saw someone listing visual clowns for $200/$300 yesterday.
I wouldnt have believed it.

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

I saw someone listing visual clowns for $200/$300 yesterday.
I wouldnt have believed it.

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I don't know if people remember there was a point they were not a popular sought after morph at all and the Barkers themselves were listing them for $350-400, I'm sure of it...and this was years and years ago. So I guess they are really an example of there and back again, but now they are just over popular...maybe...lol

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Originally Posted by MarkS

I've gotta admit that I greatly scaled back my collection. I've got a friend who also breeds a lot of balls and he didn't put together a single pair this past year. But yeah, it'll pick up again in a few years.

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Interesting that you and your friend have cut back. I know very few others who have. Most people complain about the overproduction and cratering prices, and in the next breath they state that they're going to be pairing more females this season than last season.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Interesting that you and your friend have cut back. I know very few others who have. Most people complain about the overproduction and cratering prices, and in the next breath they state that they're going to be pairing more females this season than last season.

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And those are the people who will get frustrated that they're making even less next year and get out of ball pythons entirely the following year. I figure It'll be a buyers market for the next few years and we'll all be able to pick up some really nice animals for dirt cheap

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Originally Posted by MarkS

I've gotta admit that I greatly scaled back my collection. I've got a friend who also breeds a lot of balls and he didn't put together a single pair this past year. But yeah, it'll pick up again in a few years.

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For years I have produced 100 plus clutches a year...I produced less than 10 clutches this year...

Prices won't come back up on an animal once they drop. Prices may fluctuate a bit...Clowns,Pieds, Bananas (and others) are never going to command thousands of dollars again.

I don't know why, but almost everyone wants to become a "hobby breeder" on the second day of owning their first BP. I don't know how many threads i've seen that start with "not sure what im doing but want to breed!" (that was sarcasm but i'm not that far off).
I personally don't understand it.

Surprisingly, it's encouraged and welcomef by many veteran members on here. Im not saying shoot people's dreams down, but maybe tell them the reality of breeding instead of suggesing them to buy four females and one male.

I know that the number of these people is very small and that it probably won't make a difference, but it's a start in the right direction.

It definitely seems to be a reptile thing... You don't see people getting a dog or cat and spring up a breeding operation the next week. Ofcorse it's a lot easier to get a rack and cram as many animals in there as possible. Lol...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by coldbloodaddict

Prices won't come back up on an animal once they drop. Prices may fluctuate a bit...Clowns,Pieds, Bananas (and others) are never going to command thousands of dollars again.

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Granted, I agree that most morphs will never again be thousands of dollars, but they will come up somewhat and I suspect that they will stabilize around a few hundred dollars each for most morphs. But I also predict that prices will drop even further then they are now, I think next season we'll see some truly ridiculous prices and fire sales with people dumping whole collections. But I suspect that prices will go back up again after that but not to thousands of dollars.

I don't know why people think prices will stay the same without illegal price fixing.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Misha

I don't know why, but almost everyone wants to become a "hobby breeder" on the second day of owning their first BP. I don't know how many threads i've seen that start with "not sure what im doing but want to breed!" I personally don't understand it.

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I think I can offer one possible scenario, since it is mine. I have always loved snakes and so the first time my daughter and I visited Repticon, we saw all of these wonderful looking ball pythons. Unfortunately many were priced completely out of our reach, or at least more than I could justify paying for a snake. (I believe this may be true for many ordinary folks.) Then as you walk around you start talking to the various breeders and one explains that a "Yellowbelly isn't vary expensive, but if you breed two together, you can produce an Ivory." At that time Ivories were going for about $800 or more. Yellowbellies were running around $125 to $200. So it was the idea that we could get two affordable snakes, grow them up, and breed for the snake we hoped to obtain, but couldn't justify buying at the current price. Not only that but it was a project my daughter and I could share, so that was cool too. Now the kicker, my daughter will actually be breeding the pair for an Ivory this year because she bought the male the first year and the female the second year and it has taken almost four years to get them to this point. Ivories are pretty inexpensive now but she still wants to produce one because that was the initial goal. As for me, I am just hooked into it because of the possibility of producing something I want to make. It's never been about the sales. All I ever hoped for is that the production would support the hobby eventually. I'm not sure that's the case anymore, but it isn't discouraging me yet.

Now that may not be everybody else's reason for being a Hobby Breeder, but that's how we started. And I still see the breeders at the show out their pitching the wares and explaining how someone can breed X to Y and get Z. Let's face it, that is how they make a sale and that is what they are there to do. However, every sale they make using that tactic and results in another person being a hobby breeder, almost ensures that their product will be worth less in the future.

I'm anxiously waiting to be able to get an Axanthic male. Why? Because I love Axanthics! Will I breed her to my fire het hypo? Certainly not for at least 4-5 years cuz they have to grow up. I also am scared to put my beautiful girl at risk. So like I do in horses I will probably buy whatever morph I want in the future. Cheaper, a lot easier, less risk to my pet snakes! I can see the allure of breeding but I'm going to leave it to you big guys. I failed my genetics class in college and still can't get my head around it lol. I just wish more "hobby" breeders would think the same. Already too many unwanted pets of all species out there just spend a while on CL.


Molly & Steve
0.1 normal BP 'Precioucess'
0.1 BCI 'Luna'

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

I don't know why people think prices will stay the same without illegal price fixing.

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Agreed....just like anything else, the newest hotness thing will cost more, driving "last years" model's price down

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Originally Posted by Rob

Agreed....just like anything else, the newest hotness thing will cost more, driving "last years" model's price down

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Also add in unlike most consumer goods, these animals can reproduce. Imagine buying two iPads and making multiple iPad minis (haha, get it?) , every year. Apple couldn't control the price anymore and prices would undoubtedly come down.

Here's what I think.

Yes supply & demand are a huge factor when it comes to prices. But I think the bigger issue is people trying to undercut everyone else. For example: Seller A has XYZ for $500 and is selling them quite well. Here comes seller B with the same XYZ's and wants to sell faster than seller A, so they drop their price to $450. Noooow here comes seller C and says "hey I have XYZ, how can I outsell A & B? I'll just sell them for $400. So now it's become a back and forth battle of who can sell what faster.

Now to backtrack on the supply & demand topic. Yes that plays a huge role in the price of the animals, but not as much as we may think. Why do we (breeder's) & normal pet owners buy these morphs? Because of their looks. So as long as they can afford it, is someone NOT going to buy, let's say a Banana, because many people have it? Honestly I would buy a Banana for $50 or $5,000 and not care how many are out there. I own and breed the snakes that I visually like. Taking that into consideration, if 95% of breeders, no matter how big or small they are, maintained their prices at a certain price point, consumers would make purchases no matter how large of a supply there is, considering they could afford it.

This would slow down the drastic price drops considerably. Granted I know price drops are inevitable and I accept that with arms wide open because I want for people like myself to be able to afford these beautiful morphs. But what really gets to me is what I invest a ton of money in an animal and then these "market crashers" crap on the price on the animal and now I'm out A LOOOT more than I wanted to be. Don't get me wrong, I don't plan on becoming a ball python breeding millionaire. I don't plan on this being my main cash cow. But if I can, at the very least, pay back what I invested, then I'm pretty happy.

I also feel that many of us need to go back to our roots and remember why we started this. We didn't get into this "hobby" to reproduce a thousand Bamboo's. We got in this hobby because making these combos was the coolest thing we could do. So if you want to blame supply and demand for these price drops, it's not because there are a million breeder's. It's because there a bunch of breeder's targeting the high end stuff and then whoring them out. I can only think of a handful of breeder's who own some of these "higher end" morphs and limitedly breed them so as to not over produce. And that my friends is a breeder I can appreciate.


Sorry for the rant, and sorry if my thoughts are all over the place. I'm at work and my mind is racing.

If you just keep what you truly enjoy or appreciate and don't pay attention to the market prices- then you don't even notice the saturation of the market! Personally, I don't mind seeing lower prices on beautiful morphs, that only encourages new hobbyists to start keeping ball pythons and allows those of us that have been drooling over some combos to afford them!

I am curious if any sellers are running into people looking for prices that they have seen on auctions. I don't have problems with auctions it's simply that I have seen snakes constantly go for like 40-60% off of going market value.

IMO it would be important for sellers to explain to buyers that are trying to use auction prices and advise them that they might want to try waiting for that particular exact morph snake, in the sex they require to come up for auction again and hope they get the same great deal they saw. See how that works out for them

Breed what you love be mindful of the market and you'll be ok. Every year we adjust to what was saturated the year before. Pay attention to what's out there already don't over produce babies you are not prepared to keep for yourself.

When it comes to prices if china opens up prices will go up. Til then prices will continue to go down every year.

Price will always go down anyone remembers price from 2005? Over-saturation, price going down it's inevitable.

Because the market constantly evolve so should you, if you want to keep selling you will need to keep upgrading your collection and invest back in it year after year, if you keep pairing low end single or double gene male to normal females you will lose money that's a guarantee.

If you want to make money you need to treat it like something that makes money.

Invest in quality animals, upgrade your collection, selectively breed, chose your project wisely, watch the market.

If this is accurate there are animals that you should move and replace so you can start to at least break even again, because those when it comes to pairing are not gonna yield the best return.

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1.0 Albino (Inuyasha), 0.1 Albino Pewter (Daisy)
1.0 Fire (Zuko) 1.0 Lesser (Hershey)
0.1 Kingpin (Cocoa), 0.1 Pastel (Sango)
0.1 Pewter (Lily), 0.1 Pinstripe (Kagome)
1.0 Spider (Jacob AKA Jake)
1.0 Super Pastel (Koga)
0.1 YB Enchy,
0.1 100% Het Albino (Kikiyo)
1.0 100% Het Pied (Taiyo)
0.9 Normals-females (Chloe, Sammy, Ziva, Ayame, Kirara, Rin, Blaire, Natalie, & Charlotte)

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Accdentally posted on wife's account.

For the record, I am not talking about price drops of new animals. That is just the nature of the beast with new morphs. I am referring to already established morphs that had established market value that only fluctuate about 10-20%.

Even 2 and 3 genes animals are selling only a couple hundred bucks. I supposed it's good for the buyer in me. Seeing a high white pied for $200 seems a steal for me. They've run $500-800 for years.

Heck, I never thought I'd see a pied for sale at my petsmart but sure enough its happened. It's great to see more affordable animals but it makes me a little sad inside lol

Everything is linked over saturation is linked to priced dropped

Price drop = people being able to afford certain animals = more people producing said animal

This is why as the market evolve you need to learn to evolve as well.

I would think that it's now, more than ever, going to be important to consider the other qualities of the snakes we are buying besides their visual morph potential. The genes that cause BP's to exhibit morphs are only the few out of the very, VERY many genes that combine to create the animal... With so many of the fancy morphs being produced left and right, it's prudent to consider the other genetic traits of the snake.

I'd rather have a line of one-gene BP's that had genetic tendencies toward stable temperaments, reliable feeding, and overall health, than a whole rack full of cool morphs produced just for the sake of being morphs.

Welcome to economics

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

I think I can offer one possible scenario, since it is mine. I have always loved snakes and so the first time my daughter and I visited Repticon, we saw all of these wonderful looking ball pythons. Unfortunately many were priced completely out of our reach, or at least more than I could justify paying for a snake. (I believe this may be true for many ordinary folks.) Then as you walk around you start talking to the various breeders and one explains that a "Yellowbelly isn't vary expensive, but if you breed two together, you can produce an Ivory." At that time Ivories were going for about $800 or more. Yellowbellies were running around $125 to $200. So it was the idea that we could get two affordable snakes, grow them up, and breed for the snake we hoped to obtain, but couldn't justify buying at the current price. Not only that but it was a project my daughter and I could share, so that was cool too. Now the kicker, my daughter will actually be breeding the pair for an Ivory this year because she bought the male the first year and the female the second year and it has taken almost four years to get them to this point. Ivories are pretty inexpensive now but she still wants to produce one because that was the initial goal. As for me, I am just hooked into it because of the possibility of producing something I want to make. It's never been about the sales. All I ever hoped for is that the production would support the hobby eventually. I'm not sure that's the case anymore, but it isn't discouraging me yet.

Now that may not be everybody else's reason for being a Hobby Breeder, but that's how we started. And I still see the breeders at the show out their pitching the wares and explaining how someone can breed X to Y and get Z. Let's face it, that is how they make a sale and that is what they are there to do. However, every sale they make using that tactic and results in another person being a hobby breeder, almost ensures that their product will be worth less in the future.

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This, a thousand times and more.

There are so many morphs I love, that I will NEVER buy because of the price. Once those prices drop, it opens up the market for people like me who really are not interested in making a business out of it, but simply want cool looking pets that are easy to care for. Really... there's no way on this good earth i can justify spending $5,000 or more on a SNAKE when my mortgage costs just over $600, when I can buy 5 horses for that same cost, or feed my two horses for 2 years for that same cost. For people who just want a pet, that is not a reasonable price. Keeping morphs, any morph, at that price, your primary market is going to be to other breeders, and what are other breeders doing? Producing more animals. When you have a very very limited market, and everyone buying those animals are breeding them (at any volume), who long can you keep the price high before YOUR market is over saturated? But once you start dropping those prices, you are opening up a whole new market, a market that isn't restricted just to business breeders in it for making money, but to simple keepers who just like the look of the animal and want a cool looking pet.

I buy the animals I like, whether they are a single gene morph, or heck even a normal, or a 10 gene morph, as long as it is within my affordable price range. I would consider myself a "hobby breeder", and by that I'm not in it to make money, I'm not in it to pump out as many animals as I possible can to make back my investment, I am basically in it for the reason stated in the above quote: To make the cool morphs I like that I cannot justify paying the cost for. Yeah, I'm spending more money feeding the animals I bought to make that morph, and then gambling with the odds to even get the morph I want, but there's more enjoyment for me doing that, and using the animals for education purposes while I wait to breed them, than there is in dropping $5K or more on a single animal. And the rest of the babies in the clutch that I decide not to keep, if I can sell them and pay to feed my snakes, that's great, I'm happy. It isn't about making money, it is about enjoying the animals in my possession.

Now that being said, I'm also looking at more than just looks. I want friendly, easy to handle animals that DO make good education pets. That's my personal justification for keeping what is, basically, a wild animal. (Not starting a discussion about domestic vs wild pets... totally different topic and not the point here.) And to be a good education pet, the animal needs to be calm, tame, easy to manage, not skittish, and feeds well. I bought a couple snakes with the intent of later breeding them to make certain morphs I liked. Now, 2 years down the line, I'm probably NOT going to breed them because their temperaments are not what I want or their colors aren't as nice as I had hoped. I may be a "hobby breeder" breeding for fun, but that doesn't mean I'm breeding indiscriminately. For example, I bought a pair of axanthics a couple years back, as well as a pair of hypos, hoping to be able to produce hypo axanthic ("true ghost") later on. Now I'm thinking about selling one of the axanthics, because she just doesn't have as nice a temperament as I would like, and her coloring has turned dark and muddy - not what I want to breed more of. I'm questioning using one of the hypos too (unfortunately also a female...), but time will tell. In the mean time, I bred one clutch this year, a specter x citrus yellowbelly cross, hoping for some super stripes (or ideally pastel super stripe). Didn't get my super stripe. I DID get a VERY nice citrus pastel yellowbelly, and though I hadn't planned to keep that morph if I produced it, I might just keep this one because she is so beautifully colored (I mean really, superb, even in my novice opinion - she was so nicely colored I almost wasn't sure she was what I thought she was and had to get confirmation from some more knowledgeable hobbyists), and so far she's an EXCELLENT feeder. Hasn't skipped a meal yet, just pounds them down like there's no tomorrow. And she's got a pretty good temperament so far, hasn't threatened to nip once, not defensive, just a tad shy, but nothing unusual for a new baby. I might also keep her specter sister - although I'm not a fan of specter, this one I think is beautiful, and she too is a good eater, though on the smaller side compared to her sister. She's a little more shy and defensive, but not overly so, and hasn't yet threatened to nip. I suspect handling and age will change that around.

So all that said, I don't see the price drops as a bad thing. If I were one of the big time breeders spending tens of thousands of dollars on single animals, then I might. My perspective is very different. I see the lower prices as opening the market to a whole new set of people - those people who just want to keep pets and not breed.