I knew it would happen, didnt think it would be this season. Considering the fact that 2 months ago they were selling fine for more, why the need to drop the price?

ARG!!

I dont get it.... :dunno::dunno::dunno:

I mean, if you want to drop the price just to be the first to sell the animal... what does that make you?

in my book... a @!#$%^bag

I think spider males are like pastel males... just so many of them. :dunno:

Yep, females are the ticket now snatch as many females as you can.would love to have all the pastel & spider females i can.

150? I dont think its really anything to complain about.

Your best bet is invest in a few 3-4 gene animals so you wont have to worry about how the market is for single gene ball pythons.

I know some may see this a bad but for someone like me that's wants to get into a morph..... Sounds good to me, I don't care if they were the price of normals. Once the price goes down I will get them, not to make money of their babies but just to have one. Think spiders look sick and would get them even if they were worth $50 when I breed them. That's the one reason I don't get balls, because even the $1000 balls someday VERY soon will be $100 too. The ball market is going to get worse every year. I don't think I would get into them as looking at them as a money maker.

I don't think of it as getting worse, just look at it like this you gotta have money to make money. If your purchasing ball pythons for an investment then you better come out the pocket, do your homework and invest into a quality project. Now if your just looking to purchase some cool looking 1gene morphs well then right now is the time there are so many morphs that have became very affordable. One thing for sure people are still making money!

Reptiles shouldn't be looked at like investments, they should be looked at as a passion. Balls are like the casino. Might hit it big, but you will get burned more then your winnings. Don't know why everyone only cares about ball prices going down????? Their are 100's of other reptiles that prices aren't dropping or super hard to find. Look at blackheads, normals $2000...... Braded lizards $1500. I'm not a ball guy at all, have acouple but nothing great...... It's a dead market unless your that top 10% of the breeders with that "super morph" whatever

just how I and others not into balls see it I think

Ya Its a balls thing!

I cant talk for everyone else but I'm just trying to produce something no one ever has seen.

Ya Its a balls thing!

I cant talk for everyone else but I'm just trying to produce something no one ever has seen.

And I think that would make acouple of $

I would get into acouple morphs spiders and bees but at the price drop rate.... Think it will be acouple of years til the price drops to $100 and I know it will. Bees are a good price right now, but in 5 years or less their will be tons of them for cheap. Which sucks for people that but alot of $ into them

Reptiles shouldn't be looked at like investments, they should be looked at as a passion. Balls are like the casino. Might hit it big, but you will get burned more then your winnings. Don't know why everyone only cares about ball prices going down????? Their are 100's of other reptiles that prices aren't dropping or super hard to find. Look at blackheads, normals $2000...... Braded lizards $1500. I'm not a ball guy at all, have acouple but nothing great...... It's a dead market unless your that top 10% of the breeders with that "super morph" whatever

just how I and others not into balls see it I think

My gf and I have spent about 5k on snakes in the past couple of years. That's an investment. But, considering our collection and what we can produce, we can easily make all that money back in one breeding season. That's also with a very very conservative estimate of what the pricing will be for our potential offspring year. That's also guessing that only half of our females will go this breeding season. So, not even considering future breeding seasons, not all of our females producing offspring, and the market continuing to "crash", we are looking at a pretty sizable profit over the life of our animals.

This is possible because we've purchased quality animals, and already recognizing the saturation of lower-end morphs, have focused on producing combo morphs and as high end stuff as we can afford.

The ball market is anything but dead, it's just evolving. There was a time when someone could get a pin, breed him to dozen females and pull in a ton of cash. That's not the case anymore.

Now, I don't have snakes as "investments". I have them because I love them. In fact, the only reason I am somewhat focused on making money, is so I can buy the snakes I currently can't afford. Unless I finally have every morph and species that's on my ever-expanding wishlist, I know I'm always going to be in the hole when it comes to snakes because whatever comes in is only going to go towards more snakes. But, I do know that I could make a good return on my "investment" if I so chose.

im with you on that, i also use my offspring to get more
..... but i do remember hearing about when ablino burms were 1000's of $$$....today i can get one for around $100 no problem. Just saying that as more "whatever morph" is produced, the price will drop and from what i see, balls have been droping faster than every reptile out their. Just seams that alot of the balls is about $ not the luv of the different morphs when everyone is upset about a nice morph that now everyone could afford...... I would rather get something i want then have to settle for a normal.... in this day-an-age not everyone has money

im with you on that, i also use my offspring to get more
..... but i do remember hearing about when ablino burms were 1000's of $$$....today i can get one for around $100 no problem. Just saying that as more "whatever morph" is produced, the price will drop and from what i see, balls have been droping faster than every reptile out their. Just seams that alot of the balls is about $ not the luv of the different morphs when everyone is upset about a nice morph that now everyone could afford...... I would rather get something i want then have to settle for a normal.... in this day-an-age not everyone has money

Burms were thousands of dollars over twenty years ago. Of course they're going to drop in price.

I personally, am not stressing over the drop in prices. It's only logical, and I think there has been a big boom in the number of hobbyist breeders over the last couple of years. Personally, I think lower prices are good for the ball market as a whole. The lower prices allow more keepers to start keeping the morphs they love, which expands the market, which means more potential customers. A few years ago, ball pythons were exorbitantly priced. Now, these morphs were worth their hefty price tag as anyone who could afford one has more than likely seen a very good return on their money, but there's no way a market could maintain those prices and remain healthy. Honestly, anyone that was pairing up co-dom males with normals and seeing dollar signs in their eyes were unrealistic, and unfortunately, considering the large number of spider/pastel/cinnamon/etc males that are now a dime a dozen, there may have been a lot of individuals in that boat. I think the future of the lower-end morphs are the pet stores and the "pet" keepers. There's no reason that the beauty of a spider ball python can't compete dollar for dollar with any other pet out there.

Yes, there are some ball python keepers that are clearly mostly interested in the money. I do think they tend to be a little more exasperated over the drop in prices then those that just recognize the steady and inevitable decline of the market price (until it reaches it's baseline price). But on the bright side, those that are in it for the money are only in it for a while.