how much $ for Pinstripe?

[Durhambreeder]

There's a difference between wholesaling it, knowing there will be a mark-up at resale, rather than selling female pinstripes at $75 on the open market. Sometimes breeders produce so many animals there's no time to move them all individually and I understand that - but I am hearing from more and more people that they are getting into breeding for next season to undercut everyone in the open market. Almost proud that people may be annoyed by it. It's ridiculous. The demand is out there, I don't understand the need to sell at half market price to public buyers.

Funny enough, once my fiancee and I buy a house, I will be using an extra room strictly as a breeding/business dealing room. My goal with BPs in the end is to hatch out a BEL with my Mojave male and Lesser female. But the Lesser female is still 2.5 years away I am guessing from breeding age/weight, but my pastel and bumblebee females are almost there. 2 years old (roughly) and 950g (I'm not powerfeeding either, just one small/medium rat a week).

If I get a BEL, even only one, I am keeping it for myself until the day it dies as I think its a beautiful looking snake. If I get more than one (fingers crossed) I will sell the males @ $800 and females at around $1200. I know the average around here in the Durham region is $1000-$1100 for males and $1300-$1700 for females.

Why will I undercut? Quick $. Does it hurt the market in the long run, maybe, but with only 1-2 selling I don't see it posing a big issue. The cheapest BEL (which didn't look as white as I wanted it to) I saw at the 2013 CRBE that just passed was $900.00. However that said I don't ever plan on buying one, I want to hatch one out as I know they're tough to hatch out due to rarity.

Right now I'm trying to decide what to pair with my male (breeding size) pinstripe, my pastel or my bumblebee

[Mephibosheth1]

Hey, I just had a thought, since you aren't buying it, and it's a breeder you respect, why not drum up a little business for him and post a link to the snake so maybe someone here can get it.

Not sure how this would work with the rules about advertising here on the forum...

[Shera]

Not sure how this would work with the rules about advertising here on the forum...

Oh, I didn't know about those rules. Disregard.

[Pythonfriend]

Funny enough, once my fiancee and I buy a house, I will be using an extra room strictly as a breeding/business dealing room. My goal with BPs in the end is to hatch out a BEL with my Mojave male and Lesser female. But the Lesser female is still 2.5 years away I am guessing from breeding age/weight, but my pastel and bumblebee females are almost there. 2 years old (roughly) and 950g (I'm not powerfeeding either, just one small/medium rat a week).

Perfect example of someone who is in it for fun and not the money. I gathered females are ready if they are both above 1600 grams and 1.5 years, males earlier, if they get to the right weight in time and mature in time.

Switch to medium/large/jumbo rats. and to a 5-day feeding shedule. after 1.5 - 2 years females are ready, unless they are under 1500 grams, then they are not ready.

a female dog during pregnancy or with puppies has TRIPLE requirement for calories. its not much different with BPs, except that BPs have slower metabolism, and also they go off feed when breeding. So you need to build up the reserve prior to breeding, and breeding, since they go off food while breeding AND put so much energy into it, only makes sense with females above a certain weight.

Do not feed them like you would a pet if you want to have breeders. You really need to plump them up. Big females often lose 700+ grams when they lay a really big clutch. Sometimes 1000+ grams in the clutch. You are feeding them with the dial set on pet, not on breeding.

[decensored]

oh, ok, if you sell DIRECTLY to pet stores in your area where you know they will take good care of the animals, thats a different story.


when i hear wholesale, i think: shipments of maybe 500-2000 hatchlings at a time from Africa, to then be distributed to big chains, with prices per hatchling down at 7 dollars in Africa, then 30 dollars wholesale, then maybe another trader/distributor inbetween, and off to the big chain stores they go. Thats the system i do not like. Thats the wal mart model, a truckload of this, two truckloads of that, its not good for animals but going on with animals.

for me, a producer selling directly to a store isnt really wholesale anymore Wholesale is the stuff between the producer and the stores. Im all for selling directly to stores, if it is possible. It will even contribute to cutting down the big chains and cutting down the 500+ units at a time wholesalers.

The real wholesalers, im fine with them supplying thermostats and tubs and bedding, but when these people deal with live animals, things get nasty. You get headlines like "1000 juvenile bearded dragons ceised at airport XY in horrendous conditions, local reptile sanctuary overwhelmed".

About undercutting prices, i would worry about that when it comes to high-end morphs that are supposed to come down slowly. Here i would complain when people severely undercut something like lets say leopard or orange dream or GHI or even clown.

But the really basic morphs like pastel, spider, pinstripe, hypo, albino, there is no way to help it, they are pushing towards the price of normals. i see no way to stop it.

I get it and as supply and demand falls apart because the market is saturated than obviously prices fall but when I see animals dropping 50% from one season to the next it drives me nuts. I bought my lesser male in 2011 and he had a price tag of $300 and by 2012/2013 I started seeing them up for sale for 140-160. That blows my mind. I had someone this year offer me a male lesser for $80...

Last year I fell in love with spinners, they had a value of 300-350m and a 400-500f price from what I was seeing. I produced spinners this year and others were advertising at 225-275 - someone on here bought one at the CBRE for $197... This is where I am having problems because it's not just single gene snakes anymore.

I just worry for the future of the hobby. Personally I don't care if I make lots of money, thats not what I am in it for but let me put it this way. Let's say two of my breeder balls eat a $2.50 rat a week with the exception of two months = 46 weeks.

46 x 2.50 = 115
115 x 2 = $230

Let's say the future market value on single gene morphs is $75.00 and out of a 4 egg clutch I get 2 spiders and 2 normals.
I haven't even recouped my feeding costs, never mind hydro, equipment, substrate, cleaning supplies, etc etc.

I know that is an extreme example but you can see where I am coming from.

I just don't understand selling for bottomed out prices just to undercut everyone else. Most hobby breeders start at the bottom with single gene snakes. I started with single gene morphs and breeding normals. The goal is to make a little bit of money and reinvest it into the breeding projects, eventually developing a respectable roster where you can produce double, triple and quad gene morphs - but between there and the starting point there has to be some monetary gain to keep the business moving forward.

Just my opinion.

[Pythonfriend]

maybe rock bottom is coming and maybe its a bubble? Maybe something in the ratio of ball python pet owners versus ball python breeders is not right anymore?

if its a Boom-->Bust situation, hobbyists and big high-end breeders survive. Before Brian hatched the scaleless ball python, he predicted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58C6XU_h6c4

he predicted his next big money-making project to be blue tongue skink mutations. And for ball pythons, he featured bamboo, super bamboo, sunset, and *ahem* scaleless head.

highly interesting video, and if ball pythons go into a boom bust cycle, he will survive he is multi-species and is high end in several species and the company is definitely worth several millions of dollars. If things go belly up economically, it will hit small single-species BP breeders. Hobbyists will be fine, as will the big multi-species breeders.

Just saying, i somehow see it coming. Unless we manage to transform the market so that BPs are sold directly from breeder to pet store or from breeder to customer, i think the market may soon tank.

[TheSnakeGeek]

When I first came here, I didn't understand why people didn't talk about prices more. But now I get it. It's great if you can get an awesome morph at an awesome price, but at the same time, you advertising that price may make the people reading it believe that spending any more than that is a rip off, which isn't the case, you just got lucky. And there are plenty of breeders here that don't want people mentioning what they got an animal for (lowball, wholesale etc), just because it does devalue their animals (which may be of higher quality, but the untrained eye only sees a morph as a morph).

this this this! say you get a ridiculous deal on something. good for you! doesn't mean you should blast it all over the internet. say you get a banana for a grand, and it produces for you that year. not only do you look like a jerk for selling your banana offspring for 3 grand a pop after you openly let everyone know you got it for 1 grand, but letting everyone know you got it for the low makes other people think that's what the market price is now. it does absolutely no one any good.

[PitOnTheProwl]

Oh, I didn't know about those rules. Disregard.

Might read the TOS

[B.O.S Reptiles]

Hey, I just had a thought, since you aren't buying it, and it's a breeder you respect, why not drum up a little business for him and post a link to the snake so maybe someone here can get it.

I'll ask if he has it posted online anywhere. As far as I know; he's only local but I haven't ever asked, so I can't really say? I'll talk to him tomorrow after work!


Edit: I didn't think about the advertising rules. Guess no links shall be posted if they exist!

[B.O.S Reptiles]

This thread really blew up lol