• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
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    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

ball python pricing

gsrept

gsrept

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question to every one, why is it that with the low amont of eggs produced by a ball that you still see the price droping on snakes that a year ago were in the thousands and now a few hundred? i guess why wouldn't breeders hold back or only breed for the genetic expressions they are looking for and sell to keep the pricing higher. i know about brokers and all that but if you were to cut them out would we not still be in yhe state we are now. thanks for looking and any responces.
 
Brokers are not the issue like some think. Think about it. A broker pays a certain amount for a snake and then has to sell it for profit.

The issue is the market is what it is. People worry about everyone else so much that they let it get to them. I do not worry what others price for. I sell my animals for what I think they are worth. Bottom line.

But the animal is not worth what the seller thinks it is worth. It is what the buyer is willing to pay.

I also ask who makes the market price? Is there a black book for wholesale and a blue book for retail? I mean really? IMO when people worry about how much a baby they produced is worth it tells me they did it for the money. Not totally but at least somewhat. Just breed what you love and who cares what joe blow is selling them for.

It is the ones who worry and lower their prices and then the next guy and the next guy and it just keeps going.
 
totally agree. i am just curios as to what drives the pricing and the depreciation per say. it seems like when you watch the adds the pricing is all over the place. i have been in the hobby for 18 years and have never been able to figure it out. i breed for fun keep what i like and sell the rest to pay for the my collections feed for the year. i believe there is a wholesale and retail list floating around out there
 
Right now, it's the recession that's dropped a bomb on everything. You used to be able to vaguely predict how much a morph would drop each year based on the type of mutation (recessives hold their value particularly well, while co-doms can drop quite dramatically, depending on their popularity).

It all boils down to supply and demand. Right now, demand is down--not because people don't WANT them, but because they simply can't afford them. Once the economy picks up again well, then demand will go back up, as people will be able to buy those mutations they've been coveting while their wallets were empty. I doubt we will see prices actually rise--the ball market isn't used to having that ever happen, so it's hard to imagine someone having the courage to raise prices other than in very extreme cases (which are unlikely to occur), but at the very least we should see a slow-down in depreciation back to pre-recession times.

After all, the ball python reproduction rate isn't changing, and more people continue to become interested in keeping and breeding herps as a hobby.

So, in conclusion, it's all about the following factors:

General economy
What the originator chose to price a brand new morph at
How publicized a brand new morph is
How extreme a brand new morph is (spider versus chocolate)
Potential in combinations for a morph (better combos = more demand)
How easy the morph is to reproduce (dominant, co-dom, recessive)
How big the breeder's name is/how nice the individual animals are

So, you can see a male pastel for $75, or $200 --if it's 200, it's probably an eye-popping special animal from NERD or something. The low priced animal is NOT necessarily inferior--it could just have been produced by a new breeder who's starting out and building a name, or by someone who is merely a hobbyist and just wants to move the offspring out fast so they don't have to spend time on their care. It does pay to look around.

It is wise to be cautious, because sometimes a low price tag can point to inferior stock, or inferior care (some unethical sellers do not retain enough cash to care for their collections properly, so try to sell quickly both for money and to get the excess stock out before it get too sick to sell).
 
Ball python production absolutely HAS increased, and that is a factor in the diminishing prices (for the reasons Gary mentioned)
 
not for mef per say but why wouldn't the big breeders slow down on what they breed to bring demand back up. besides for the fact that they need to keep money flowing. and i pose another question why keep importing wild caught babies when there are plenty of neonates hatched every year to supply the demand. thanks
 
Imports is often where you get your new morphs. There are so many ball pythons that look very close to a normal, only to find a few small certain things about them that sets them apart when selectively bred. Think about yellowbellies, fires, etc. In a lot of ways they look normal to the unexperienced eye, but when you look closer you notice things that make them "not normal." So animals such as this are held back and selectively bred to see if there's anything behind it.

Of course, obvious new morphs are also imported. Just like spiders or albinos. If one is wild caught, it's pretty obvious that they're a morph, and get exported from Africa pretty quickly. There's also the possibility of a new obvious morph coming in. Say they found a white ball python with green markings (yeah, I know, long shot LOL)--it would be obvious no one has ever seen it before, so someone would want it to see if it's genetically reproduceable.
 
Big breeders have over head. THey slow down their breeding and they have to get money elsewhere. It is not the big breeders hurting the market it is smaller breeders posting up the one or two animals for cheap then the common person saying that is what they are going for.

THere is not a wholesale list and retail list going around. I promise you that.

Like I said the market is controlled by the buyers not the sellers. But why worry about it if it is just a hobby? THe ones that should be upset about the price drops are not. THe ones that LIVE off it. If it is a hobby and money does not mean anything then why worry if you can sell your babies for 5K of 500?
 
i agree about the big breeders thats why i said setting aside the usual needing to make money. and the whole new morph coming out of africa, because for every 10,000 babies you may find one unusual looking one. so the ratio just are not there to keep importing normal balls why not keep the odd ones and release the normals back into the bush this nkeeps fueling the industry for the new morphs but inturn does not deplete the wild animals because as we all know there is a point where africa is going to shut its doors to exportation of this species due to over harvesting. thanks for all the input its been great to here everyones opinions
 
gsrept said:
i agree about the big breeders thats why i said setting aside the usual needing to make money. and the whole new morph coming out of africa, because for every 10,000 babies you may find one unusual looking one. so the ratio just are not there to keep importing normal balls why not keep the odd ones and release the normals back into the bush this nkeeps fueling the industry for the new morphs but inturn does not deplete the wild animals because as we all know there is a point where africa is going to shut its doors to exportation of this species due to over harvesting. thanks for all the input its been great to here everyones opinions
Click to expand...

Rarely is a NEW morph in the bags of thousands. The morphs are held back and certain people are contacted and offered said animal. Them people kinda bid on said animal.... And the person that can afford it gets it.......

This year there will not be as many ball pythons babies imported as years past.

Like I said the people that should worry about the prices don't the people that say they are in it for the hobby only worry about the prices...... Funny how that works.

There is no set market on anything. These are not items you can look up in a price guide..... Just will not happen
 
yea i agree they make up prices if they think there is a buyer for that particular morph. i can remember paying 8,000 for a pair of orange ghosts now look they are $350-400 i bought them because i really liked them yea i am not going to say i did not make money back when i could breed them but i recouped my cost i produce about 6 to 8 clutches a year and unfortunatly i end up keeping more than i sell i just love these snakes. and also the hobby keeps me sane.
 
Shoot there are people that spent 10 to 20 K on a single animal. It is the choice of that person to buy that animal to get in earlier then everyone else.

Morphs between the 500 and 1000 Range sell very well. When you get over the 1500 mark you lose a lot of customers due to price... Then over the 2K mark even more. Get into the 5K mark and it is mostly breeders wanting the gene.......

So you have to ask yourself.... What kind of customers do you want. The higher end very tight market or the everyday market? I can count on one hand how many people walk into a local reptile show and drop 5K on one animal. I have seen a few more drop 2500.... THe meal ticket tends to be 500 to 1000 bucks.

I can talk this stuff all day lol.

Spider, Mojaves, Pastels, Lessers, Butters, Albinos, Ghosts, Axanthics, G-Stripe, Pinstripes, Fires, Yellow Belly, Enchi... All single gene animals. That sell very well. Not for thousands but they sell very well. get into combos and get a little more for your animals.

See it is no harder to breed a Humble Bee to a Super Blast.... THen it is a spider to a normal. The thing is odds play a factor in what you get. It costs the same amount to raise a said triple gene animal as it does a normal..... THe take the same space ect.... They people that started from the ground floor to create the triple and quad morphs can say they have the time into creating the said quad or triple banger. But the guy that went out and bought a couple triples or doubles to create them just bought into said project. And they are usually the ones that get upset when the price goes down because of the cost to get into said project and they want a return.... But in the end it was their choice to get into it early.......

By the end of the day I still say breed what you love. and everything falls into place. Breed what you think will sell for the most money and you will be burnt by another guy/gal doing the same thing.........
 
well put. totaly agree.
like i said in another post the further along we get with theses 4,5,6,7 gene comos we inherintly increase the risk of genetic abnormalitys and eventualy we will have a whole lot of junk. trying to play god or beat evolution never pays in the end.
 
i found this.

here is a price guide i found while looking... ive talked to one guy who is somewhat agreeable with some of the prices but he said others are not true... i am not the person to say what what, i just wanted to share...lol... PEACE...
 
It's true, more people ARE producing ball pythons. But this isn't the reason for the drop in the market. Why not?
Who do you think buys ball pythons morphs...pet owners? Of course not. That rarely happens!
Ball python breeding is a gigantic pyramid scheme, and it always has been. Want to increase demand in the morph market? Interest MORE people in BREEDING. Those newbie breeders ARE your customers--that is the way it works.

Don't discourage people from breeding ball pythons. If you do that, and you're a ball breeder, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. The lower end of the market always overflows into the pet trade--when animals' prices drop enough to be affordable to pet owners, there are plenty of pet seekers out there to buy them (the CH babies seem to be gobbled up fast enough). I saw pastels in PetCo recently--inevitable, and perhaps even welcome.

If people want to get into breeding ball pythons as a hobby, or even a business, then support them--these guys are the next rung down on the ladder, and there is no limit on how high that ladder can actually reach (the number of humans keeps growing), so just keep climbing. Doom and gloom pronouncements are only likely to cause more damage, and they are self-fulfilling prophecies. If you tell people the market is heading downhill, why should they get involved in it? Why should they buy any ball pythons morphs? Consider the advice you're giving out, and its consequences.

If you tell folks this market has a bright future, they're more likely to hop on board...the animals sell, and look--the market isn't dropping so fast anymore! And you weren't lying, because it's happening just the way you said...so more people will become interested...and so on.

Don't let a recession knock everything over. Ball pythons aren't becoming any less popular. I think folks will be surprised to find that the fallout from all of this media hoo hah about giant snakes will actually result in more people becoming interested in snakes, and will wind up increasing the number of snake owners.
 
it seems like every time i log on to fauna there is at least 70 people viewing the ball python classifieds...if i owned a business and there was consistently 70 people browsing my wares i would be pretty happy. i am brand new to ball pythons so i havent seen the price drops like yall have but i like my odds of there always being a decent market when my babies have babies with that many people interested.

And arent triple morphs and higher pretty hard to produce, it almost becomes a lottery right, which i would think that alone would keep the price pretty reasonable considering the commitment it takes to produce those animals.
 
the problem is that the few that are priced high there are only a hand full of people that have the means to buy it. it does not matter if its a 3,4,5,6 gene morph or just a coral glow there is not tomany people willing to drop 20,000 on a snake only the select few.
 
gsrept said:
it does not matter if its a 3,4,5,6 gene morph or just a coral glow there is not tomany people willing to drop 20,000 on a snake only the select few.
Click to expand...

"Not too many" > zero. There are people out there willing to spend that kind of money, and that means they will spend that kind of money.
 
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