Over priced???

Hey its me again and i live at the reptile house near me. they always get new corn snakes. in every time i go.this week they had. 2 bloodreds,One Blizzard, A very pretty Sun glow Albino,and Okeetee. now all the snakes where a good size. the blizzard was a good 3 and a half feet. the Bloodreds where 2 feet and a half each. Sun glow Albino was 3 feet. and the okeetee was the smallest a little more then a 2.

the blizzard was $180.
the blood reds $150
the sunglow was $175
okeetee was $120

I'm there allot! and i like holding all the snakes (not the deadly ones!!!)But even the 5,000 dollar boa looking thing so pretty its like brown and has a white tail!

but besides having fun there and playing with all there snakes. i was wondering are the prices right for the corns. they have tones of snakes.Maybe the stuff priced like that so they can pay to feed them every week. (lord knows i hate to see there bill for mice) they charge 1.50 for anything. pinkies,fuzzies,hoppers,mice,rats any size price is the same.

An animal is only worth what someone is willing to pay, if you think it's a good price go for it. Pet stores will always be more expensive than direct from breeders though.

$180 for a blizzard at a shop is a pretty fair price. breeders will always be less but fancy morphs at pet shops for under $200 is pretty good from my experience. Then again I live in northern canada where the prices are higher even from breeders.

Dark Morning,
Are you looking for another Corn?

There should be hatchling all over the market. Especially FL.

I know my closest breeder/shop only breeds corns for the summer but his hatchlings go for between 40 and 75 depending on morph. If you are ever planning to be in Tampa bay in august/september you can get hatchlings for a fair price.

Those snakes also are not hatchlings so the prices are going to be a little more expensive. They are more established, closer to being adults of breeding age/size so the price reflects that. Hatchlings (depending on the morph and where purchased) are usually a little bit less. Keep an eye out for shows in your area or check breeder websites and you might find better prices.
The big show in Daytona is coming up in August!

What stinks is even if the snakes aren't proven breeders most places are trying to recoup some of the losses of having to house and feed it for that long.
I saw a regular adult amel for $130 the other day... :shrugs:

Corny Noob said:

What stinks is even if the snakes aren't proven breeders most places are trying to recoup some of the losses of having to house and feed it for that long.

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You would want to recoup your loss too if you were dealing with reptiles as a source of income.

I never said they were wrong for doing it, it just stinks that you can get a baby for cheaper is all I was saying.
And err...a local petshop doesn't rely on one cornsnake for it's income.

If they are 2 or 3 feet now, they may be breedable by next year. If they are healthy and good examples of their types, and you don't have to pay shipping, the prices sound great. Especially the bloodred - sub adult bloods are like gold. If I had pretty subadults (esp. females) that I wanted to sell for $150, I could sell quite a few of them. You can never have too many bloods, lol!

If they are at a a size that you can see the adult colors, but they are too small to be rejected breeders (around 2 - 2 1/2' is perfect), and you like what they look like in color, pattern, and health, then you couldn't find a better size if you tried.

kathylove said:

If they are 2 or 3 feet now, they may be breedable by next year. If they are healthy and good examples of their types, and you don't have to pay shipping, the prices sound great. Especially the bloodred - sub adult bloods are like gold. If I had pretty subadults (esp. females) that I wanted to sell for $150, I could sell quite a few of them. You can never have too many bloods, lol!

If they are at a a size that you can see the adult colors, but they are too small to be rejected breeders (around 2 - 2 1/2' is perfect), and you like what they look like in color, pattern, and health, then you couldn't find a better size if you tried.

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Well said.

Sub-adult snakes always command a higher price tag, if for no other reason, than they are very cose to breeding age, and will provide you maximum breeding potential for minimum investment. You don't have to spend the next 3-4 years growing them up, feeding them, housing them, etc. before you can start to see a return on your investment from breeding...

Corny Noob said:

I never said they were wrong for doing it, it just stinks that you can get a baby for cheaper is all I was saying.

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My point was, it doesn't "stink." It's called business...It's unfair to a business person you saying "it stinks" simply because you want to pay less.

Corny Noob said:

And err...a local petshop doesn't rely on one cornsnake for it's income.

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And err...I didn't say a pet shop relies on a single cornsnake for its income.

Seems totally logical that babies should cost less than adults, or sub adults. There is less time, money, and work invested into them. They will take quite a while before they themselves can be breeders, and SOMEBODY will have to invest their time into them to do so. And that somebody would be much better off financially to keep them when they finally become adults, and to sell the babies instead, unless the adults sell for a whole lot more than babies.

So I am actually surprised that so many people are willing to sell adults (esp. if proven breeders) as cheaply as they do.

So...since when am I not allowed to say stuff stinks? It stinks that snake poop is messy, but I'm not going to stop owning a snake because of it. It stinks that I have to go to work everyday but I'm not going to stop working. I already said I understood the reasoning, because I even explained it myself, so please stop critiquing my personal opinion.I'm sorry you don't like it but oh well.

You can say whatever you want. But many hobbyists either don't know or haven't thought about the logic of why things are the way there are, so it doesn't make sense to them. So I feel it is good to point out "the why" of it to anyone who might not be aware of it.

But it's not like I don't understand the why, as I said I even explained it, I know. But hell, stuff stinks, such is life :grin01:

Corny Noob said:

But it's not like I don't understand the why, as I said I even explained it, I know. But hell, stuff stinks, such is life :grin01:

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I agree that it stinks. I sell birds to a few pet shops and the owners tell me that animals are pure profit in most cases. They use fair market RETAIL cost of food, housing, and handling to their "care cost figures", but it is very rare that the average pet shop actually spends that kind of money to care for live animals. They actually pay the WHOLESALE cost of care, but then ding customers with the RETAIL cost. Actual cost of housing a single snake is ~$10 total, including viv and food (most house same-species snakes together and they don't buy a new viv for each new batch of animals) . The inflated RETAIL cost of housing and feeding a single snake (retail-priced viv, 4 weeks of retail-priced food, retail-priced substrate, retail-priced water dishes and accessories, and employee labor (at the manager rate, not the employee rate) add up to significantly more. The average mark-up on pet store goods is between 100-150%. The mark-up on live animals is AT LEAST that much. When I sell a $100 bird to a pet shop, they spend about $25-50 in total care and then turn around and sell the bird for $400. Effing ridiculous. And adult birds/mammals are NOT sellable for more than babies. Even proven breeders in prime breeding condition are sold for 10-25% less than the ever-in-demand babies.

Hmm...reading over the thread again, I'm pretty sure my response was pretty much :-offtopic

ANYWAY, back on topic...I guess it just depends on the animal. Snake breeders are very lucky that the market favors adults and that customers are willing to pay more for adults.

I'll shut up now. :bang:

I guess I see it differently.

When I bred my registered Persian cats several times over the years, I did not want to run ads, have people to my house, and deal with retailing them. That is because it was not a business for me and selling takes a lot of time, expense, and effort. The local shop gave me $125 per kitten and they sold them for $450 each. Sounds REALLY expensive to me! But I was happy because I hoped that anyone who spends $450 on a kitten REALLY wants it, will value it, give it a good home, and even take it to the vet if needed. The profit made by the shop was not important to me, only the fact that $125 was the most I could get without dealing with retail customers myself, and that they sold it at a price their customers were willing to pay.

The big difference between most people who buy puppies or kittens and most who buy reptiles is that a far higher percentage of puppy buyers want a cute little companion that will never be bred, and a far higher percentage of reptile buyers want a pet AND a breeder, or maybe even just primarily a breeder. That is why adult dogs are not as popular as adult snakes.

Try to look at it from a seller's perspective, even if the seller is a hobby breeder and not a business. Imagine you have a pair of adult bloodreds that you are considering thinning out, and they produce 15 babies every year and you wholesale them for $40 each (or a whole lot more retail), that is $600 (or more for retail) each and every year. Unless you were desperate, why would you want to sell the adults for anything near the price of a baby, even if you are just a hobbyist and not paying the rent with the proceeds?

OTOH, I can certainly see why a buyer would want to buy an "instant breeder" at near the same as a baby price, instead of spending the time and effort to raise them up themselves.

In the end, each market is controlled by supply and demand. There are often temporary blips, but in the long run, whatever most buyers find the most desirable will be more expensive than what most buyers find less desirable. And that is the way it is supposed to work.

I know that some people are very familiar with all of this, and have thought it through. But there are many keepers who never really thought about it at all. And those are the people I have written this for.

kathylove said:

So I am actually surprised that so many people are willing to sell adults (esp. if proven breeders) as cheaply as they do.

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I think a lot of corn-breeders (at all levels) get rid of proven breeders as a "space-clearing" exercise, and profit becomes a secondary concern. You don't need the snake anymore for breeding, so you "stop the bleeding" (i.e., incurring feeding and housing expenses). The market for proven adults is driven down by the lack of appreciation and calculation for the actual resources required to raise and/or maintain an adult breeder. I think that stinks...

Well at least I'm not going to jump down your throat for thinking some thing stinks.

kathylove said:

If they are 2 or 3 feet now, they may be breedable by next year. If they are healthy and good examples of their types, and you don't have to pay shipping, the prices sound great. Especially the bloodred - sub adult bloods are like gold. If I had pretty subadults (esp. females) that I wanted to sell for $150, I could sell quite a few of them.

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I would pay you that price, while I would hesitate at paying it to a petstore. You are an established breeder with a great reputation. A snake from you carries with it not only your guarantee, but, in all probability, an abundance of available information about the parents, the feeding history, etc. A snake from the petshop is akin to a pig in a poke. Even if the phenotype of the snake is properly identified, it is unlikely that the store can provide any other information about its genetics or its history.

For those who wondered: a poke is a small sack. Unscrupulous farmers would sell a poke supposedly containing a piglet to a naive buyer, usually at an unbelievable low price. Upon arriving home, the buyer would open the poke to find a barn cat or a rat or some other worthless animal close enough in size to a piglet to be convincing if you didn't look closer.