^^^ Very interesting thread to read. Maybe I need to get on fauna more. I liked your comment about getting a non herp person to buy a snake. I am out there trying to remove the snake stigma every day. I'll get people that tell me how much they hate snakes and after I show them some of my deliberately cute pictures of mine they almost start to come around. I think that the future of the ball python industry is slightly dependant on how many people will actually consider giving an older adult ball python a home as a pet and not a breeder. From what I can tell in the VERY limited time I have been around, ball pythons sell at the prices they do because of breeders alone. Every local add for a BP mentions something about breeding or has the weight included(for breeders). I rarely see an add that says good family snake for sale with tank and accessories included, it's always a picture of the snake on a scale. I could care less if any snake that I produce sells I will keep them as pets and be the creepy snake guy. I also wouldn't be surprised IN THE LEAST to learn that the top producers of BP's are sitting on about 5+ new morphs (or genes) that will become the next 10-50k animals and their slowly planning on releasing them but that's just the conspiracy theorist in me coming out.