Is it me??

Or are there more people than usual getting out of breeding?
Sometimes it reminds me or makes me feel like the kid late to the baseball game.
Just venting really.....

Don't know what the hard figures are - or even how someone might get an idea (maybe data from classifides?)
The economy might have something to do with it.

It seems like that. I've seen a lot of people selling off their collections. Even hatchlings are dropping in price.

I missed on a super mojave male hatchling for 200 plus 50 for shipping.

It's nothing new and usually those are the no name that though they would make some quick cash fast......does not really work that way especially since usually those people don't even have a plan.

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I think Deb hit the nail on the head. We're seeing an outflux of breeders now because we saw a huge influx of breeders earlier when morphs started popping up like mad and commanding high dollars. A bunch of people jumped in without looking and are now regretting it. I feel this is probably a good thing for the future of the hobby. Prices and quality should both stabilize after the glut of money seekers siphons off and leaves the people who are just really dedicated and passionate about the animals.

Several I'm my area that have been in it a while (over a decade) are clearing out their collections.

Isn't this just like anything? Unless you have an actual individual product (say Apple brand as an example) then the market eventually runs out...

Imagine making £10,000 a month... Then a influx in the market means making £3000 a month, but your expecting £10,000 so have all the equipment for £10,000 - you will be making a loss.

As its easy to see the markets crowded, people are upping and moving on fast. Make a quick buck on what they have and then not need to worry about. For me breeding should be a hobby. (personal feeling) because you love the snakes and it would be cool to make something else new!

From my little view of things, having only been at this oh, less then 3 years, seems to be a lot of what deb said and a little of what Pitt said, maybe more. I've seen a lot of small collections getting sold, and I know one guy who's been in for like over ten years who is selling his collection. And he makes his living breeding. He's not getting out of breeding all together, but is getting out of balls. It's market saturation, so many breeding, and so many shows with nothing but balls on the tables, with the odd colubrid or lizard. Plus with literally thousands of morphs and combos, I think a lot are getting the "its just another ball" attitude no matter what it looks like. Now I'm not planning on getting out, but this is kind of what over been seeing.

By me there is a ton of over saturation. The last expo I went to had morphs well, meh morphs. Granted, the best specimens were bought and sold before the door opened to other vendors, that's a given. But what was left were all the same few morphs. I think I saw one tokay gecko, a few dart frogs, and a table or two of corns.

Where are are the other species? Everyone is selling balls, and having to drop prices down and down until you might as well be in wonderland. That's why imo people who don't love the balls and love the breeding drop out.

I got quite a few reptiles from people jumping ship.

The bel I missed out on was from a big name breeder. I think hes making room for this year's hatchlings. Breeders don't won't people to think the markets changing, because that affects them, and their bottom line. Anyone that says it's not is lying to themselves. All markets change.

Good riddance I say. People who were in it for the hobby are still keeping and breeding snakes and those that were in it for the money are moving on to the next big thing, whatever they may think that is. Before the ball python boom you used to see a lot more diversity and I think I'm starting to see that again. Shows that I've been to that used to be set up like ball python, ball python, ball python, boa, boa, ball python, are now more diverse. I seems to me like I've started seeing more colubrids, geckos, frogs and some of your less common pythons. Personally I think that's a good thing.

I'm scaling back this year due to time constraints (new job and the home business is growing) but I'm not getting out. I'm not selling off the adult breeders though, just won't be pairing more than a handful.

I'm also interested in working with other species as they start maturing over the next year or so, and I only have so much space available for hatchling racks.

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Originally Posted by Yodawagon

The bel I missed out on was from a big name breeder. I think hes making room for this year's hatchlings. Breeders don't won't people to think the markets changing, because that affects them, and their bottom line. Anyone that says it's not is lying to themselves. All markets change.

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The market is always evolving that's the nature of the beast no one will contradict that, however it is the inability of some to adjust, re-insvest , have a plan and be truly passionate that cause their downfall. The reason we see more of that now is that with price drop more people can afford single, double, triple genes animals but because they can afford it does not mean they can take it to the next level.

When I started all I could afford were a few normal, 1 Spider, 1 Pastel, 1 Black Pastel and a pair of Het Pied and I still made it and built my collection to where it is now.

I have said it many times it depends on your goals but most importantly on your plan and passion for it.

The fact that people are getting out is not a bad thing at all.

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I don't imagine too many folks who have been monetarily successful at it are getting out. Maybe a lot who've only managed to meet Deborah's first baby step of a business; make enough to feed the collection. The market is saturated and there's not enough profit for everyone with a couple of BPs. And it's a tough sell for the new guy with no rep. Of course the price drops have a lot to do with it. Plenty of people dropping a couple $K on the latest hottest morph thinking the offspring would sell for the same 2 or 3 years down the road. Had they done their research, they would've known that is the price point at which a morph is about explode (especially dom/codom) and prices are about to go into a tailspin.

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Originally Posted by DennisM

I don't imagine too many folks who have been monetarily successful at it are getting out. Maybe a lot who've only managed to meet Deborah's first baby step of a business; make enough to feed the collection. The market is saturated and there's not enough profit for everyone with a couple of BPs. And it's a tough sell for the new guy with no rep. Of course the price drops have a lot to do with it. Plenty of people dropping a couple $K on the latest hottest morph thinking the offspring would sell for the same 2 or 3 years down the road. Had they done their research, they would've known that is the price point at which a morph is about explode (especially dom/codom) and prices are about to go into a tailspin.

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Main reason I'm holding off on adding in a bamboo kid rn even though I really want to work with the gene. Lots of single gene kids going for $1k. In a year or 2 I'll probably grab a 2 or 3 gene animal for the same price.

I've only been learning about the BP world for the past 6 months, and been an owner about three months... I'm still very green... but I have seen more "selling off my collection" posts on the popular classified sites than I have seen or heard of people starting up a breeding business.

I'm sure there are pros and cons to there being more breeders and/or less breeders. I mean, as a buyer, it's nice to be able to have a larger selection to choose from, but then I'm sure when the supply exceeds the demand, the prices can fall. If anything though, I'd say the more breeders getting out of the business is definitely a good thing for those of you still doing it. I mean, a slew of morphs, and a slew of breeders going to all sorts of shows and popping up on all sorts of Facebook pages, etc... that's really a lot of advertising for BP morphs. Now, those people that saw "that one cool snake" that they "just have to have" are going to come looking for it... and searching the internet for it. If the little breeder in their town is no longer around, guess what, they're going to find you all.

I hope to breed snakes one day, but just for the hobby of reproducing a clutch of snakes. Nothing more. To those of you who are able to make a business or at least maybe pay for some of your feeders and supplies... I commend you, and thank you. Without you, very few of us would be here. :)

I fall into the hobby breeder category. While I make a decent little chunk of change from my small collection, I am in no way shape or form motivated to increase in size. I'm right at that point where if I expanded, things would become less relaxing and more like work in my eyes. This also means that when I want to add to a project, or even start with a new species, something else has to move out. I've had reptiles since I was a child and will until the day I die. That said, interests within the hobby shift - plain and simple. If you keep reptiles for 10, 20, 30 years you will probably go through a rather diverse hodgepodge of species. I have always been motivated to work with a wide variety and, since I want to keep it relaxing and laid back with my personal collection, this means sometimes selling off an entire species to someone more interested in them at the time.

Question for those of you who have been breeding for years: What percentage of your sales would you estimate have come from buyers who wanted the animal for a breeding project, and what percentage were from buyers who just wanted a pet?

Looking in from the outside, I have noticed that the BP market looks a bit like a ponzi scheme. So, while the exit of the less committed breeders may seem like a good thing, as they were saturating the market, on the other hand, they were also driving much of the market.

Not sure what will happen. Assuming that there IS an ongoing shake-out, then the future of the market depends on what those percentages have been.

I don't know what everyone else experiences are, but there's a video on Markus Jayne's youtube channel and he claims that while selling the thousand and up animals is nice, the bulk of his profit that keeps his business running are the $100-$500 morphs. Your pieds, enchies, fires, the classics that everyone recognizes and wants even if they've been around for ages. To me that suggests there is still very much a large pet market of people who want a cool looking animal but aren't willing to invest thousands of dollars into it.

Things go in cycles and there's always people who bought up a bunch of animals intending to be a "big shot" breeder in one year. they usually don't last very long because most of them don't have a clear plan, they don't have the passion for the animals and when they keep seeing higher priced morphs they DON'T have and their own animals going for less than what they bought the originals for(market always does this), then they get discouraged and leave(sell the collection).

People also grow out of the hobby, losing interest. Or perhaps they lose the passion as they did the parts they wanted and now aren't as excited. Or maybe their life has changed and a new family, career move, etc has made keeping the collection too much work. There's a million reasons.

Even if you've been in it for a decade, things change.

And for the one that said he doesn't see people starting a breeding collection business... most don't. Most people get a few snakes, and then want to make something cool and get a few more to do that... then they realize they could get this combo so just add another two snakes...annn suddenly they're breeding and selling cool animals.

Frankly, I've only known a few people who deliberately went into buying animals in order to start a business/breeding as a business. None of them lasted more than 2 years total. Which IMO was a good thing.