Where do you see the BP morph market in 10 years?

[Vesta]

I also believe more people will be into the BPs then there is now for future market.

[NorthernRegius]

I'm hoping before then I have my own Crystal Ball to look at,

Seriously it's economics- supply & demand. Let's protect our rights to keep these wonderful animal so we can legally supply the demand for them.

[Meltdown Morphs]

I like it. You will see 10x combos...
Normals will be in demand because no one has them
Why is the Dreamsicle still so pricey though lol

lol I doubt normals will ever be in demand, thousands of CH are shipped in every year, not to mentions the hundreds of possible het males that people label as normals just to move them. There will be loads of normals but a lot of extra genes floating around that nobody botheres to breed out..or possibly even know they are there to breed out in the first place.

[tbowman]

Well, I hope we can keep snakes in 10 years.

[BChambers]

A lot of interesting opinions-I'm going to go against the flow here and say that normals will actually go UP in price in the next few years, to $50-$75 a baby. This will happen after the inevitable import ban (which i don't think will happen this year, but will certainly happen within 5 years).

This will boost prices of all the lower-end morphs-I believe prices for Pastels, for example, will drop slightly next year, but will stabilize (after imports are gone) at about the present level....

[SGExotics]

Why is the Dreamsicle still so pricey though lol

People created them, but they dont want to let go of them... lol

[ctrlfreq]

I'm willing to bet in 10 years there will be a certifying body (somewhat like AKC for dogs) that defines and documents the standards for each morph, organizes competitions for points, and champions only the best examples. These will then be the source of a secondary "show quality" market of much higher priced, registered animals in which we very well may see $1000+ pastels again.

[Serpent_Nirvana]

My predictions:

Assuming we're still allowed to legally own "exotic pets" at all in the next 20 years (which unfortunately I do tend to doubt), or even any pets at all aside from mass-produced dogs and cats of "safe" breeds ...

I started keeping chinchillas long after I started keeping snakes, but I think they still make a good model for what the ball python market may be in the next 20 years.

I do agree that a ban on importation of CH ball pythons (and all other "exotic pets") will most likely stabilize the market on normal babies somewhat, pushing the price up to, on average, $15-20 wholesale for normals instead of $8-15 like it is now. Normals will still be plentiful, as they will still be produced in clutches of co-dom x co-dom, etc., but they won't be *as* plentiful as they won't be coming in from Africa by the truckload. This means that normals, if properly marketed to the pet market, could be sold for $75 and up.

As far as the morph market goes, I think that the trend is going to be towards combo morphs, yes, but also largely towards breeding for *quality.* I think that a low-grade, brown pastel male will still be only in the $35-50 range, but a brilliant yellow, super-blushy one may be $100 or even $150, maybe even more. There's been so little done with selective breeding to IMPROVE traits (not just combine them with other traits) that it's tough to imagine a baby pastel that'd be worth paying $1000 for right now ... But I could see it happening. Imagine a line of normal pastels that looked better than most modern supers ...

I don't know about a show standard -- that's an interesting thought, though. I tend to doubt it ONLY because most show standards for mammals are based on conformation, and I think it would be hard to come up with a uniform standard for color/pattern only. Plus, there are so many different variations that can all be considered attractive -- while most everyone can agree that a brown pastel is uglier than a nice, bright yellow one, some people really flip for busy, high-contrast patterns while others like them more low-contrast and blushy.

I could very easily see competitions, but I think it would be hard to write standards ... Plus, with literally 100's of combo morphs out there, it'd be hard to write a standard for each one.

Meanwhile, I also think that the lowering prices of the average morph will make these animals much more accessible to the average pet owner. This will allow the market to continue to expand as the first-time BP owner finds himself faced with a rainbow of colors to choose from, making these animals even more appealing as pets.

So yeah, my predictions: Quality and bloodline will become much more important, while lower quality animals will be marketed much more to the pet market, which will expand as a result.

[4theSNAKElady]

These are some great responses guys!!! And I totally want (lol) an infernus blast....sssssss!

[Bleepr]

Co-dom and Dom morphs will definatly go down much quicker then recessive. Combos with only 2 expressed genes will be down, ALOT. I see bees being in the 4-5 hundreds, or less. The big money will be with recessives, as it always has been. I wouldn't be surprised to see triple recessives here in the next few years, quad co-doms/doms too (Brock has got one already if I'm not mistaken...). Given the amount of base morphs there are, the possibilites are just about endless, and the easy stuff will plummit in light of new combos.

I can see pastels and spiders make the shift into the mainstream pet market (petcos, petsmarts) I can remember seeing a good spider go for 450 6 months ago, I could probably get one for half that now.