i think the market may be overheated and may tank.
it makes me suspicious that, especially in the higher price regions, the main customers of breeders are other breeders. i fear that most of the current demand may be driven by growth in ball python breeding, meaning people expand their collections or get into breeding.
a healthy situation would be if most ball pythons produced are sold as nice-looking pets. but for the expensive stuff, most demand seems to be coming from other breeders. and for the actual pet trade, most demand seems to be supplied by big imports of cheap african hatchlings.
i have a feeling there might be a bubble. paradoxically, what gives me hope is that prices for morphs do drop as fast as they do, that may be an indication that the market still properly regulates itself. so maybe instead of the formation of a bubble, these price drops are sufficient to prevent a bubble from forming.
but still, when production levels exceed the demand for pet snakes and it is the growth of BP breeding that is driving its own demand, things might get awfully unstable one day.
i really hope im wrong. if not, one big breeder quitting may one day cause a chain reaction.
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