morphs

[paul_le_snake]

just a little thing i want to get off my chest, y r ppl so excited about new colour morphs???? i saw in the recent Reptile magazine a picture of a leucistic blackheaded python..GOOD GOD it was the ugliest thing i ever saw! unfortunatly it will proabaly cost a few thousand dollars more than a beautiful natural looking bhp. some of the recent mutaions are truly laughable (in my opinio anyway!) some of the names for ball pythons are great! and the prices that go with them are even funnier. $5000 for an axanthic ball?????? it's ugly.
calico retics for god knows jow much...they look like they've been dragged through a puddle of mud. Bullseye rainbow boas, looks like it has a scale defect or a bit of mould. Small time breeders make up names all the time in the hope of bumping the price of a regular ball python up by whatever they want. some of the american ads are great fun too, killer patterns, screamers...whats next murderous peaks?
it's the same for lizards too, leopard geckos are beautiful animals, but some of the mutants available nowadays are anything but screamers. now i see that crested geckos are being diversified. chocolate morph, dalmation etc.
corn snakes, another great pet snake. has more colour morphs than i've had hot dinners (and thats alot!!)
i have no problem with ppl wanting to keep these weirdo animals, but i think that the only variant that i can say looks better than anything else is the boring old albino. anyone remember when the first albino burm came along? in england they were selling for 7000 a pair, bred by a great bloke called dave lester.
i guess my main point of pissiness, is the TRUE labrynth python. it was first discovered in thailand in the early 70's a zoo in england was the only place i heard of that had some. they tried to ensure that they kept this new species pure, but unfortunatly they couldn't and then some breeder in america had some, but couldn't get them to breed, so he crossed them with a burm, the result....the possible extinction of a python, and more crossed and hybridized pythons.
enough rambling for one day, just food for thought. if ppl breed these animals then ppl will buy them, but after producing snakes for a fair few years and seeing some beautiful animals i still can't see the point in morphs.

[Tim_Cranwill]

I agree in some cases (axanthic balls) and don't in others. Intersesting topic though.

[Linds]

Personally, the morph craze sickens me. I cannot even bear to browse the ball python forum -on that other site-, and half the other forums and classifieds can really get to me at times. This is not to say I don't like all morphs, there are a few select morphs that appeal to me, but I do not like them because of the dollar value or all the hype that surrounds them, which I believe is often the case. This is not to say I will ONLY own all normals, but for the most part, they will be nice classic specimens of the speices, not mutations. And why should a colour mutation be worth more than a shining example of a rare species??? It's a bunch of BS to me.

Now as for you saying they are ugly, well, that's jsut your opinion. There are obviously enough people that think far from that. I personally think calico retics are beautiful animals. Snow Balls and albino burms however, blech! But that's just all a matter of preference. Nobody can really say for a fact that any of those animals are ugly, just that it is a personal preference.

But back to my point, the whole morph craze sickens me, and a good part of it is driven be the almighty $$, its a crying shame. Especially all the people arguing over whether an animal is this morph or that morph, when in fact it looks more like a normal to me. Alot of these animals ARE in fact just nice normals, but everyone would rather have a morph

If I ever breed any morphs, I'm going for the no-brainer ones OK... you had your rant, and I had mine, whose next? Hehehe

[Dunner]

i'm not going to rant, simply some morphs are nice, some are not, the price is obsurd for most of them, i think the whole morph thing is pretty stupid myself, but hey to each their own, i'm not going to buy any 5000 dollar snake, so it doesn'treally concern me, oh well

[C.Marshell]

what it boils down to is suply and demand..if the suply is low but demand is high then prices usually follow suit.
I have to say im with linds on this one,i'll just stick with the no brainer morphs..its easier that way and i cant be bothered argueing over weather something is or isnt a morph.
But whatever the case ,morphs are here to stay weather we like it or not..as long as there is a demand for a certain color mutation,or what have you...there is someone out there who will produce it,and if its rare you can bet the price will be high and there will always be someone to purchase it,Morphs are geared arround the serious collectors, hobbiest and breeders,to someone that merley wants a pet snake morphs are usually of little concern.
Just look at all the people who pay thousands of dollars for a baseball cards or comic books some people look at them like thier nuts..but to them they have a treasure..like Dunner said,to each his own.
We each enjoy the hobby in diferent ways,but i believe the passion we show for our animals is something that will always remain pretty constant.

Chris M

[Dunner]

well said chris, linds, paul.....good show

[Jeff_Favelle]

I don't understand why YOU'RE getting so "excited". If you don't like the morphs, don't buy one. You should be happy. The cost of new morphs drives the price down of normals, and if that's all YOU like, then YOU win. How the he!! could you complain about that? I guess you didn't really think about it then did you? If everyone else is paying through the nose for a new color, then doesn't it stand to reason that the less-desired normals would be cheaper for YOU to buy. Is that a bad thing?

As for the price of morphs, I'm glad. I wish it was more. I wish ALL animals cost more. It "sickens" ME when the animals intrinsic value has FAR-outweighed its monetary value. Look at Leopard geckos, corn snakes, beardeds, etc etc. $20 animals? That's gross, in my opinion! They have become disposeble. I hate that. I'd never touch one of those animals because of that. Those animals are worth more to me and the planet inherently (in and of themselves) than anyone will ever pay for them again. Yuck! Also, if someone pays a lot for a snake, you can be damn sure that they'll take care of it. Why wouldn't you, after spending all that money?

Also, without this kind of money floating around in the industry, you simply wouldn't see alot of the animals available that we do today. If there wasn't the financial rewards for some of these things, the efforts and time wouldn't have been put in. And then we'd all go back to keeping anoles and Cuban Tree frogs. How fun would that be? Or would you rather we all had animals raped from the wild? 'Cause that'd be sweet.

And that Labrynth Burm? I don't understand how crossing it out in the States made it extinct everywhere? Did the breedings in the US kill the adult animals in the Uk through some magical process? 'Cause that'd something else.

[lanalizard]

i just think morphs are morphs..no need to go extensively into breeding morphs that are just another color and selling them for 16,000$ !!!!!

you can sell it for a little bit more but i mean, c'mon, 16 THOUSAND? na nah nah......its rediculous...
but that is my 2 cents.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Not ridiculous at all. Why should a breeder go through all the hard work, RISK and time to produce morphs at a lower price so YOU can afford them? That's not fair to the breeder. You have to understand that these morphs are NOT for the general public's consumption (although they CAN buy them if they want to). The morphs are for other breeders and are seen as an investment. Until the particular morphs is established in the industry (and not JUST established, but inundated) then the prices stay high. These are not pet-store animals (thank God!). I think that $20 for a Leopard Gecko is ridiculous. And its the leos that suffer for it.

[Linds]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
Not ridiculous at all. Why should a breeder go through all the hard work, RISK and time to produce morphs at a lower price

Can you honestly say that someone that produces a $30,000 ball python does $29,950 more work than one who strives to produce beautiful normal specimens???

I don't understand why YOU'RE getting so "excited". If you don't like the morphs, don't buy one. You should be happy. The cost of new morphs drives the price down of normals, and if that's all YOU like, then YOU win. How the he!! could you complain about that? I guess you didn't really think about it then did you?

We have all the right to get excited when everywhere we go its rubbed right in our faces. Perhaps for many of us part of the hobby includes interacting with other hobbysits, but everywhere you go you see this BS of people battling over this morph and that. If we don't want to see it, then we have to throw that whoel aspect of the hobby out the window. I would much rather see the rare and endangered animals fetching the prices that morphs do. Why should mother natures truest creations be so mcuh less than the - for lack of better words - freaks??? I'm not one to complain about price, alot of Canadians seem to like the cheap snakes. I for one don't say "it's too expensive!" I say "I cannot afford it right now". But come one, I don't see why a pattern or colour variation should fetch as much as a house does!
I guess YOU didn't really think about that did YOU?

[Jeff_Favelle]

So you want the rare, endangered species to fetch higher prices? That's a scary concept. What would happen then? Poaching? Raping of the wild for the last remaining specimens? No thanks. Not on my planet.

As for more work, maybe not. But more risk? Definitely. If you have the only morph in existence and it dies, then that morph goes extinct. But what if you have a normal Ball Python die? Well just go get another $6 animal from the wholesaler. No big deal. No risk, no gain.

And mother nature created alot of the framework for these mutations. DNA is natural. Its not like we're painting them with acrylic paint and calling them a new animal. The DNA existed, its just being combined and refined, not changed.

You want to know why "mother nature's truest creations" are soooo much less? Its because they are imported by the thousands for pennies. You see, morphs are usually guaranteed to be captive bred (a good thing right?) so you know what you're getting. Lace monitors are going for $15,000 Us at the Goanna Ranch. These aren't Piebald. They aren't albino. They aren't Pastel. So its not ALL morphs that are commanding the high prices. Its supply and demand. If there isn't a heck of alot of something, and people WANT it, then who gets it? Well, whoever pays the most. If there is 5 spider Balls in the world, and 250,000 people want them, how do you divy it up? I'd be interested in how YOU'D decide who gets to have them. REAL interested.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Who's rubbing it your face? I don't get it? Are people taunting you for having normal animals? Ha ha!! Are they waving normal animals in front of your face and laughing at you? LOL! 'Cause yeah, I guess that would suck.

If people are spewing BS, regardless if they share the same interests/hobbies, then just ignore them. I ignore a LOT of things in this hobby. Remember when people said that 140F is too high of a hotspot for a monitor? Yeah, those were funny times. I don't like Burms, Rocks, or Retics in captivity, but I don't stress about it every day. I don't think people should have such large animals as their needs are probably not met by 90% of the keepers out there. But that doesn't mean I don't frequent the Python forums, or avoid talking to Corey Woods because he breeds Burms. I'm just happy that there's people out there that share the same interests. And if it wasn't for a lot of the morphs, WE wouldn't have the husbandry techniques and knowledge we have today. I'm thankful for all the money that's flying around. Its getting people interested. Its creating new markets. More people are starting to LIKE reptiles (not a bad thing).

[Jeff_Favelle]

Can you direct me to those $30,000 houses? 'Cause that would make my mortgage down to like, $200 a month! That would be waaayyy cool.

[tai_pan1]

Jeff, I disagree to a point on the "cheap" snakes. I love snakes, and find the corns to be great snakes. If not for their $20-$40 price range, I probably wouldn't own any. I now have the opportunity (since they were cheap) to introduce my children to snakes and develop a healthy resepct for them. This doesn't just go for snakes, this year our "science project" was raising tadpoles into bullfrogs. For a dollar a piece, I bought two tadpoles and my children got to observe first hand the metamorpasis that takes place from tadpole to frog. These are lessons that I believe they will keep with them forever. If the price wasn't affordable for me, they would miss out on it.
Just my thoughts.

Mike

[Jeff_Favelle]

Of course. But tell that to the millions of green iguannas that get abandoned in alleys or set loose in the local forest (in the WINTER time). Or to the thousands of leos and corns that die because people don't know how to keep them. Remember the red-eared slider craze? How many poor animals perished THAT decade? I don't even want to think about it. I'm all for affordable animals for everyone, but that doesn't mean every single animal should be one price. If I had no other snakes, I could produce 2000 baby corns in a single year. How fair is that to the baby corns? They would be treated like dry-goods. Now, if I produced 4 piebald Ball Pythons (same dollar value) do you think that those 4 pythons would have a bad captive life? Ummm...I doubt it.

I'm not saying that NOBODY has EVER enjoyed a $20 animal. That would be absurd for me to say. All I'm saying is, what about the other 95% of the $20 animals that got neglected? Who's giving a rat's a$$ about them? Nobody is. And that's sad. They cease to have monetary value so they cease to have intrinsic value (in our eyes), and that's NOT a good thing. Just because its easy as dirt to breed something, doesn't mean that they should be.

I never said that corns weren't great snakes. Red Rat Snakes are awesome! They are alert, great feeders and look awesome! But just because you took care of them and introduced them to your family, does not mean that the rest of the world will follow suit. So out of the 300,000 corns (not a real number, just for sake of arguement) produced every year, maybe 10,000 go to good homes where people do everything they can for them because they like living things. What happens to the other 290,000 corns? I don't want to know.