Great video!! 2023 was our first year selling. We sold out our inventory of sub $300 simple banana combos in less than a month. So I can 100% agree and attest to what you said about that category.
Thank you for watching!! Sub $300 has done really well at local shows. Almost all of our higher end stuff has been online sales through YT and IG. There is definitely a market for both but the avenues to reach them are different
I think the best way to get past the potential problem of prices falling on a specific animal is to diversify your products. Don't shy away from breeding something else, also, consider selling things that aren't animals.
Personally, I slightly disagree. I think the best way to handle the ball python market is to focus on a small amount of projects that you love, where you are okay with potentially holding back all of the babies if you have to and make yourself known for those projects. When the economy strengthens, you will be much further in those projects and (if you market yourself effectively) people will think of you if they want to buy into one of those projects. Diversifying into a new species still presents the same risk as there is no guarantee people will want those babies once you are able to produce them. Ball pythons are the most popular pet snake for a reason so any other snake is going to have a much smaller market size. In turn, there is less competition but that still means you will have to find a way to out compete all of the people who are already known in that market. Getting into non-animal products is solid advice and selling coco or stuff like that can definitely help out in the short term to cover expenses at a show.
I'm not necessarily saying you have to change half your stalk to another species, I'm saying don't put all your cards into one hat. There are other very popular animals out there which sell for about the same amount as Balls. When I say diversify, I'm saying change it up with 5% - 10% of your animals. I agree about the projects and that's why I held back 8 balls this season but I also sell out of my Dendrobates dart frogs as soon as they're large enough to sell. It's been a huge boost. Especially since I'm only in season 2 of balls and working a day job. 5% of my breeding is Dendrobates and 5% is Cal Kings, though that hasn't quite started since I have some sub-adults. Both are highly popular animals with similar price ranges to lesser ball pythons. Pythons are my specialty but I like most people in the industry that I personally know, keep a wide variety of animals as pets. I've sold multiple frogs to folks that bought a single ball from me. Products are a must IMO. Unless you carry a big name, idk what you're doing if you don't have some tangibles to sell when your snakes don't. @@LeviathanSnakes
Extremely well thought out and great explanation of the current market. You are doing amazing job with your videos and providing extremely helpful and informational videos. Keep up the great work. Gray
Great information as always! I def think you’re right sometimes you don’t know what’s out there and stumble across something and can’t believe you missed it. So many of these things were in our recent chat
Excellent content. It's easy to see ethical participants in this business and hobby. You and Courtney are certainly amongst the best! Those watching this video heard the bare naked truth, excellent business advice for free. Thanks, Steven, for your candid assessment. As always, amongst the best content in the hobby!
Its so crazy you can get a pastel for 50 dollars on morph market and a regular for 25 right now. Beautiful time to be a snake lover. Also saw a few 100% het albinos for 50-60 dollars and 100% het pied
Great job on a tough subject!! Blunt, honest, right to the point. I am impressed at how you focused on exactly what is happening with inflation and how it is affecting this market. I have been involved in the herp market since the 70's and have seen lots of ups and downs. The reason this particular down feels like it does is because the price of everything doubled during the COVID money giveaway program and now we are going back to "normal". This is definitely going to flush out the weak hands.
I disagree with it being normal for 2 reasons.....we are in a definite snake recession right now on top of the really bad economy we are faced with right now.... people just don't have extra money to spend...... it is definitely a tough time to be in this industry right now.....
I wonder if a two-tiered approach would be a way to hedge. Purposely make good-looking bananas, bels, and pieds for the pet market and also have high-end projects. Since anticipated clutch values have dropped, we have to either go the Ozzy route and continually upgrade a small collection or expand and make more clutches. The problem with "everything moving to multi-recessive" is all the by-product misses that don't really look as good intentional pet clutches.
That is kinda what we are trying to do. Make roughly 30% of our clutches that are geared for the pet market and 70% geared to breeders. I have no idea if that balance is correct but so far we have done well at both online and show sales.
So quick question on this would it be a good strategy to have a few good looking pet quality snakes on hand and get into maybe one or two projects and that's it this is my first year breeding and I am still on the learning curve I produced 2 clutches this year and the first clutch I did albino het pied to albino het pied got two visual albino pieds a male and female. I'm holding them back for future stuff and the second clutch is a spin enchi calico to a black pastel and they all came out very good looking as well but I wanted to get into the hypo and Panda pied for projects what would your advice be on those two
@@patricktimm4004 awesome question and I feel the answer is kinda in depth. If you shoot us a DM on Instagram I can send you my number and I can call and talk to you about it in the way home from work today!
That is more of a personal preference. I tend to not like pastel in clown so it is one of things we filter out when we are looking at clown combos specifically
As of now I want to breed just morphs I like and I only have one snake as of now wich is a female 1 yr old pastel enchi yb 100% het clown cause I wanted to make banana freeways but due to saving for school I must take a year break. I remember in 2020 I bought a snake I really wanted wich was a normal banana clown cause if you added any gene to it like pastel it could add maybe 200$ ontop so I paid 750$ for a normal banana clown and within 2 years the price significantly dropped and I seen some normal banana clowns going for 350$
The falling are both good and bad. We have been able to buy some amazing animals recently for a fraction of what they would have cost a year ago but the animals we were selling last year have had their prices drastically cut. Overall, I like that more people can get into the projects that we love and it gives more chances to make cooler things since we can buy more for our money.
This could not come at a better time! Im still in the research phase but am looking for snakes. I checked the breeders that sell on Marketplace and was baffled by how many breeders are up there selling there whole collection, breedergroups, holdbacks etc. It's crazy to see 3 gene combos for just 150 euro and some go for less than 100 euro.. it most definitely is discouraging😅
@@jamesperry459 I listened to a Traptalk podcast earlier today. He had RCR and Sybil serpents with him and one of them said the same. That it's a cycle that repeats itself. Good to hear you've seen that too ^^. Might be a good time to buy some good priced animals and start slow. By the time the market rebounds, I'd have more experience, hopefully. For now I aim at having fun, getting to know stuff and learn. Thanks for your comment. It reminds me to not make the decisions in the heat of the moment 😅🙈🙏🏻
I completely agree. Now is a great time to buy if you have the money. I would say that I don’t think prices will go back up for combos that are already saturated on the market since more and more supply keeps being added each hatchling season. At most I think their prices will stabilize. Instead I think the rebound will come once people have more money to spend overall and it will be focused on the newer genes.
@@LeviathanSnakes that was what I was thinking initially, yes. Being new, I have to learn a loooot. I've watched your suggestion on what to buy (the superbanana HET clown vid) any input as to what NOT to invest in?
People would rather buy a 💩 looking combo that's not even properly listed from a new TH-camr with a hot channel than a quality animal from an unknown breeder with no social media presence, long gone are the days of buying off Kingsnake based solely on the Quality of the animal I blame social media as much for the downfall of BP's as I do for the growth in the BP industry. I (we) simply can't compete with millionaire Breeders like Mike Wilbanks absolutely FLOODING the market with $150- $300 dollar Animal's how's my Hypo combo going to compete with his 60 newly Hypo combo's he dropped on morphmarket earlier that day? beyond frustrating so many variables that go into it, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at times SMH
Lower the prices they will sell. If you love what you do, then dont chase the money. When the economy gets more stable , then focus on raising prices. I think everyone some how someway will have to take a loss, but that doesn't mean you have to stop doing what you love. Another thing is to focus on more local sales instead of online sales during these times.
Completely agree on not chasing the money. The animals and fulfillment derived from the hobby has to be enough to motivate someone to stick it out because of it is just for the money, the work and time required will outweigh any money that is earned during the first five years
So while it may be discouraging for those already in the business, would you think it might be more encouraging for the people maybe wanting to get their feet wet? As maybe a beginner hobbyists having cheaper access to snakes that were maybe over their price point a couple years ago? Thinking of the whole buy low sell high aspect of things. Assuming the economy will eventually pick up again.
Completely agree and no worries at all that someone already asked this. Now is definitely the time to buy if you have the money. There are so many good deals and I feel competition will continue to drop as other breeders get out. By the time you would have snakes to sell it is very likely the economy will be in a much better place.
Breed if you like the spicies or don't bother 😅 You see nexst level as a coloration, I see nexst level in Spicies like simalias and liasis so on. I'm a new keeper but I like scubs the most then my olives (both kinds). If your gonna breed now make carpets boa imperator or even green trees, is my guess on the future. Ball pythons are long done unless you realy dive in genetics!
Completely agree with the breed what you like and congrats on getting into the hobby! Personally I don’t see ball pythons going away since they are the perfect pet reptile and have such a docile temperament especially compared to some of the other snakes in the hobby.
In theory I completely agree, but pragmatically when it comes to someone only wanting a pet, the max price point most people are willing to pay right now is around $300. Essentially, the best pet animals (Banana and BELs) sit around this price threshold. If single gene Bananas and BELs suddenly went to $1k, the pet market would stop buying them (even though they are gorgeous) because the price moved out of their budget. Single gene clowns, DG, or simple combo hets that have become the common byproducts of the current hot breeding projects are not genetically strong enough for the breeder market, and a pet owner would rather have a Banana (which is roughly already at its highest price point given the pet market) so in order to sell those single gene clowns, they have to be cheaper than the competition (Bananas and BELs) in order to serve the market that wants a pet ball python but can’t afford a BEL.
Honestly as both a snake and rodent breeder in my local area, I am finding myself constantly out of stock of feeders because I have so many people wanting to buy feeders, yet my snake sales have stagnated. Lots of people making snakes in the area, not so much the rodents to feed the snakes. I am putting in more rat racks in my rat room to increase feeder production. Even if I'm not making as many snake sales as desired, the feeder sales are steady income because everyone has to feed their collection.
@@WolfhawkWildThings I’m assuming this means that people aren’t dropping out of the ball python breeding game. Probably holding onto stuff to wait out the economic wave.
Fortunately I love 90% of my BP stuff because otherwise I wouldn’t be paying for this weekly nonsense. I should probably make some budget moves but I’m not dying yet. Just an expensive pet collection for now lol
Great video!!
2023 was our first year selling. We sold out our inventory of sub $300 simple banana combos in less than a month. So I can 100% agree and attest to what you said about that category.
Thank you for watching!! Sub $300 has done really well at local shows. Almost all of our higher end stuff has been online sales through YT and IG. There is definitely a market for both but the avenues to reach them are different
Very interesting video, thanks for sharing, I think you’re right on!
Thanks for watching! We appreciate you!
I think the best way to get past the potential problem of prices falling on a specific animal is to diversify your products. Don't shy away from breeding something else, also, consider selling things that aren't animals.
Personally, I slightly disagree. I think the best way to handle the ball python market is to focus on a small amount of projects that you love, where you are okay with potentially holding back all of the babies if you have to and make yourself known for those projects. When the economy strengthens, you will be much further in those projects and (if you market yourself effectively) people will think of you if they want to buy into one of those projects.
Diversifying into a new species still presents the same risk as there is no guarantee people will want those babies once you are able to produce them. Ball pythons are the most popular pet snake for a reason so any other snake is going to have a much smaller market size. In turn, there is less competition but that still means you will have to find a way to out compete all of the people who are already known in that market.
Getting into non-animal products is solid advice and selling coco or stuff like that can definitely help out in the short term to cover expenses at a show.
I'm not necessarily saying you have to change half your stalk to another species, I'm saying don't put all your cards into one hat. There are other very popular animals out there which sell for about the same amount as Balls. When I say diversify, I'm saying change it up with 5% - 10% of your animals.
I agree about the projects and that's why I held back 8 balls this season but I also sell out of my Dendrobates dart frogs as soon as they're large enough to sell. It's been a huge boost. Especially since I'm only in season 2 of balls and working a day job.
5% of my breeding is Dendrobates and 5% is Cal Kings, though that hasn't quite started since I have some sub-adults. Both are highly popular animals with similar price ranges to lesser ball pythons.
Pythons are my specialty but I like most people in the industry that I personally know, keep a wide variety of animals as pets. I've sold multiple frogs to folks that bought a single ball from me.
Products are a must IMO. Unless you carry a big name, idk what you're doing if you don't have some tangibles to sell when your snakes don't.
@@LeviathanSnakes
I appreciate all your advice insight and support to all of us trying to make it in the business
Thank you for watching and we really appreciate your comment! We love making the videos and are super happy you like them!
Nailed it👏👏 great video
Extremely well thought out and great explanation of the current market. You are doing amazing job with your videos and providing extremely helpful and informational videos. Keep up the great work. Gray
Thank you! We really appreciate the support!
Great information as always! I def think you’re right sometimes you don’t know what’s out there and stumble across something and can’t believe you missed it.
So many of these things were in our recent chat
Thanks man and 100% a lot of the stuff we have talked about recently was inspiration for the taking points in this video!
Excellent content. It's easy to see ethical participants in this business and hobby. You and Courtney are certainly amongst the best! Those watching this video heard the bare naked truth, excellent business advice for free. Thanks, Steven, for your candid assessment. As always, amongst the best content in the hobby!
Thank you friend! You are the man, and we appreciate you!
That’s a great analysis…
Its so crazy you can get a pastel for 50 dollars on morph market and a regular for 25 right now. Beautiful time to be a snake lover. Also saw a few 100% het albinos for 50-60 dollars and 100% het pied
Great job on a tough subject!! Blunt, honest, right to the point. I am impressed at how you focused on exactly what is happening with inflation and how it is affecting this market. I have been involved in the herp market since the 70's and have seen lots of ups and downs. The reason this particular down feels like it does is because the price of everything doubled during the COVID money giveaway program and now we are going back to "normal". This is definitely going to flush out the weak hands.
Thank you friend!! We really appreciate the kind words and you watching! 🙌🙌
I disagree with it being normal for 2 reasons.....we are in a definite snake recession right now on top of the really bad economy we are faced with right now.... people just don't have extra money to spend...... it is definitely a tough time to be in this industry right now.....
Great content as always! Hoping the market will pick up soon 🔥
Thank you for watching and things are slowing on the inflation front already so hopefully in 2-3 years the economy will have stabilized.
Great and informative as always and stunning snake
Thank you for the support! You are the man!
Great video, love these fall updates...even if there are some hard economic truths. Hopefully next year will pick up! 🤞
Thank you friend! Always love seeing you in the comments! Next year is gonna be awesome, I can feel it!
Great video explaining basic economics and brand building for the reptile industry.
Facts.
Thank you for watching and for leaving a comment! We appreciate you!
That vid helped a lot thank you!
Super happy you liked it!!
Still a great video. I appreciate the honesty
Thank you friend! It did make me nervous posting it since it is much more negative than most of our stuff
@@LeviathanSnakes some of us like the honesty
I wonder if a two-tiered approach would be a way to hedge. Purposely make good-looking bananas, bels, and pieds for the pet market and also have high-end projects. Since anticipated clutch values have dropped, we have to either go the Ozzy route and continually upgrade a small collection or expand and make more clutches. The problem with "everything moving to multi-recessive" is all the by-product misses that don't really look as good intentional pet clutches.
That is kinda what we are trying to do. Make roughly 30% of our clutches that are geared for the pet market and 70% geared to breeders. I have no idea if that balance is correct but so far we have done well at both online and show sales.
So quick question on this would it be a good strategy to have a few good looking pet quality snakes on hand and get into maybe one or two projects and that's it this is my first year breeding and I am still on the learning curve I produced 2 clutches this year and the first clutch I did albino het pied to albino het pied got two visual albino pieds a male and female. I'm holding them back for future stuff and the second clutch is a spin enchi calico to a black pastel and they all came out very good looking as well but I wanted to get into the hypo and Panda pied for projects what would your advice be on those two
@@patricktimm4004 awesome question and I feel the answer is kinda in depth. If you shoot us a DM on Instagram I can send you my number and I can call and talk to you about it in the way home from work today!
I love the vid
Thank you! We appreciate the support!
I understand why not the Spider gene, but why not Pastel?
That is more of a personal preference. I tend to not like pastel in clown so it is one of things we filter out when we are looking at clown combos specifically
@@LeviathanSnakes ah ok. I thought you were referring to some neurological issues from the Pastel gene and it got me wondering 🤔😁
Thanks
Thank you for watching!
As of now I want to breed just morphs I like and I only have one snake as of now wich is a female 1 yr old pastel enchi yb 100% het clown cause I wanted to make banana freeways but due to saving for school I must take a year break. I remember in 2020 I bought a snake I really wanted wich was a normal banana clown cause if you added any gene to it like pastel it could add maybe 200$ ontop so I paid 750$ for a normal banana clown and within 2 years the price significantly dropped and I seen some normal banana clowns going for 350$
The falling are both good and bad. We have been able to buy some amazing animals recently for a fraction of what they would have cost a year ago but the animals we were selling last year have had their prices drastically cut. Overall, I like that more people can get into the projects that we love and it gives more chances to make cooler things since we can buy more for our money.
This could not come at a better time! Im still in the research phase but am looking for snakes. I checked the breeders that sell on Marketplace and was baffled by how many breeders are up there selling there whole collection, breedergroups, holdbacks etc. It's crazy to see 3 gene combos for just 150 euro and some go for less than 100 euro.. it most definitely is discouraging😅
It’s not a bad time to get into it. Prices are down and will rebound like they always do
@@jamesperry459 I listened to a Traptalk podcast earlier today. He had RCR and Sybil serpents with him and one of them said the same. That it's a cycle that repeats itself. Good to hear you've seen that too ^^. Might be a good time to buy some good priced animals and start slow. By the time the market rebounds, I'd have more experience, hopefully. For now I aim at having fun, getting to know stuff and learn. Thanks for your comment. It reminds me to not make the decisions in the heat of the moment 😅🙈🙏🏻
I completely agree. Now is a great time to buy if you have the money.
I would say that I don’t think prices will go back up for combos that are already saturated on the market since more and more supply keeps being added each hatchling season. At most I think their prices will stabilize.
Instead I think the rebound will come once people have more money to spend overall and it will be focused on the newer genes.
@@LeviathanSnakes that was what I was thinking initially, yes. Being new, I have to learn a loooot. I've watched your suggestion on what to buy (the superbanana HET clown vid) any input as to what NOT to invest in?
People would rather buy a 💩 looking combo that's not even properly listed from a new TH-camr with a hot channel than a quality animal from an unknown breeder with no social media presence, long gone are the days of buying off Kingsnake based solely on the Quality of the animal I blame social media as much for the downfall of BP's as I do for the growth in the BP industry. I (we) simply can't compete with millionaire Breeders like Mike Wilbanks absolutely FLOODING the market with $150- $300 dollar Animal's how's my Hypo combo going to compete with his 60 newly Hypo combo's he dropped on morphmarket earlier that day? beyond frustrating so many variables that go into it, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at times SMH
Lower the prices they will sell. If you love what you do, then dont chase the money. When the economy gets more stable , then focus on raising prices. I think everyone some how someway will have to take a loss, but that doesn't mean you have to stop doing what you love. Another thing is to focus on more local sales instead of online sales during these times.
Completely agree on not chasing the money. The animals and fulfillment derived from the hobby has to be enough to motivate someone to stick it out because of it is just for the money, the work and time required will outweigh any money that is earned during the first five years
So while it may be discouraging for those already in the business, would you think it might be more encouraging for the people maybe wanting to get their feet wet? As maybe a beginner hobbyists having cheaper access to snakes that were maybe over their price point a couple years ago? Thinking of the whole buy low sell high aspect of things. Assuming the economy will eventually pick up again.
I see where someone already essentially asked this, sorry.
Completely agree and no worries at all that someone already asked this. Now is definitely the time to buy if you have the money. There are so many good deals and I feel competition will continue to drop as other breeders get out. By the time you would have snakes to sell it is very likely the economy will be in a much better place.
Breed if you like the spicies or don't bother 😅
You see nexst level as a coloration, I see nexst level in Spicies like simalias and liasis so on.
I'm a new keeper but I like scubs the most then my olives (both kinds). If your gonna breed now make carpets boa imperator or even green trees, is my guess on the future.
Ball pythons are long done unless you realy dive in genetics!
Completely agree with the breed what you like and congrats on getting into the hobby! Personally I don’t see ball pythons going away since they are the perfect pet reptile and have such a docile temperament especially compared to some of the other snakes in the hobby.
Just tell people you caught a (insert your body weight here) pounder! They don't HAVE to know everything. 😂
It had to hit a wall at sometime. Bad economy. Half the morphs that come out you can barley tell any difference in the snake anymore.
instead of dropping the price of clowns... raise the price of bananas and bels. ;)
In theory I completely agree, but pragmatically when it comes to someone only wanting a pet, the max price point most people are willing to pay right now is around $300.
Essentially, the best pet animals (Banana and BELs) sit around this price threshold. If single gene Bananas and BELs suddenly went to $1k, the pet market would stop buying them (even though they are gorgeous) because the price moved out of their budget.
Single gene clowns, DG, or simple combo hets that have become the common byproducts of the current hot breeding projects are not genetically strong enough for the breeder market, and a pet owner would rather have a Banana (which is roughly already at its highest price point given the pet market) so in order to sell those single gene clowns, they have to be cheaper than the competition (Bananas and BELs) in order to serve the market that wants a pet ball python but can’t afford a BEL.
Hopefully rodent prices come down
Ikr
Rodents can be crushing and we don’t even live in a super expensive area
Honestly as both a snake and rodent breeder in my local area, I am finding myself constantly out of stock of feeders because I have so many people wanting to buy feeders, yet my snake sales have stagnated. Lots of people making snakes in the area, not so much the rodents to feed the snakes.
I am putting in more rat racks in my rat room to increase feeder production. Even if I'm not making as many snake sales as desired, the feeder sales are steady income because everyone has to feed their collection.
@@WolfhawkWildThings I’m assuming this means that people aren’t dropping out of the ball python breeding game. Probably holding onto stuff to wait out the economic wave.
Fortunately I love 90% of my BP stuff because otherwise I wouldn’t be paying for this weekly nonsense. I should probably make some budget moves but I’m not dying yet. Just an expensive pet collection for now lol
Lets just say post Trump inflation...thanks biden and those who voted for him