Future questions?

[herplover92]

A little background info. i am 14 yeas old and i will like to breed ball pythons as a hobby. i currently own a '05 normal femal and an '06 normal female. in a couple of months i will buy a male pastel to breed to my females in a couple of years. from there i want to own mojaves, spiders, albinos, pieds, and cinnys.

i spent this past month going threw millions of BP related forums, breeders, caresheets, books, journals, etc...

so my question is... will there be anyone interested to buy an albino ,mojave ,spider ,pied ,cinny or pastel bp in about 4-5 years or am i just going to be stuck with them, with no good home to send them to (like burmese).

i am just frustrated because it seems like i will never have that HOT morph every big breeder has

[Shelby]

Ball pythons will remaing popular for many years. They are a wonderful pet snake.. well suited to most herp keepers (unlike burmese which grow way too big for most people) and they have a slow reproduction rate, so morph prices stay high, longer.

Getting a male pastel is probably the easiest way to get into the morphs. It's certainly one of the least expensive.. but you can expect to pay around $600 for a nice pastel (maybe more I haven't really looked into them)

How long have you had your normal females?

[gncz73]

yes there will be people stilllooking to buy a morph in 4,5 even 10 years down the line as new morh come out every year and the ressive traits have held there value for a long time. see look at it this way female balls lay 10 eggs where a female burmese lay 40 eggs and most of you female ball will lay a lot less then 10. and there will always be a hot morph the way i see it with all the crosses that we have yet to see

[Angel deMarco]

Ball pythons will remaing popular for many years. They are a wonderful pet snake..

the human fasination with serpents has been documented sence documents have existed. they were worshiped, kept as pets, and bred for those very reasons.

if you are asking wether people are interested and want to make a comitment now to buy one I would suggest you wait untill you get your first clutch. you'll always get people to buy if you come stay active in these forums.

a side note, I am about to purchase two hypo red tail boas. they are extremly beautiful and I plan on breeding them and aquiering super hypos. if you are ever interested in a trade let me know.

[JLC]

Unfortunately, our society is a culture of INSTANT. Fast food...microwave popcorn (and everything else!)....TV shows that solve the world's problems in 1 hour...advertisers that convince us our lives will never be complete without their product right this instant!!


And so a person can look at the BP market and sigh because they don't have all the beautiful snakes right now...and if they don't have them right now, then they can't possibly be successful with them sometime in the future, because our society doesn't work that way. One or two "bubble-markets" are focussed on, and everyone assumes every other market must rise and crash as well, because we're force-fed constant stories about dot-coms or Enron or whatnot.

That is all a very false view of any true successful life and business. It takes years of dedicated, hard work to build up a successful BP breeding business. It takes years of dedicated, hard work to build up ANY truly successful business or life style.

So don't decide your future must be a failure because you can't have whatever it is right now. Go for it! Make your plans...and take joy in the planning and looking ahead!

[ddbjdealer]

So don't decide your future must be a failure because you can't have whatever it is right now. Go for it! Make your plans...and take joy in the planning and looking ahead!

I couldn't agree more. There are many "hot" and "cool" projects out there that are in their infancy, or that are very valuable prospective projects. Double hets, co-dom/recessive crosses... TRIPPLE hets. Of course, a lot of those projects take time... but hey..that's all any of us have.

A wise business man once told me... develop your business based on the next 2 years, then try to forecast what prices will be in 3-5 years and find out where you'd like to be as far as mature females/males/hets/double hets, etc.. Then look 10 years down the road... Always be looking towards the future! For example, if it takes you two years to produce a single pastel clutch, use that clutch to your advantage and trade up to get an albino, or some other visable morph that you love. Breed it the next year to your normals, and produce hets... or even better yet, breed your pastel male to your visable recessive morphs... Or... the options are endless...

And trust me when I say... your "long term plan" will only change about 1500 times in the first year after you make it... and by the time you get to the "end" of your plan... what you're actually doing will be FAR different than what was earlier planned! Its just the nature of the beast.

New things are coming out of Africa each year. Use your production from 3 years from now to trade up for some of those new things. Experiment, do some dinking around, and you'll have something to compete with the bigger guys with.

Hope this adds some hope/fuels the dream for ya!

[herplover92]

thanks you all helped me with all those advices. i was down because i am the only one who keeps reptiles in my house, and i have been dreaming about the time when i produce my first clutch, and yesterday my big brother saw me spent the whole saturday in front of the computer looking through bp breeding projects and morphs and he told me " you will never produce a bp clutch ". So i thought about going out and buy myself an adult bp pair at the local petshop, but i got to stay focused on my pastel project.

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Often those older than us can give us good advice. Look for advice from people who encourage you, or give you warnings that you can take and apply to life.

Ignore people like your older brother when they just put you down, and egg you on (no pun intended).

Never make a decision, especially one involving living creatures, in the "heat of the moment". Taking shortcuts is a surefire way to lead to disaster, and producing a clutch right now just to shut your brother up isnt the way to go

I can definitely see how 2 years seems like a long time to you, but just imagine how far along you will be by the time you are 24 (10 years from now) if you work on these projects and grow your collection (if that is your goal).

Good luck, keep focused on YOUR goals, and only take advice, not insults, and make this your plan, not someone elses.

[kavmon]

there will always be the next "big thing". whether it is a designer combo or an imported morph. find out what you really like, set a goal and just do it! get what you like to look at and produce them if you want to. a good way to find breedable normal girls is to contact local pet shops and rescues and check with them weekly. the big breeders didn't get there overnight or cheaply. set your goals and start doing them!


vaughn

[herplover92]

thanks to all of you.