I'm a relative new Ball Python owner coming off a long history of keeping tropical fish and geckos...
What attracted me to finally buy a Ball Python?
$40 for what I have now learned is a 2 gene snake (Pastel/Calico)
^^ That's what attracted me to finally buy one, I always have a spare enclosure or 3 kicking around as a fish keeper.
The bubble has burst, people have finally realized that only a few desperate breeders will overpay for a gene they don't have. Meaning that the rest of the snakes out there are...as in any business "worth what someone will actually pay for them"
I've gone through this in fish keeping, I stopped breeding a good 2 years ago as the bottom fell out of our market too. I was to the point where I was having questionable people to my home to pick up young fish for $1
We killed the market.
Our quest for "franken-fish" and other genetic morphs killed the hobby. We readily produced 90% commons for 10% special results, sometimes less. Which often meant having to dump 200-300 fish from every batch. This is what took for the sake of discussion...Tiger Oscars from $24.99 each for a healthy 3-4-5" young fish to $6.99 for your pick of whatever 2" Oscar you want.
Not to mention that the blacks in a Tiger Oscar are now more of a dark gray and the once vibrant bright Orange fire is now more of a faded peach.
So I will caution you all...
Control the breeding and be careful what you breed. We have many examples in the fish hobby of genetically weak fish (due to breeding) that sometimes you have a 50/50 chance that they won't survive the step from Juvi to Adult.
Electric Blue Jack Dempseys are one of my all time fav's and yet the females are 100% useless and unable to reproduce viable fry, leaving you producing them with a Male Blue and a Regular Female JD that carries the gene. Not to mention that the bulk of them just magically die when they get around 3"
I'd hate to see this happen in the reptile trade.
I can't imagine putting 2-3 years into a snake and just have it die due to genetic weakness.
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