southern ontario breeders price wars

[Pythonfriend]

i feel really ashamed for my earlier post where i just failed to realize that Ontario is in Canada rather than in the USA..... really embarassing.

i just want to say: to compete with large hatchling imports from africa, prices for locally bred normals and basic single-gene morphs needs to be even lower.

what recently blew me away completely is that for some species of chameleon, the cheapest captive bred ones are 200-300 dollars while the cheapest wild caught imports go for 100-150. thats NOT HEALTHY. I mean, unless you want these species to go extinct in the wild, so that the few breeders have a monopoly, thats just not good. For many reptile species, the price for a captive bred is double or triple the price of a wild caught specimen.

i mean, what could be more devastating while at the same time being economically gratifying for a breeder than to hear:

(About some chameleon) "Congratulations, the species you are breeding is now extinct in the wild. You failed to produce them for under 100 dollars a piece, which would have been necessary to undercut the market price for wild caught imports. Now you can keep selling them for 200-300 dollars a piece, like you always did, because they are basically extinct in the wild and the cheap imports dried up because of that."

OK thats chameleons, BPs are different, but still, there is one party that benefits when prices for locally bred BPs crash, and that would be the wild population of BPs. Wild ball pythons will never be threatened because they are holy in some places, if you do not know it already watch it. The video starts a bit slow and the presenter has a bit of a snake phobia. Also there are strong accents. Still, its the best video covering this and people should be aware. After all these are half-wild ball pythons being worshipped in a dedicated temple. The BPs stay there during the day, and they all go out at night for hunting, sometimes locals accept them into their homes and feed them. in the early morning all the pythons return to the temple. I strongly suspect this is the largest temple dedicated to ball pythons in existence. I do not know of any other temples dedicated to ball pythons and/or housing ball pythons, please let me know if you aware of other places like this.



I just think maybe a really low price for captive bred reptiles and nice morphs can help protect the wild populations, be it that ball python temple in Benin that is centuries old, or some arcane species of chameleons.

Maybe in the larger context it is not bad when prices get so low that import prices are undercut. Right now some brutal idiot could still make some money by raiding that wonderful BP temple in Benin and putting the BPs in boxes and shipping them off. When the python market in the first world overheats and tanks, there will still be a winner: The wild pythons.


I try to not be hating on anyone, i just want to open minds and show larger contexts.

[jason_ladouceur]

The ball python market in Canada (and I suspect in the U.S) has reached saturation point. It's simple supply and demand. The demand is still pretty high from what I can tell. But the supply is even higher. The Crbe had Mabye 100+ vendors. Of those probably 85 were selling only balls. And the remaining tables only a handful didnt have at least a few. I was there to sell cages and racks and even I had a few of a friend of mine for sale. Even with the super low prices people are talking about they Wern't selling. I know a few of the big breeders that didnt sell anything, or sold very little. IMHO the glory days of the ball market, at least from a business standpoint are over. People have been talking about it for years. Everyone that buys from you in 18 months becomes your compitition. And there simply isn't enough new people coming in to the hobby to continue with that forever. If you love regius then keep them. If your hoping to make a living off breeding them your probably out of luck. I've personally seen at least 3 breeders dump good sized collections here in ontario in the last month. The writing is on the wall I'm afraid. I still think the market will recover to some degree. Give it maybe 5 years and lots of the people now breeding will have gotten tired of warehousing a scores of babies that won't sell at any price and will have gotten out. But until then it's going to be hard going for anyone wanting to breed and sell balls in Ontario at least. At least that's how I see it.

[mvptext1]

This whole conversation reminds me of tulips....

[NH93]

PythonFriend... although I like our video, I am appalled that you thought us Ontarians were in the US.

[OctagonGecko729]

I just think maybe a really low price for captive bred reptiles and nice morphs can help protect the wild populations, be it that ball python temple in Benin that is centuries old, or some arcane species of chameleons.

Maybe in the larger context it is not bad when prices get so low that import prices are undercut. Right now some brutal idiot could still make some money by raiding that wonderful BP temple in Benin and putting the BPs in boxes and shipping them off. When the python market in the first world overheats and tanks, there will still be a winner: The wild pythons.


I try to not be hating on anyone, i just want to open minds and show larger contexts.

Well, there is also just a general ignorance of the hidden costs of owning WC stuff correctly.

A $25 normal CB ball python is going to cost you far less then a $10 normal WC animal and will save you tons of time. I spent about $15 in NIX/PAM/Dawn Soap to remove the ticks my WC girl had and it took 3 months to guarantee that their lifecycle was done. Then there was the $90 vet visit to do a fecal to make sure she was cleared of internal parasites. Not to mention that ASFs arent exactly cheap unless you have a supplier (like i do) that offers them at normal rat prices. Still I had to drive 4 hours to get them and that ate up gas money, AND I now have an ASF colony to feed the WC girl and picky eaters.

So yeah, none of those hidden costs are there with CB animals except the vet fee if you get the animal from a crappy breeder.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

i feel really ashamed for my earlier post where i just failed to realize that Ontario is in Canada rather than in the USA..... really embarrassing.

LOL! All good

[Kodieh]

If Grant wanted to he could put together an approved pricing list. Then anyone who vends at the show sells their snakes for the same, or more than what they have agreed to. Sure, some people would be against that idea - but it would help to normalize the market. I would agree to it.

This is just the worst idea ever.

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[Rickys_Reptiles]

This is just the worst idea ever.

Ever?