Rare morps and their worth

[LittleTreeGuy]

I have a question mainly directed at the long-term breeders and keepers who have been in the business or world of Ball Pythons for the past 5, 10, 20 years... or longer. I'll try to explain my question the best that I can. I've only been in the snake/reptile/bp world less than a year, so forgive my ignorance if I'm overlooking something obvious.

My question is in regard to some rare morphs I've seen and their costs. Two I can think of off the top of my head are the Axanthic Piebald - Vpi Line, and the Urban Camo's that Osbourne Reptile offers on their site. I've both of these morphs for sale in the thousands of dollars. I'm not discrediting their worth at all. My question is, what if nobody buys these animals at that price, what happens next?

If you breed an animal you feel is worth let's say $1000, and price it for sale at that amount. Maybe you keep it for a few years and nobody buys it. Do you give up with that project? Do you use it to make more? Do you breed it with something else to see what happens? Do you lower your asking price? if you have 100 people say "I'd give you $500" for it, do you try to breed more and then sell them at $500/each?

I know that the more there are, generally, the price goes down. Just in the past year, I've seen the crazy growth in banana/coral glow morphs. The price of a banana has dropped a tad since I started looking at BP's around a year ago, but not a whole lot. I've read where some morphs maybe sold in the thousands 5 years ago and are $500 now. Is this just how the snake market works? Something fancy comes along and is a high-dollar item... but over time more and more of them are available so when supply is greater than demand, prices drop?

One of the reasons I ask is this, I think the two above mentioned morphs are absolutely amazing. I'd hate to see those morphs be bred out of existence because people couldn't afford them or just didn't breed them. Has that ever happened to a morph? I guess there is just a lot in the business that I don't understand. Thanks for reading, and if you have anything to add, I greatly appreciate it.

[Willowy]

I'm not a BP breeder or even really into the herp world. But as a general business rule. . .you lower the price until you find the price people ARE willing to pay. Let's say you make furniture and make a nice hutch and list it for $5000. Maybe people don't think your furniture is worth $5000, or you've priced yourself out of the local market, so nobody buys it. So you offer it for $4000. . .and so on until you find a buyer. If that price doesn't cover your time and expenses, maybe you stop producing, or maybe it's your stress-relieving hobby so you don't care about that, but if it does cover your expenses there's no reason to stop producing just because you didn't make a huge profit.

As for BPs specifically, as I see it, it doesn't cost any more to produce different morphs (besides the initial price of the parent snakes), so I don't see any reason for someone to stop breeding their favorite morph just because prices go down. Unless they get out of breeding altogether for financial reasons.

ETA: those are 2 of my favorite morphs too, so I'm kind of hoping the prices come down eventually .

[Coluber42]

This is pure idle speculation on my part, but I sometimes wonder with the extremely high prices of some morphs, whether the price more reflects the breeder's willingness to sell an animal, or drum up interest and future sales. They are mostly planning on holding the fancy snake back, but would be willing to sell if someone really wanted it for $$$$. In the meantime, it's listed on the website for $5000, attracting interest and creating a perception that it's the hot new desirable thing and worth a high price. And then later when there are a few more of them out there, people will happily fork over $800 for its babies and feel like they're getting a bargain.

I have a hard time imagining that a gene would die out and disappear because it was too expensive to get popular, unless it was also prohibitively expensive to work with. And the only ways I can think of for that to be the case would be that most of the babies died or all required extensive/expensive intervention of some sort, etc, in which case the gene probably deserves to die out anyway.

[bcr229]

But as a general business rule. . .you lower the price until you find the price people ARE willing to pay.

This. Sellers do not set prices, buyers do.

I could price a male normal het normal for $1000 but that doesn't mean he's worth $1000.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I guess I will answer the question plus give you some more insight based on my experience over the last decade (again I do not do this for a living but I went from being in the red to having a collection paying for itself to making a profit.

The economics of the snake industry are very simple it’s about supply and demand.

New mutations will always commend higher prices (also not has high as a decade or 2 ago when price were very inflated IMO) but the will commend higher price that will than drop as more animals hit the market. That being said some will maintain their value longer than other and those are recessive projects.

I always smile when people mention the price drop of the CG / Banana, that mutation has not drop any faster than other in the contrary it has held it’s value better than pinstripe or spider, people just don’t realize that because they have not been in this industry long enough. Banana and CG are not new back in 2007 Dave Matuzac had some in Daytona for 60K. They actually held their value better than other co-dom or dom mutation because of the Male maker, female Maker thing (at first there were mainly females on the market which meant the lack of ability to mass produce them like other mutations hence lower supply hence a value that maintain itself better)

Because of the economics of BP anyone wanting to do this without losing money must keep upgrading their collection and re-investing each year, if you don’t you will soon be left with animals that do not sale or take a long time of course you must also have a venue and a solid plan.

As far as pricing if you price your animals fairly (that requires knowing the market) they will sell and you will get your asking price or be within 10% of it if you are patient. While patience is key of course marketing, customer service, reputation will also play into getting your asking price.

Now economically is it worth it as a breeder to keep normal or low end co-dom around? No economically it makes because the reality of it is that by year’s end if not sold you will without a doubt lose money.

Now because price drop does not mean that projects will be abandoned and mutations will disappear from the market, in the contrary they now become more affordable for a larger amount snake enthusiasts that could not buy the snake of their dream 2, 5 or 10 years ago. Those mutations now enter a different market from breeding project to being pets, but they will still be there and still sell.

[PitOnTheProwl]

There is also the question of: What is my time worth?
In the automotive field you pay me for what I know, not for what I do. LoL

That being said, I want to know why people try to cram the most genes they can into an ugly animal?

[distaff]

Morphs/breeds/forms dying out, or very nearly so, has happened in fancy gold fish. I know of a few instances:

The Watoni had to be re-created. The original cross was known, but modern breeders had to painstakingly cull over multiple generations to get the fish back to what we think it was. The Tosakin was rescued from six fish in a single aquarium. Two more examples, are the Philadelphia veil tail. and the blue veil tail type fish from japan with an egg shaped body. I can't remember if these two were entirely lost, or if a small remnant of each survived. All these examples were beautiful, and were well established in the hobby previously.

You will also find this issue is very much of a concern in heritage livestock; look up The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and The Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities.

Yes, beautiful, viable, and even uniquely useful/adapted varieties can and do die out.

[stickyalvinroll]

Not worth much when the market is dying

[PitOnTheProwl]

Not worth much when the market is dying

Says who? Moved all the hatchlings this year
Though I do have animals listed that don't matter if I sell them or not.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Not worth much when the market is dying

Right funny though the market has been dying for a decade, yet some people that were here a decade ago are still here.

The issue is the lack of planning, the inability for people to take their collection further, the lack of marketing and business skills.

Those people are better off keeping pet and stop complaining the market is dying.

I am sold out and this season I already have sold some animals that hatched and that I have not even advertised.

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