Curious??

[ssscales]

I'm curious, I've been surfing the KS classifieds on BP's for a few weeks now and I've seen Spiders going on average between $5500 to $3000, Albinos $2500 to $1500, Pastels between $1200 to $400 and so on.

I'm just curious...

I just bought a few 7 month old normal females which I'm not planning on doing anything with, except raise them the best that I can for the next 2-3 years. Is there anything I should be considering this year or taking advantage of? Or should I just sit tight for another year before even considering anything else?

I was figuring on waiting till next year and acquire an Albino or Piebald depending on $$$ and a few nice top of the line Pastels.

[Adam_Wysocki]

Is there anything I should be considering this year or taking advantage of? Or should I just sit tight for another year before even considering anything else?

As supply increases, prices are going to go down ... you'll see most morphs decline year after year in price. Some drop a lot some years, and most come down slowly and steadily.

Waiting another year will likely get you a cheaper price, but so will waiting another 2 years ... or another 3 years .... or another 4 years .... well, I'm sure you get my point.

The problem with waiting for prices to come down is that putting off that purchase another year means it takes just that much longer to produce your own offspring ... which you'll have to sell for that much less because prices drop year after year.

IMO, if you've have it, the best time to invest it is now .... morphs only increase in value as they get older ... a snake purchased now will only be more valuable in 12 months.

The good news is that if you invest now, or you wait another year, or two, or three ... your investment will be prosperous ... the ball python market is incredibly strong, and a smart investor will certainly do well for many years to come.

-adam

[ssscales]

Thanks for the prompt reply, but what would be the best morph to invest in this year for the next 2-5yrs?



If you had $2,000-$5,000-$10,000 to play with, what morph or various morphs would be the smartest choices for the next 2-5yrs?

Am I on track to plan on Albinos and/or Piebalds and a few nice top of the line Pastels? I personally like the Albinos, Pieds, Pastels and Super Pastels along with Spiders, hence my choices. Whether they go down in price by 50% by the time I breed or not is irrelevant, I like these morphs.

[Adam_Wysocki]

The advice that I always got and the advice I try and give back to everyone is to "breed what you love" ... nothing sucks more than cleaning snake crap each week while you raise a snake for 12 - 36 months in order to breed it and you aren't even happy with the way it looks.

If you're talking strictly from an investment standpoint, I personally don't feel that there is a bad move that can be made in ball pythons ... as long as people realize that it takes work to sell snakes ... many people seem to jump in with the illusion that all they have to do is put 2 snakes together and people will be lining up at their door to purchase the offspring ... not the case ... it takes time and effort to get the word out and let people know that you have a quality product for sale ... no different than any other business .... but to get back on topic ....

Short term ... if you have breedable females, co-doms are a no brainer ... a co-dom male can be bred at 12 - 18 months old and half of his offspring should be visible morphs which are always easier to sell than hets when you're just starting out ... I LOVE pastels, always will ... many people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off over pastel prices dropping, but what they aren't paying attention to is the price of super pastels. Starting a pastel project with the long term goal of producing and selling super pastels is a very sound investment in my opinion.

Long term, think recessives ... they take time to raise up and without being "known" hets are harder to sell so you need time to establish yourself within the ball python community, but recessives are the great equalizer .... lots of people are jumping on the ball python bandwagon with co-doms and ignoring recessives .... which means fewer sellers ... and as time goes on and more and more recessive based combos hit, the people with the recessive "ingredients" to sell will do extremely well ... hypos, caramels, stripes are all excellent "ingredient" morphs that will be used to "expand" the more popular recessives like Albinos, Clowns, and Pieds in the future.

That's my "quick" $.02 for whatever it's worth ... Ask around on the board and you'll learn that I usually drone on and on over the phone about this stuff so this is definitely the nutshell version.

-adam

[ssscales]

Well thank you very much and as always your input is valued and appreciated.


Based on your feedback, seems like I'm sticking with my original plan.

First I would like to get 1-2 real nice Pastels before year end, still doing lots of research on all the call outs "Blonds, Lemons, Jungles, etc". I plan to keep all or most of the Pastel offspring and work on some real nice Supers (4-5yr project).

I'll also look into getting 1-2 Albinos or Piebalds depending on cash flow. I plan to introduce them to 5 or 6 females and hold back all or most of the Het females to produce Albinos or Piebalds (4-5yr project).

Thanks again!

[Adam_Wysocki]

Anytime!

Sounds like some awesome plans! ... Everyone here loves pictures, so post 'em when ya get 'em!!

-adam

[ddbjdealer]

.... lots of people are jumping on the ball python bandwagon with co-doms and ignoring recessives ....

I was thinking of that as one of my points in the reply I was going to post.

It seems to me, that within the next 5 years or so, there's still only going to be very few people producing double recessives... and fewer still producing tripples/quads.

So many of the newer breeders/collectors seem to be jumping in with both feet right into the co-dom market. They're not doing a lot of crosses with the co-doms, because... lets face it... Pastel x Pastel will give you a little better kick back short term (very short term and simple minded) than Pastel x Axanthic or Pastel x Hypo.

Let me stress that I'm one of those newbies... but I have a very long term goal in mind... I'm not looking to strike it rich quick...

IMO, I think that Co-Dom/Recessive crosses will consistantly produce morphs that will hold up in the long run (the next 10-15 years)

just my .01 (I don't have enough experience to give a full .02 )

[ssscales]

[QUOTE=ddbjdealer]
IMO, I think that Co-Dom/Recessive crosses will consistently produce morphs that will hold up in the long run (the next 10-15 years)
[QUOTE]

I agree, recessives usually will hold up better/longer than the co-dom's 99% of the time. The way I feel is, if you're producing/competing in a co-dom market, they should be top of the line and above average! In the last two weeks I've seen Pastels for $400+S&H stay on classifieds only to be reduced to $400 shipped and still not sell. While others are asking $850-$1000 and have moved in a weekend or the ad was removed.

My plan with BP's is very simple, I'm going to work with what I want to see in my collection. As Adam put it, "nothing sucks more than cleaning snake crap each week while you raise a snake for 12 - 36 months in order to breed it and you aren't even happy with the way it looks.".

I've always liked Piebald BP's, always wanted one ever since seeing it for the 1st time in REPTILES many years ago. Now that I have finally decided to add BP's to my collection, you can bet I'm owning one of these gems! The way I see it, sooner or latter I'll recover my money by breeding. I'm happy if I break even and make a little extra to support my collection and add a few more here or there.

On my list of must haves are the Super Pastels, Spiders, Albinos, Piebald and Bumblebees.

[elevatethis]

I guess another dynamic of the whole issue of focusing on co-doms or recessives is how "big" you can get. I think to be effective in recessives you need to operate at a certain scale...be it 3 or 4 het females per homozygous or het male or whatever the situation may be- for my situation, I just don't have the space for that.

I guess you could say I jumped on the pastel bandwagon- prices for them finally dropped within reach, so that's my way of getting into the morph thing. What's also good is that when I first started getting into snakes and i went to the NERD site for the first time, the "pastel jungle" was probably my favorite morph at the time. And its still on my top 5 list. I just think its an all-around awesome morph- I'm not at a point where I really care about what the market is doing....super pastels are wicked looking and I want one! And since I can't justify spending $10k on one, i guess i'd better make one! thats it!

[rabernet]

And since I can't justify spending $10k on one, i guess i'd better make one! thats it!

You know, that's why I'm really excited to be getting a het pied and het hypo for sure and possibly a het clown. I really would love to own one of each, and the only way that "I'll" be able to achieve that is by breeding them myself - no matter how long it takes.

If I sell some offspring in the process, that's just gravy! It gives me time to get my feet wet, and think about trades in the future for more balls that I'm sure I'd like to add to my collection.