• 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.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    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 Site...Rant

N

Nick & Chelsea

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Just curious.., I don't want to aggravate anyone, or cause trouble...

Ball Pythons? C'mon..

Everyone has Ball pythons around here. What's so great about them? My first snake was a Ball Python, when I was 9 years old 23 years ago. Soon after, I outgrew them and got into a lot more exotic stuff. For a lot of years, you couldn't give a Ball Python away and you could buy them for a meazly $25.00 at any Petco, or Petsmart store. We used to trade and give them away, or throw them in with a deal of some sort just to get rid of them. I don't even know how many hundred passed through my hands of which I either got for free, trade, or gave away..

Now, all of a sudden they're the most sought after snake for some reason and I just don't see what's so special about them.

I don't think Ball Pythons are anything special, no matter what the morph. Why not just trade/ breed/sell Garter snakes around here? What ever happened to people wanting the more exotic snakes..?

This site is just flooded with Ball Pythons and it becomes a bit boring sometimes to see the same thing over and over again. It seems to me that everyone here has the same snake, and all they do is trade, and sell them for outrageous prices, of which far exceed the value of the snakes..

Don't get me wrong, they aren't a bad snake to look at, and have a great personality, for a 10 year old to handle.

Personally, I'd much rather have a nice Carpet Python, Carpondro, Burmese, Green Tree, Emerald Tree Boa, Retic, Blood, Dumerils Boa, Brazilian Rainbow Boa, Viper Boa, Sand, Rosy..or even a simple Red Tail. I mean, My Wild Caught North American Water snake is a more interesting to me than any Ball Python has ever been...

This of course is just my own opinion however.

But aren't Ball Pythons for "Beginners"?
 
it is all a matter of opinion.. I don't like the giant breeds as a pet, or any of the aborials blah blah blah..

ball pythons are GOOD for beginners.. but are not JUST for beginners..


reverse question.. why would you want a snake you can't hold??
 
What has drawn me to them is the sheer number of pattern and color morphs discovered with Ball Pythons. With the exception of Corns, I don't think any other serpent has exhibited such a broad spectrum of visual beauty.

That's the way I look at them, living works of art.

Not to say that I love my Boas any less :D
 
I dont see Balls ever touching Colubrids in the world of color. Yes there is some nice Ball Pythons out there... but I highly doubt you will ever create the colors found in the colubrid world.
 
RidgeTop Reptiles said:
I dont see Balls ever touching Colubrids in the world of color. Yes there is some nice Ball Pythons out there... but I highly doubt you will ever create the colors found in the colubrid world.
Click to expand...

True enough...what I meant was the different pattern and color variations together, not just the spectrum of colors.
 
but I highly doubt you will ever create the colors found in the colubrid world.
Click to expand...
Maybe, but there are an awful lot of different colubrids. How about comparing Bps to....say..a Calif. Kingsnake. Bp wins IMO....
What is nice about BPs, someone can get into the breeding side today, and after a bit of work, and many years, they could be the first to produce a diff. "designer morph". It takes lots of luck when you are dealing with fairly small clutches typical of Bps.
 
Casey Hulse said:
Maybe, but there are an awful lot of different colubrids. How about comparing Bps to....say..a Calif. Kingsnake. Bp wins IMO....
What is nice about BPs, someone can get into the breeding side today, and after a bit of work, and many years, they could be the first to produce a diff. "designer morph". It takes lots of luck when you are dealing with fairly small clutches typical of Bps.
Click to expand...

Casey... if your gonna compair color mophs.... why stack the deck towards the BP's. there is only a small hand full of morphs in the cal king world. You'd stand a better compairson if you did BP's to Corns. They both have over 100 morphs available.

Now Im not completely against BP's... I have a small collection of them, but IMO they cant compair to colubrids.
 
Nick & Chelsea said:
Personally, I'd much rather have a nice Carpet Python, Carpondro, Burmese, Green Tree, Emerald Tree Boa, Retic, Blood, Dumerils Boa, Brazilian Rainbow Boa, Viper Boa, Sand, Rosy..or even a simple Red Tail. I mean, My Wild Caught North American Water snake is a more interesting to me than any Ball Python has ever been...
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone's keeping ball pythons for their interesting factor, they are boring as hell, but nice to handle. Me personally, I have one, wouldn't mind a morph or two but I'd rather keep some different species as well, having a bunch of the same snake just in different colors in a rack where I can't even see them doesn't appeal to me at all as a hobbyist. It seems like today very few are keeping them as colorful pets, more of a collection that is constantly upgraded, obviously people will say that's not the case, but if they were keeping them for love of ball pythons rather than $$$ and appearance people wouldn't be dumping off normals and low cost morphs to make room for the next best thing. It's a breeder and seller market, it's interesting to think about how many bps must be out there, but go ask how many people have a 5 year old snake and you hear crickets. Which not just a ball python thing, obviously you yourself have gone through many snakes as your tastes and experience level have changed.
 
Personally, I don't think BPs make the greatest beginner snake. I say that only because most newbs can't seem to get the humidity right or the heat, etc. That said, I don't think there IS a perfect beginner snake. Each species has its own quirks.

Aside from that issue, I've never really been into BPs. I will say that I am still amazed about what variation there is in just ONE species. However, the names alone have gotten a little silly IMO, and there's definitely a lot of people who are in it for money. And as an answer to the OP, the reason BPs are so popular is money, plain and simple. It's a relatively small species that already has popularity as a so-called "starter' reptile, and they're easy to breed. Through in the morph equation, and there ya go. If you're not a complete idiot, and you invest well with your breeding stock, its not hard to make some decent money with breeding BPs.

Not that I'm judging anyone who is in it for money. I mean, we can all use a little extra moolah in this day and age. I just always find it funny whenever some big breeder (or even a large scale small-timer) says something to the effect of, "well, I'm not in it for money; I just live the snakes." I'm thinking to myself, "Really, wise guy..how many snakes you got?" Probably in the vicinity of a 100 or more. "And you're telling me if every single one of those snakes were normals with a market value of $0.00, you'd STILL be keeping a hundred of them in your basement?" Bull. They're in it for money. Again, I don't see nothing wrong with it. Just don't try to make it something it's not. Let's call wine what is wine, and what is bread bread.

Also, I always like unique and more obscure species. Like the OP said, everyone and their brother and their grandmother has BPs. Therefore, they have absolutely no appeal to me. Yeah, there's some cool morphs, but I would never buy one. But like someone said elsewhere in another thread (may not have even been this forum, can't remember), there's still a lot of color variations that BPs can't hold a candle to colubrids. Let's see a fire-engine red BP, and then we'll talk!
 
MDC_Ophiuchus said:
If you're not a complete idiot, and you invest well with your breeding stock, its not hard to make some decent money with breeding BPs.
Click to expand...

Mike... not completely true. IN 2007 I paid a grand for a male albino BP. In 2008 that same male was selling for $550. If I would have waited 6 months I could have gotten a visual pair for just a little more than I paid for the male. I still haven't produced the first albino and the price keeps dropping. BP's are over priced and eventually they will level out.
 
Just because I wouldn't have 100 normal ball pythons doesn't mean I'm "in it for the money". If I were in it for money, I'd have sold every last one of mine, since I don't think I'll come close to recouping the money invested in the next five years, even if I had good breeding years. I have my very first ball python from almost 6 years ago. His name is Bill.

There's a thrill to producing babies, especially when you can produce a morph from hets, a combo morph, or even something entirely new. This is true of corns and balls. To me it's not about the money, although making a profit WOULD be nice, I've never come close and I haven't really been trying much to profit, just enjoy the breeding and keeping.

Even normal ball pythons have a huge array of shading and patterns. Dark, light, more red, more yellowish, busy patterns, nearly no pattern.. all still normals when you haven't even gotten to morphs!

Ball pythons are not hyper and thus as easy to hold and admire. They usually are placid and don't try to eat your face. They're a mid-range size and won't ever get so large that you feel the need to have two people to handle or lift. They aren't very delicate and can withstand some tempurture fluctuation and such.

I don't like snakes that will habitially try to eat my face like arboreal species tend to. I don't feel like I could handle the giant species by myself. I don't care for smaller snakes that don't feel substantial when I handle them. I don't care for hyper snakes that just try to zoom away at the first opportunity.

So yep, I prefer ball pythons. But I don't insist that anyone else love ball pythons. I'm perfectly happy for others to love tree boas, or retics and keep them and show me awesome pictures of them and tell me how something cool happened with them. I'm amazed at the incredible array of colors and patterns and combonations available in cornsnakes and consider them to be another good beginner type snake too.

I could make the typical argument and say that if you feel some "need" to keep arboreal snakes that strike at you all the time you just are trying to show off and say "Look at my dangerous animals!" Same type of thing with giants. Or if it's rare ones, you only want to collect things simply because they are rare, and not because they are a gorgeous species in their own right. But honestly, I know lots of people appreciate all the different species for their own unique qualities. I won't sit around and bash a species that I don't keep just because *I* personally don't want to keep them.
 
Even the thought of having a BP in my home would have elicited a strong negative response up til a few years ago. I've come to the point where I don't mind having them around, and I even like some of them...but I'm still not a big fan. However, to anybody that doesn't care for them, or get what they're all about - rather than ranting about them, why not just stay out of the BP sections of the site? The classifieds and discussion forums are pretty clearly labeled...if BPs don't do it for you, open a different section and talk about things that do. You'd be surprised at the diversity of interest that can be found, with just a little bit of effort.
 
RidgeTop Reptiles said:
Mike... not completely true. IN 2007 I paid a grand for a male albino BP. In 2008 that same male was selling for $550. If I would have waited 6 months I could have gotten a visual pair for just a little more than I paid for the male. I still haven't produced the first albino and the price keeps dropping. BP's are over priced and eventually they will level out.
Click to expand...

Well, I stand corrected (not calling you an idiot or anything!).

But it still holds true to the argument that most get into BPs for money. Once more, nothing wrong with that, but your own case indicates the risk involved as well.
 
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