Pastels?

[ssscales]

I've been thinking about purchasing a Pastel BP for about 1.5 years now. I'm mainly into Boas, but have to admit I'm interested in BP's, don't tell anyone!

My 1st experience with a boid (a long long time ago) was actually a BP I bought from a Pet shop as a kid, which I'm 100% sure it was WC back in those days. That snake never ate and after a few months, just croked one day... I haven't owned a BP since!

Since those days I've kept and bred lots of Colubrids, quite a few Boas, and some Jungle carpet Pythons. These days I mainly focus on Boas, but every now and then I peak in the BP world and see what's going on. It's amazing what the BP's have become today, I remember when they were considered starter snakes and really a stepping stone for other boids such as Burms and Boas.

Anyways,

As I mentioned up above, I've been juggling around the idea of purchasing a Pastel BP and have noticed the prices drop considerably in the last 6 months. Are they going to continue to drop in price? Would it be best to wait? Should I get a normal BP and perfect my husbandry for BP's before plunking down a few hundred on any morph?


Thanks

[elevatethis]

I'm no expert on the morph market, but you could really equate it to a lot of other things. The price is determined by the supply and demand for them. We notice that there's a lot more pastels being produced out there, but there's also a LOT more people who are getting into this and wanting to buy them. If both the demand and supply curve move at about the same rate, in theory, the price wouldn't change that much.

[ssscales]

As for the drop in price, I guess your saying the supply is higher than the demand for Pastels at this time? Naturally, with a co-dom it's only a matter of time before supply catches up with the demand.

But, a deciding factor for price is still tied to quality, bloodline, color, pattern, breeder, etc, etc. I've seen Pastel BP's drop from an average $1100-$1200 to as low as $500 in some classifieds, with the average price being $700-$800 for males that is.

With that said, are they going to continue to drop in price? Would it be best to wait for a Pastel? Should I get a normal BP and perfect my husbandry for BP's before plunking down a few hundred on any morph?

[Adam_Wysocki]

As for the drop in price, I guess your saying the supply is higher than the demand for Pastels at this time? Naturally, with a co-dom it's only a matter of time before supply catches up with the demand.

But, a deciding factor for price is still tied to quality, bloodline, color, pattern, breeder, etc, etc. I've seen Pastel BP's drop from an average $1100-$1200 to as low as $500 in some classifieds, with the average price being $700-$800 for males that is.

With that said, are they going to continue to drop in price? Would it be best to wait for a Pastel? Should I get a normal BP and perfect my husbandry for BP's before plunking down a few hundred on any morph?

I just posted this http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...569#post319569 in another thread, it might help a little bit.

As far as pastel prices, they are all over the board this year .... panic selling mostly ... some guy produces pastels and sees that everyone else has as well so instead of focusing on getting some size on his animals and marketing himself, he decides to dump ... nothing you can do to stop it .... This year I actually raised my prices on pastels ... sold out last year at around $850 each give or take so this year my prices went up ... I feel that I have higher quality and better looking animals than 95% of the yokels out there so I charged for it ... and I sold everything that I have advertised for sale so far at between $900 - $1500 for males. The buyers are out there, you just have to go after them ... they certainly aren't going to throw money at you while you walk down the street .... and if the guy with the $500 pastels get's to them first, then you're going to lose that sale.

As for waiting ... you could play that game forever ... each year prices come down slightly ... so if you wait this year, what do you tell yourself next year? Just one more year? .... Last year I purposely didn't produce a ton of pastels because I was buying into the whole "the pastel market is going to crash" garbage ... well guess what? ... It didn't crash, not 2 years ago, not last year, not this year either ... and with my limited pastel inventory, I lost money .... Won't happen this year though .... The pastel market is STRONG ... it's an awesome, affordable entry morph for people just starting out and as long as you can get some females to breed your male to, you will make money.

Keep the long term picture in mind too ... sooner or later, pastel prices will come down and your experience breeding and raising ball python will go up, and you'll wish you were producing higher dollar stuff. It takes a long time to raise up females and as I pointed out in my other "investment" post, super pastels are going to be hot for a long time to come .... Always be looking forward and you'll do fine with your investment for many many years no matter when you get in.

-adam

[ssscales]

Thanks for the info,

I just read another post you made stating "as prices go down, all it really does is make morphs available to more and more people that can now afford them at lower price points. More customers is a good thing!".

You also stated "once quality super pastels hit the $1,000 - $2,000 price range, no one will be able to make enough of them!".

It's really about where you want to position yourself and at what tier of the pyramid you want to play at. I would just like to get my feet wet in BP's, I would love to produce some Supers and Albinos along with Spiders and Bumblebees. These are morphs I would like to own and work with in the future, whether at $10K, $1K or $100 a pop.

My experience in BP's is limited, and I'm not willing to risk much without having some BP experience under my belt.

[elevatethis]

Here's my take on the whole ball python morph market- the point of view of a business admin major with economic classes fresh in my head. As far as I'm concerned, the ball pythons morph market right now is mainly a breeders market. Ball python morphs have really only been around for what, 10-15 years? This is only the beginning. People are buying these animals as an investment. The more people who get involved in this will continue to keep prices up, and once those people begin producing those animals in large enough numbers to bring the price down, it comes to a point where additional possible customers would say, "I love how that animal looks and even though i don't plan on breeding it, I think it's worth the price tag. There are WAYYYY more people out there like that than those people like us who don't mind unloading a couple grand on an investment animal that will give us a much higher return. So its like Adam said, when prices come down low enough to be grasped by the average joe, the total number of customers will increase exponentially, driving the demand. In this environment, relative prices can only get but so low.

With this in mind- if you plan on breeding for the sole purpose of making a return, choose the morphs you get into wisely. If a certain morph lowers in price so that the average person can afford it, will you be able to produce such a quantity to make a return on your initial investment? I don't see that happening with any ball pythons morphs right now (for example the pastel market remaining strong), but it is a reality that is inevitable as more and more people begin producing them. The smart people are going to be those that position themselves ahead of the curve, producing a quantity of lower priced animals to sell at higher volumes, and using that return to have a hand in the "next" big thing.

[frankykeno]

Just my .02 cents (very likely worth about that as an admittedly inexperienced person with regards to the ball python market and breeding for that market LOL) but my thoughts are this.

If you are wanting to get back into ball pythons, get your feet wet so to speak and don't want to spend a lot until you've perhaps focused your mind on what you wish to do......why not get a nice normal female or two for now.

Normal females are never a bad investment and there are a number of good people out there with some nice normal young females for sale. While you are gaining your hands-on ball python experience, you're raising up your future breeding females....so I see this as a win-win situation.

That's basically how we are doing it with our 5 normal females of varying ages and our 05 het for albino male. Two of our females are actually out on breeding contract this year and we are hoping for a nice result from this normal x pastel breeding. This fall we will hopefully do our own pairings. Not a big jump into the deep end of the breeding pond, but we're content enough with our progress to this point.


~~Jo~~

[ssscales]

That was one of my thoughts as well. I thought of getting a group of nice 2005-2006 CBB normal females 0.2 - 0.5 to raise up and get a feeling for raising and maintaining BP’s before jumping into any breedings or morphs.

It seems that with everyone and their mother was breeding Pastels in the last 1-2 years. The market would seem to become saturated with breeders looking for a quick buck. Naturally when faced with competition, a lot of these people react simply by dumping Pastel prices to unload animals. The smart ones would think a bit longer term as Adam wrote and would keep their animals at a certain price point and the snake would just be worth more as it ages, if it does not sell.

I’ve seen the same thing with the boa market, Ghost, Albinos, Hypos, etc. Snow Boas just a few years ago fetched $8,000, today you can find them being sold for as low as $3000. Ghost Boas just early mid year sold for $1200, now you find them for $750.


Quick question,
Where can I find some established CBB normal female BP’s and how much can I expect to pay for them?


I’ve seen them sold for $30-$70, and are advertised as CBB and CH and that’s of course if they are labeled honestly to begin with.
Thanks

[Adam_Wysocki]

It seems that with everyone and their mother was breeding Pastels in the last 1-2 years. The market would seem to become saturated with breeders looking for a quick buck.

People have been predicting "the great pastel market crash" for about 5 years now ... every year it's "the pastel market is saturated" ... "pastels are going to be worthless next year" ... blah blah blah ... Well, I've been around for a long time and I'm still waiting.

The business of breeding and selling ball pythons is HOT and pastels are a solid investment morph if you have at least a little bit of common sense. Even if you buy a pastel right now for $750.00 and breed it to two normal females next year and produce 3 pastel males ... and even if the pastel market falls apart over night and male pastels are $200.00 each next year ... your male will still be worth at least $750.00 plus the $600.00 for the 3 pastel males plus a very conservative $300 for the normal pastel siblings minus about $350.00 in feeders for the adults for 18 months and the babies until you can move them ... in the end you would just about double your money. Then you have another 20+ years of breedings to look forward to profiting from.

There is no other legal investment that you can make where you can come ever close to doubling your money in 18 months ... and that is assuming that the pastel market is going to crash and a worse case scenario hatch rate. Imagine if the pastel market instead of crashing just continues to gradually go down like it has been for the last 8 years ... imagine if you put a little work into marketing yourself so that people know you and trust that you're selling quality animals .... imagine you do better in those to clutches than 3 pastel males.

The number one rule of investing (and that IS what we are talking about here) is don't spend money that you can't afford to lose.

Personally, I think that a pastel male and a couple of normal females is a great investment .... I think it was a great investment 5 years ago, I think it is a great investment right now, and I think it will continue to be a great investment in the future!

-adam

[rabernet]

Quick question,
Where can I find some established CBB normal female BP’s and how much can I expect to pay for them?

I'm getting my three normal girls from Will Bird of Extraordinary Ectotherms. They are CH and have been in his care since April. I'm paying $100 each for them. If you want the link to his site, you can PM me and I will be happy to give you the link to his site!