Quality of breeding stock

[Anatopism]

This is a bit delayed, so I apologize if this is irrelevant.. I'm only a couple pages in so far...

Perhaps something like this -

Pet Quality - These are the pythons with the least favorable coloring/pattern, but the most affordable.

Beginner Breeding Quality - These pythons are mid range, showing decent coloration/pattern for the morph. The majority of our babies fall in this category. Market price.

Superior Quality - These pythons go above and beyond the morph standard, showing excellent coloring/pattern. Our breeders come from this group. Priced according to market, with additional quality mark up.

Holdbacks / Breeders - These are our personal stock. Sometimes we will have pythons here we have bred in the past, who have been replaced by their offspring. All of these are Superior Quality, and priced accordingly.

This already exists, but is not labeled, and the animals 'grade' is affirmed or rejected by the market. I already 'grade' my animals, as do many other breeders, whether they realize or not, noted by their differing price ranges compared to each other, or compared to the average going rate for that particular morph. I've sold stunning examples of a morph on the higher end of that range, while charging less for what I consider to be sub-par animals. It's not that this system doesn't exist, it's that it isn't labeled, and I don't necessarily think labeling it will change what already exists: Good breeders continuing to breed excellent quality animals, and selling off the ones that are not good enough for their breeding program, and lazy breeders, who continue to breed solely for profit, or out of apathy regarding quality. You know what will happen with each of these groups?

Good breeders will continue to maintain their customer base and be successful in the hobby. Their animals will maintain a level of excellence, or get better as a whole, over time.

Lazy breedres will continue taking shortcuts, or purchasing only poor quality animals, and continue breeding poor quality animals. Do you think an animal labeled as a D-Grade animal, wont be bred by lazy breeders simply because it's D-Grade? The types of people who perpetuate poor examples, are the same ones who say "I'll just get 2 D-Grade Fires instead of 1 A-Grade Fire, and spend less, but get MORE babies/money!". Anybody who falls into the respectable category noted above, will not buy the crappy animals from this person... so who are they left with? Other lazy, cheap breeders who will pay less and less for the animals being sold... to the point where the person selling the poor quality animals will either find no homes for his ugly animals, or he'll be slowly inched out of the hobby by a customer base that doesn't respect him or his animals. People who fall into this category are also more likely to drop out of the hobby due to lack of passion in the first place.

We don't need to make standards and grades for ball pythons - they already exist, and are maintained by quality breeders adhering to their own aesthetic standards, and the market who purchase them. People who breed quality animals naturally rise to the top, and those who don't, are buried in their own apathy.