Where is the morph market heading?

[RandyRemington]

Tom, thanks for your take on the "special" as the base morph and "crystal" as a combo issue. I find the recent change to using crystal as the base and crystal mojave as the combo a little confusing but apparently it didn't start with you. I guess it could have something to do with what you are calling the super crystal and exactly what is in it though. Based on the reports of crystal X normal producing 50/50 splits of mojave and special this year (info not available until after the super crystal was christened I believe) I've now got to think more than ever that special (whatever it looks like) is an allele of the lesser complex and that the super crystal is actually a homozygous special without mojave. The super crystal looking like it could have mojave would not be all that surprising if special is yet another different mutation of the same gene as mojave (and lesser, butter, Vin Russo, mocha, hidden, phantom ...) But if "super" means homozygous I could see how calling it a super crystal (i.e. homozygous crystal) could result in special being replaced with crystal. Maybe people just think "special" is two generic and Baker would have less people looking for something to replace it with.

Birds are a good model especially when it comes to gender and any sex linked traits we might eventually run into. In both have the zw gender chromosomes instead of the xy in mammals and unlike mammals where the male determines the gender in both snakes and birds it's the female by giving either a z or a w.

[KMS]

Just relocated to a new house and finally got up and running with the internet and stumbled upon this thread...
My opinion on the market is that it is great... If you like producing morphs or combos for the fun of it, then there is an endless supply of different colors and patterns to work with at very cheap prices and complete breeding projects can be actually achieved without having to remortgage your house. If your in it for money, then you either have to invest a little and plan ahead with combo females and triple combo males to create some crazy rare Balls or produce large numbers of double combos and there bi-products which are single base morphs in even larger numbers. Still getting a couple hundred dollars a snake is decent if you donot have to hold onto it for long periods. A little bit of something for everyone.... And if you love snakes... What could be better?
Eitherway, you have to understand that every year the price is going to come down and put that into your game plan... The days are over of producing a few snakes and making hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that does not mean they are in anyway a bad investment.
As for Crystals, I have advertised a Super Pastel Special, but I believe that Anthony was preselling Special males....
I have personally produced 2.2 Crystals, 0.1 Paradox Crystal, 1.1 Pastel Crystals, 1.0 Super Crystal and 1.0 Pastel Super Crystal... I know that BHB has produced one Crystal male, but has probably produced more since. That is 10 that I know of so I am sure there are a few more.
The debate is up in the air as to wether their is Mojave involved in the Super Crystal, but a few like BHB and TSK have seen them in person and believed it did have Mojave involved. When I talked to BHB at Anaheim Brian said that he was surprised by the Super Crystal and it is possible that since we are relatively early on in the genetics of Balls and we might need to talk to bird or Finch breeders to see of maybe something similar with people that are alot further along with the understanding of genetics... Now personally, I didnt even know people bred Finches and it could be very likely that Brian was just screwen with me, but that is what I was told and only breeding will tell!
Finally as for the name "Specials", I called them that because they look closer to a normal than anything else... I thought of calling them Bakers because I thought it would be very funny and kinda cool to have "Super Bakers", but an overly serious investor got her wittle feewings involved and did not want that! I have never heard of anyone calling a Special a Crystal and it would seem pretty comical to me since the Crystal got its name due to the clearish look they have as babies... I think I have heard of het Crystals, but who knows... Seems odd and funny that everyone is referring to "Specials" as Crystals (yet havent told me) and little old me is holding out sticking strong to the "Special" name!
The cool thing is I just had a Pastel Crystal crawl out of the egg on New Years eve and one crawl out today on New Years Day!!!! With maybe some Super Pastel Crystals coming out in the next day or two... Sounds like I accomplished so much more instead of calling them Pastel and Super Pastel "Specials" like they really are!

Great post Tom..Include pics if you could..
Kevin Stoltz
www.kmsreptiles.com

[Python Dreams]

Randy,
I will just keep letting you know my results and then I will take your word for it! As for the naming of this project, it seems weird for people who have not produced a Crystal to change the name of an established morph based on my naming of the Super Crystal. If a Crystal is a Mojave Special, wouldnt a Super Crystal be a Super Mojave Super Special? Weird stuff! Maybe "Specials" should be called "Baker Balls" and just get it done with!
Kevin,
Just found my camera battery charger so picks coming soon... 0.3 Pastel Baker Balls, 0.1 Super Pastel Baker Balls, and 0.1 Pastel Mojave with another Baker something or other in the egg!

[LadyOhh]

0.3 Pastel Baker Balls, 0.1 Super Pastel Baker Balls, and 0.1 Pastel Mojave with another Baker something or other in the egg!

Quit it.

[JamieLynn]

I hope for the morph market to loose value, I will feel bad for the breeders who make a living off the snakes, but it means I can afford something cool. I have always loved albinos, but I never could get one, but I may be able to swing the cost of 1.1 hets. I would one day like to breed, but I want to do it to create and have more of the snakes I love. I wouldn't care if I never sold one!
Besides does any one have a high contrast albino pied? to me that would be the best..never seen one so if they are around I don't know......as i was typing this I found one..it is amazing.

[Sebrina]

I think that retics re becaoming more and more popular everyday, but it will be along time before the retic market surpasses the ball pythons. it is still possible especially with morphs like the orange ghost stripe wich is a dwaf

No retic will ever surpass the BP craze, it's all about the temperament, size and in some cases legal problems that are attached to the species. I agree they are great animals but even the dwarf Retics as mellow as they can be are not for everyone compared to the small, shy and bashful BP it doesn't stand a chance.

Sorry, went off topic.

[RandyRemington]

If a Crystal is a Mojave Special, wouldnt a Super Crystal be a Super Mojave Super Special? Weird stuff! Maybe "Specials" should be called "Baker Balls" and just get it done with!

It might be just confusion, perhaps just mine. But my original understanding was that crystal was the combo of mojave and special (although I like Baker better , right so far? Where I get lost is what a super crystal is and I understand we might really not know for sure until one is bred to see if it can produce mojave and crystal or only special. The term "super" I think isn't really well defined to start with and I'm not sure if "super" even goes with combos. Is a karma (phantom + lesser) a super? If it is, then maybe crystal is a super all by it's self. Or take for example pewter which is a combination of mutations of different genes (not different mutations of the same gene like with karma), would it be right to call anything a super pewter? Like your example which assumes special and mojave aren't alleles (different versions of the same gene) then maybe a super pewter would be homozygous for both pastel and cinnamon. If super means homozygous then karma and crystal aren't supers and there never could be a super karma because you can't have more than two copies of the same gene (one from mom and one from dad). I just think with the reports of crystal X normal missing producing crystal (or normal) a good number of times it's going to turn out that mojave and special are alleles and there really can't be a super crystal; only super special, super mojave, and then one of both of these versions of this gene making the crystal combo.

[MattZ BallZ]

my take on this entire ball python breeding problem, is if your in it for the money, you shouldnt have started. It should be because you love the animal and enjoy herping and watching your herps grow. if you ask me i think the big breeders will go out of business first due to over breeding, and due to their huge over head. remember that these breeders are feeding 100's sometimes 1000's of snakes and what the rat prices are right now its amazing how they are staying in business. i big blow for big breeders are the seasons where its too cold to deliver that snake and they must house and feed all these babies untill weather gets back to shipping temps. even those snakes that are on a payment plan till better warmer months the breeder looses money because those snakes gotta eat and they feeding them out of their pockets so a $300 spider would end up costing i big breeder $100 more per animal, lets say and thats heating, bedding, and food, but they only sold it for $300 they are really not making too much money in my opinion but then they do sell in quantity. what im trying to say is for example i have 23 ready to breed balls, i have a room just for them not to brag but they are the more expensive morphs and some just normals and low end morphs but when i breed a spider to a pastel and get a bumble bee i dont need to sell it for $1200 to make money and to help my collection since everything i make goes back to them, ill sell it for $500-600 pending on sex , or for instance I have a big ivory female i purchased for $2500 when she was 800g now shes 1500g and that does double her value and when i make ivories, im not gonna sell them for $1900-$2500 (these are canadian prices) ill sell for $1000- $1500 you know, one $1000 sale will feed my snakes for a year and thats just grand, unlike the big guys that spend thousands a week to feed,and house. for those who breed their own rats still have to pay for food and bedding, and maintanace. so to make this long story longer lol i think big breeders will go out of the game first and small one will become more popular... if i had to choose to buy a snake from a breeder that lives on the other side of the country, id rather buy from one down the street.... ok im done cheers if this dosent make sence its 5am and im still on no sleep so please be gentle...

[nixer]

my take on this entire ball python breeding problem, is if your in it for the money, you shouldnt have started. It should be because you love the animal and enjoy herping and watching your herps grow. if you ask me i think the big breeders will go out of business first due to over breeding, and due to their huge over head. remember that these breeders are feeding 100's sometimes 1000's of snakes and what the rat prices are right now its amazing how they are staying in business. i big blow for big breeders are the seasons where its too cold to deliver that snake and they must house and feed all these babies untill weather gets back to shipping temps. even those snakes that are on a payment plan till better warmer months the breeder looses money because those snakes gotta eat and they feeding them out of their pockets so a $300 spider would end up costing i big breeder $100 more per animal, lets say and thats heating, bedding, and food, but they only sold it for $300 they are really not making too much money in my opinion but then they do sell in quantity. what im trying to say is for example i have 23 ready to breed balls, i have a room just for them not to brag but they are the more expensive morphs and some just normals and low end morphs but when i breed a spider to a pastel and get a bumble bee i dont need to sell it for $1200 to make money and to help my collection since everything i make goes back to them, ill sell it for $500-600 pending on sex , or for instance I have a big ivory female i purchased for $2500 when she was 800g now shes 1500g and that does double her value and when i make ivories, im not gonna sell them for $1900-$2500 (these are canadian prices) ill sell for $1000- $1500 you know, one $1000 sale will feed my snakes for a year and thats just grand, unlike the big guys that spend thousands a week to feed,and house. for those who breed their own rats still have to pay for food and bedding, and maintanace. so to make this long story longer lol i think big breeders will go out of the game first and small one will become more popular... if i had to choose to buy a snake from a breeder that lives on the other side of the country, id rather buy from one down the street.... ok im done cheers if this dosent make sence its 5am and im still on no sleep so please be gentle...

you are partly correct.
most of the big breeders and operating as a farm. now as a farm your entitled to write off a great deal of things. last time i checked all the big breeders i know of are breeding their own rodents.

now the rodent breeder i know spends roughly 4k a month on just breeding rodents. hes producing roughly 15k rats a month. do the math.


why should you sell a snake for 500-600 when they are selling for 1200?
im not saying that you dont need to sell or not but if the fair market value of something is 1200 and your selling it for 500-600 your technically selling yourself short. im not saying that you have to sell for 1200 and hold it for awhile, but maybe 800-1000 would be fair to all parties in this trade.

[Gloryhound]

you are partly correct.
most of the big breeders and operating as a farm. now as a farm your entitled to write off a great deal of things. last time i checked all the big breeders i know of are breeding their own rodents.

now the rodent breeder i know spends roughly 4k a month on just breeding rodents. hes producing roughly 15k rats a month. do the math.

You are absolutely correct!

I've actually been doing some research on a couple different economic models work out with falling prices. Due to unknowns such as continued demand, possible laws and regularions, Rodent food prices, and the price of rodents themselves a couple different models were mapped out. The undercutting of prices by small breeders could turn into a boon for the larger breeders. The larger breeders have rodent supplies that technically pay for themselves and in some cases actually make money for them. This makes the food cost for breeding zero. Additionally most large breeders currently selective breed and not flood the market with chain breedings. Once prices get to a low enough point they can begin chain breeding. The small breeder who has a rodent cost will not be able to sell their snakes when people can go to petco and get a piebald for $200.00 that was sold to the store in bulk form a large breeder.

Also low prices cause decreases in the quality of the ball pythons available. If the animal being produced does not hold open market value will people be as interested in producing the best examples to put on the market or as many as possible to bring them to the market and make the small per animal profit.

I really don't think low prices will be good for the hobbiest and holds more profit potential for large breeders and breeders who just don't care!