Stupid expensiveness

[Inuyahsakusho]

Why must pied ball pythons cost so much can anyone tell me if they've found anywhere selling them for less than $550 which is the cheapest I've found and still a great deal but i still dont have that kind of money to spend then again i might do it neway since it's about %10 of the average price lol :?

[UberAlice]

Because it takes a long process of breeding, cross-breeding, buying new snakes so the gene line doesn't become inbred, and hundreds of hours of work to produce a single morph snake. You can't just toss a bunch of snakes in together and come back 10 weeks later to a bunch of babies with all sorts of morphs. Most morphs are exorbitantly priced for these same reasons.
I'd be wary of any snake selling for much less than the standard price, even if it were from someone as well-known as Alex Hue.

[Inuyahsakusho]

no i found ones that cost $550 $1,000 $3,000 $5,000 and $10,000

[Inuyahsakusho]

i think i no y it's so cheap now and i'm an idiot lol the ones higher priced are a higher het %age

[UberAlice]

I may be wrong on this, so someone please correct me if I am...but isn't the piebald a recessive gene? That means if something is a het(erozygous), it's not actually pied.
Here's an excellent site on snake genetics that can help make sense of the situation better.
http://www.geocities.com/bait4snake/genetics.html
The higher the het percentage, the more the snake will cost, all the way up to 100% recessive (true pied). Two high-percentage hets bred together can make a pied, but will not always produce one. All depends on the luck of the draw.

[Inuyahsakusho]

http://www.gatewaycityreptiles.com/avail_balls.htm is where i found the super cheap guys u might want to take a look they are pretty nice ones

[Inuyahsakusho]

no i don't think that it says that because unless i missed it it doesnt say what combos will become piebalds and atleast the very first of every morph have to b het

[Inuyahsakusho]

but it's highly possible i'm just confused but even if they tech aren't pieballed they look exactly the same and if they look exactly the same but are often cheaper then y wud ne one be buying piebalds and waste all that money the answer is they wudn't because the main reason people get piebalds is the amazing pattern

[kavmon]

hey all, i'm not an expert, but here my thoughts. pieds are recessive, the hets don't visually show the pied morph. in the ad it looked like a male pied was bred to normal females producing hets. the males were 550.00, you still need the het females to make a pied. those 100% females will cost you 2-3 times the male prices, then you have to raise them and hope for the best at breeding time. as to the price it is all supply and demand. anything not just reptiles is only worth what someone will pay for it. usually as supply increases over the years prices come down. albino balls were 10,000 bucks 10 years ago. now they are 2,500.00 piebalds are cool, maybe one day we can all afford one!


thanks

vaughn

[UberAlice]

Just so you know, I don't think they're selling the three adults on the top row, just the available offspring. And none of the babies appear to be pied.
It kinda bothers me that all of their snakes are shown balled up and on shavings. Shavings generally aren't good substrate, and balling up is a sign of stress.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by your last post. You don't think what says what? In order for a recessive gene to become apparent (like a piebald), two recessive genes must be paired. This is about a 25% chance when breeding two heterozygous snakes.
From the website I sent you:
This means that all the snakes hatched will look normal, but will carry the gene for albinism. This is called being Heterozygous for Albino. Each snake hatched will have a 100% possibility of being Heterozygous for Albino (4/4 = 100%), or 100% Het Albino as is commonly referred to in the pet trade.
By 100% het, they mean the snakes are absolutely, positively 100% Pp genotype: bred with another Pp, they will produce most likely a PP, 2 Pp and a pp (pied) in their group of babies, or around that percentage.