Just a thought....................

[Badgemash]

On topic answer, I don't see the prices dropping unless the supply of imported animals dries up either from regulation (emperor scorpions anyone?), massive habitat loss/destruction/climate change for the import farms (it's a problem, but not an acute one), or a major disease outbreak for the farms (possible, look what happened with chytrid).

Well here's a good example where you told me to look at my hobby from a business point of view. The only business point of view I know is to make money.

Look Pit, I'm not here to argue with you. I'm not saying breeders can't have ambitions or goals but eveyone has a different outlook on what is useful and what is not in breeding and elsewhere. So I'll agree to disagree with you on this.

I think if breeders stood their ground on normal's prices, people would buy them at the same price as private reptile stores sell them. What happens is people just start flooding the market and underselling their animals because they're trying to so over time, it becomes the norm and everyone expects to buy a normal for 10 bucks.

They'll always going to be a demand for normals as a beginner snake/pet snake so as long as we stop selling them for next to nothing, there's a slight chance they might be worth more than a couple of bucks.

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I started with a normal male, and I still have him. I also have a good day job and I certainly do not breed as a business. But I sat down the other day and started adding up just how much money I have thrown into this hobby, I stopped when I hit 10k in 20 seconds. So yes, I'd like to sell my non-holdbacks for more than $10 which is why that normal male is a PET. My male Scottie is a terrible example of what a Scottish Terrier should look like, that is why he's neutered. It doesn't mean I love him any less (I love that dog to bits, I cannot have children so my puppies are my "babies" and I love them fiercely) but he is absolutely useless as a breeding animal, in fact he would be a net negative as a breeding animal. No amount of love, nor the emotional value we place on an animal will change the monetary value of what's present in their genes.

The prices of normals are not driven by breeders in the US "flooding the market and underselling their animals" the market price of normals is set by the price of bulk imports from Africa. It's breeders here who are matching those prices, and we are a drop in the bucket of that supply. I certainly don't know anyone who produces tens of thousands of normal BPs here, which is the kind of bulk import volume that the large pet store chains are doing. It has nothing to do with breeders "standing their ground on normal's prices."