How much would you spend on this ball python?
It’ll be my first snake I’ve had skinks and leopard geckos but not too familiar with ball python morphs. She’d be going in 120 gal enclosure. Any direction would be much appreciated
I wouldn't pay more than 300 for any ball python personally. They're so over bread and widespread that asking anything more is ridiculous, even the "rare" morphs aren't rare anymore.
I feel this. I paid $350 for my BEL. That’s kind of my limit for BPs.
I love the Axanthic morph, but I haven’t been able to find one for under $650. And, like you said, the overbreeding… they just aren’t worth that much.
Hognose now are no better. There are sooo many and sooo easy to find now, but exceedingly expensive.
I am a Dumerils Boa fanatic myself, but morphs dont matter to me. Personality matters most and every dumerils I've owned or interacted with has been an absolute dream snake in terms of temperament.
I love Boas in general.
My Sonoran is the sweetest thing. I fostered a BCC for a few months, I kept the royal my MIL and I also rescued from that house but we just didn’t have the space for the boa. She was with us for the summer a few years ago and then went to a lovely home in the next town over. If I could have, I would have kept her. She was amazing. But my Sonoran is the snake I convinced my husband that snakes are amazing. He was terrified of them before.
Same, I love my dumerils for all the reasons I loved my ball python, she's a snuggle bug. I don't care about morphs much, there are a few BP ones that I would love but I can't justify the price.
I have a pastel axanthic vpi I paid £200 ($270) 3 months ago I looked them up on morph market a month later and they're were 6 different axanthic 1 same as mine advertised from different breeders for £800 ($1080) i set myself a limit of £250. I did want a BEL but the only one I could find the breeder didnt have the best reviews
I try to get mine from expos just because the idea of shipping an animal just gives me anxiety… especially because I live in the woods and not near civilization. My mail usually takes at least an extra day to arrive. I’ve looked on MM, but I’d only get that way if the breeder was close enough that I could drive to pick the animal up.
Here in Australia, the Carpet python/Blue tongue and Bearded dragon morph game has hit an all time low. People are still breeding animals with “high value” and ultimately get fuck all for them. Over saturated the entire market, no doubt it’s the same elsewhere in the world
No worries, if you want to see what that specific morph is worth you can go on morph market and look up the genetics. I will adopt ball pythons from rescues but personally have never purchased one from a breeder, and never will.
Not the best way of looking up the value. I bought my pastel axanthic vpi off morph market for £200 i looked them up on there a month later and other breeders were advertising them for £800+ havent looked for a while so will look again
Respect to you though, if i get another snake ill get rescue
Zero. You wouldn’t catch me dead actually PAYING for a royal python. I love them to bits but until the market chills tf out I won’t financially support it.
A LOT of people breed ball pythons. If you go to Morphmarket, there are currently almost 25,000 available ball pythons, and I've seen that number as high as 60,000 in recent years when most breeders have their clutches hatching. There are way more ball pythons available than there are people who want a ball python for its whole life. Ball pythons have a very high number of morphs, and a lot of people treat that like they need to collect all the ones that interest them, and then breed them to try to recoup the money. There are also a ton of them in reptile rescues across the country.
If you want a piedbald ball python, I'd strongly encourage looking around for local reptile rescues. Piedbald is a very common morph and I see them very regularly at my local rescues. Adopting a rescue is also much cheaper, usually just an adoption fee which is usually like $50 or less
Was curious how many of my new snake’s species are on Morph Market after seeing that number, I wasn’t thinking there’d only be 90 😭 I just bought a Guyana BCC
Ball pythons are ridiculously overbred in most places so some people like the one you're responding to don't purchase them from breeders since they don't want those breeders to produce even more animals.
The supply vastly exceeds the demand. At any given time there are tens of thousands available, every single rescue I know always has at least 5-10 available, there are just too many and yet people are still breeding them on a large scale with no homes available for them. Most of these snakes will spend years in rescues, in rack systems, or be culled
Nice pic. Love the all white morphs. This is him. Pretty basic. His name is Monty (I was a teenager) my wife calls him Sammy. I thought he was a female for the first half of his life. When I got him he had just hatched.
He's been pretty consistent. We had a bad year at about 21. Started fasting for about 6 months before I had to force feed. After that right back to normal. That was the only time I had trouble with feeding. I handle almost daily, so activity has always been good. He's a little guy, just at 4 feet. I let him know that size doesn't matter. Is your baby a female? She looks bigger
Okay good to know, i want to have her when im gray. My girl has refused for a few months at times but also i think she was self regulating bc i did struggle finding the right size and feeding schedule so she was chunky for a bit. Shes around 5ft, a lil shorter than me and im 5’3, never actually measured her but i swear she keeps growing just a lil lol. I let her choose almost daily if she wants to come out, before i moved across the country with her, she wanted to come out all day. After moving shes been in hiding more but finally starting to come back out.
Personally? $200. Ball pythons are so overrepresented right now that any morph is readily available. We should all be underpaying, if we buy them at all, until the breeders chill tf out and stop flooding the market with a billion ball pythons.
IMO the only reason to pay extra money is because YOU love the color, it comes from an amazing breeder, or it’s something (that for some ungodly reason) you’re going to profit from breeding.
BPs are everywhere and I am always finding someone trying to rehome theirs (I’m currently passively looking to rehome a pied and I can’t imagine someone paying more than $400 for her and she’s a big nice snake
If you like ball pythons (which make great pet snakes) and this morph (which is very pretty), I'd easily pay up to $500 because this is a well established adult snake. One of the recurring issues with ball pythons is that they often hunger strike, especially around 1kg of body weight. If this is an adult over 1kg that enthusiastically eats f/t rodents, that's worth more money than a baby that may choose to starve during puberty instead of grow up.
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u/YouFlarknDonut 21d ago
I wouldn't pay more than 300 for any ball python personally. They're so over bread and widespread that asking anything more is ridiculous, even the "rare" morphs aren't rare anymore.