Prices gone bad

[mudflats]

I dont want to come across as i believe that breeding is just for making money, but prices latley have been so low on species i think it is in a way wrong. Captive born ball pythons for 30-40 dollers. It cost more to breed then to sell which is wrong in the fact as you need to make some profit to keep breeding. seen this in many species, and you will always have someone selling a ball or burm for 70% less then they should be. Not only that but it is letting any kid with some birthday money to own a potentially dangerous animal. This breeding season i just would like to know what should i charge for my burms, balls etc.. Will they sell at 75.00 or more? Speaking ball pythons. For a regular burm i have no clue. Sure it depends on the animal but if someone sees an ad for a 100$ regular ball will they even take time to click on the ad to see the picture? Thanks for opinions and thoughts, jon

[hhw]

Firstly, I'm going to assume you're in Canada?

If so, $100CDN is the market price for males and $125CDN for females. Now, seeing as how it's simply not worth it to ship a single normal ball python, your potential market is essentially limited to driving distance of where you live. In which case, the price you'll be able to charge depends on your competition, the quality of your animals, and your ability to find the buyers (or them being able to find you). It also depends on how quickly you want to sell, and how much trouble you're willing to go through to do it.

I think $75.00 is the lowest you would have to go to reasonably sell males. And whatever you have left over, you could always trade in your stock to a pet store for in-store credit if you can negotiate it, which may make more sense if you're just a hobby breeder. As for females, if they don't sell, just grow them up for a year, but feed them enough to get big. You won't have any trouble selling a decent sized female for more than your financial costs as you would be in essence, selling time, something people will pay big bucks for in this business.

[Matt_K]

This breeding season i just would like to know what should i charge for my burms, balls etc..

I don't personally think you should even bother breeding your burms.. There are already WAY too many Burms in the hobby.. Everytime you turn around someone is selling one or giving one away. They're great animals until they get big, then people just give up on them and sell them or just dump them.. Check some rescue sites, there's hundreds of burms in need of a home. Why bother bringing more into the hobby???

-Matt

[Invictus]

I absolutely agree with Matt... SAY NO TO BREEDING BURMS. There is a reason why they are the #1 most rescused snake in Canada.

[Jeff Hathaway]

Ken, maybe we should make a bumper sticker or T-shirt for that!!!

For further incentive, mudflats, I've seen baby burms at a reptile show here (Newmarket) that were $50 each. At the start of the day, not the end. He didn't sell many, which was a relief.

If you get eggs, feed them to something!!!

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!

[Bartman]

Jeff,

He actually ended up auctioning one off for I think 30 bucks, but it was to someone im pretty sure is going to take good care of it :)

[BoidKeeper]

I don't personally think you should even bother breeding your burms..
I'm with Matt and Ken for sure. I personally have moved towards species that will be worse a little more. My cheapest snake will be $100. I won't bother breeding something that I can't get a $100 for. For most people $100 is not the kind of money they are willing to spend on something that is disposable. All of my sand boas and rosy boas will be $125 each. My lowest priced animals will be my garden phase ATB at $100.
Cheers,
Trevor

[RepTylE]

I love burms but you are not going to see one in my collection, they get too big and I think that most hobbyists would rather have a half dozen smaller species than one burm.
From what I have seen of the market for them, you practically have to beg people to take them off your hands.
I shudder to think of a new hobbyist getting all excited about a burmese and then finding one for 100 bucks and take it home only to find that they grow way too big for them to handle. Just try to find a home for a 10 foot burm after that.

[Siretsap]

I saw some adds for ball pythons at 50$ on this webcite a while back and saw some for 70$ cbb in some petstores in my area both males and females.

The only reason why the price is high for females at this moment, is for adult ones who will prob be used to breed to make hets or pastels since there were soo many pastels for sale this year in canada.

I am pretty sure next clutches will go for about 70$ for cbb regular babies and prob drop over time cause people will want to get rid of them.

As for pastels, well I wouln't be surprised if people manage to get some for 400$ next year, or maybe even less if the cdn currency continues to rise, people will get them in from the states and breed them quicker.

As for burms, there are way too many on the market today, and I rarely see someone keep one for it's life time, most will dispend of it as soon as it reaches a decent size.

[mykee]

The price for normal females will never drop below $100 as it's the females that are needed to make ANYTHING. As for $30-$40 for a CBB Mudflats, point me in that direction!! Whomever is selling them al that point is losing money, their minds, and the respect of their fellow breeders. I could sell all my snakes for half of what they're worth, hell I could give them away, but why? The market still dictates that these snakes are worth it, why not ask it?

[gonesnakee]

Cheap BP prices, blame the morph breeders. Don't worry it won't be long until Albinos, Pastels etc. aren't worth much either. BPs & their morphs are going to do nothing but get cheaper IMHO Normal males have pretty much bottomed out already & morphs have dropped considerably in the last few years. Albinos are readily available at 3G or less CDN now. They were upwards of 5G not but 2 years ago & they are starting to come out of the wooodwork now already. Het males are considered by a few & pos het males are normals in most peoples eyes already. Based on Canadas Herp buying population & how many are to become available in the next say 2 years, those in it for the $ won't be for very long as their investments continue to slowly spiral downwards. In reguards to Burms they are already cheaper than Cornsnakes NUFF SAID! Mark

[hhw]

If pastel prices dropped any more in Canada, people would just start selling them to the US where the price isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Even if the USD$ drops to 1:1, you're still not going to see any pastels go for less than $1,000CDN, and this would be an extreme case scenario. Personally, I think people with strong reputations will continue to demand $1,500CDN and not have any problems getting it, while all the smaller breeders out there will sell a bit lower, somewhere between $1,200-$1,400CDN. The pastel market is big enough so that even if a few people sell well below the market price, the market isn't going to crash.

It's true that morph prices will come down as supply increases, but the price drop is going to start to level out as they reach pet level prices. Pastel prices have already started to reach this point. The morphs that are going to drop the most are those in the middle range ($10,000-$20,000), relatively speaking that is, seeing the most relative growth in supply. The ultra high end is relatively safe since so few people are working with them, that the low supply will keep prices high. The relative growth in supply on the lower end such as with pastels and albinos is going to be the least. Even with everyone getting pastels this year, it's still going to take at least a year, more likely 2 or 3 before you see anything for sale from those people. I'm certainly not losing any sleep from dropping prices, although I am constantly up at night thinking of what higher value morph I'm going to jump to next :P From purely an investment standpoint, to get 3x your initial investment on an annual basis is RIDICULOUS return. Heck, recouping your investment in 1 year is already a fantastic payback period. Compare rate of return with bank interest rates or computing net present values, you have to wonder why every investment banker on wall street isn't buying up ball pythons.

[hhw]

Double post

[rwg]

You dont need to make a profit to continue breeding. Some people are breeding just to offset some of the costs of keeping (which they would be doing anyway).

Roy

[BOAS_N_PYTHONS]

EVERYONE:

I agree with Matt K and Ken, yes burms are great and gorgeous, but their size and care do put many in rescue shelters and on the news from complications. The market and the cummunities are just full of them now and breeding more only turns into a more burms being rejected. We have 1 Albino Burmese Python, a male and that is as far as it goes, he will never see a mate. We feel this and many other species that reach sizes of 9 feet and more and are mass produced always tend to have more than 1 loving home and sooner or later a shelter :(

Cya...

Tony

[Piers]

Some of the morphs have gone up in price ie ghosts. I bought mine last year for 1500 and now people are selling them for over double. Pastels have keept the same price for a few years now even though a few short sighted people have knocked a few hundred off here and there.
Normale cbb bp have allways gone up and down in price but usually stay inbetween $75 -$125ish.
Piers