The purchase of lone or extra females..

Recently it has come to my attention that another breeder has noted on their website that they will be charging a substantial surcharge for lone or extra females ordered from them. I don't really have any problem about what someone else does with their business, but I have detected a trend that may be resulting from thier policy that may be affecting my business.

Lately I have gotten quite a few orders for, you guessed it, lone females of various cultivars. Maybe this is completely unrelated to the circumstance mentioned above, but it certainly does give me cause to think such may be the case.

I normally make an effort to be as fair as possible, and I guess in return I hope people will be fair to me as well. But is it fair that someone may purchase a pair of cultivars from someone else, and then come to me for those extra females because they can get them cheaper?

Maybe I'm jumping to a conclusion here, and there is no relation to the increase of lone female orders I've been getting, but I need to bring this out into the open and air it out. Certainly some people will have legitimate reasons for only wanting to order a lone female, and I certainly am not going to interrogate someone to determine their motives. That leaves me no real alternative but to either set a blanket policy where I turn away those types of orders, or follow the lead and also charge a surcharge for those lone females as well.

So if I am all wet in this interpretation, please let me know. I have no desire to get people mad at me because of my policies, but then on the other hand, I'm not about to get shafted because of someone else's policy and be left holding the bag with ONLY all males at the end of the season.

Your comments are solicited.

well i did have the same problem,people just wanting lone females,granted my collection is alot smaller than yours,
so when selling pairs of corns, or other snakes, people would ask me to sell just female breaking up the pair,
so now ,say the snakes are 100 pr they want just the female ,i say sure 90 for the female 10 for male,they is not fair ,i say not fair to break the pair up,some walk, most still buy. they then have the CHOICE sell the male themself or keep as pair .
dont know if this is a good way or not ,
its something to chew on .lol

I think going with the PAIR option is best. Lots of people do that. My question would be. I dont want to buy two of the same immeadit family. I know there is tons of inbreeding out there but I will not cator to it. That is one reason I normally buy from 2+ breeders. Basically I would want 2 snakes from 2 different mothers. If that would be an issue then I swould just buy from expos.

Perhaps if requiring a pair set to be bought then offer a lower price. That way you are not getting shafted...and we the buyers will not feel like we are being raped.

most of the time they are unrelated, or may have same dad
and some times people want related .
but i find its best to be honest with the buyer ,leting them know if related or not

I think requiring the purchase of a pair or charging extra for the female are both fair policies. Charging extra for the female does allow people who just want one snake as a pet to buy the cultivar they want, though I'm not sure how much of your business comes from these types of purchases.

i would say most of the selling would in my case would be to the buyer wanting just a pet, some times 2 pets , and are not bothered about the sex of the snake (s),


ps yes i do sell pairs for less,most of the corns i sell are in the20 --40 range... with normals 10-15.... i dont know what that is in usa dollars ,would'nt have thought much ????

I understand where the thought of this happening is coming from, but I don't like the thought of you changing your policies. I wonder how much business Kathy has lost because of that...??? If you also change your policies, whose to say that many of your customers won't start buying from Don? I know that you offer quality and if people want quality, they will pay, just a what if type of thing. Would you also make this requirement carry over to expos/shows? Myself, I have been thinking of maybe buying the females this year and males the next? I didn't decide on anything yet, but I had that option in mind. It really depends. I mean breeders such as Kathy and yourself both have a lot of quality and varient type snakes, but how much extra are people willing to pay to get your quality? I can't lie and say I that I can't find some of the morphs cheaper at a local expo or such. But, you do have that extra quality produced from selective breeding, so, it depends on how much someone wants the merchandise. I think this topic is very interesting and can't wait to hear what some more people have to say.

How many orders do you get for pets? (where they express that they want a pet in email or other)

I also, just wanted to ask if you tend to keep a lot of the males, because looking at your 2001 surplus list, you don't seem to have a lot of either left compare to the thousands you produce.

I don't think it's unfair to charge xtra. I do think it's unfair for someone to take advantage and only order from someone because they want to save a little. I ordered in April from another breeder and I ordered some pairs and 1 lone female (I already have a male of the same) I paid the xtra, no problem. My personal feeling is that I will probably make money off that female, as all the females I may breed in the future. If I was just looking for a pet I wouldn't care what sex it was and what ever cultivar I picked you could send me whatever you had more of
It's not fair for you or any breeder to be left with all males. Dog and cat breeders have been doing this for a long time (charging xtra for females that is) it doesn't matter if you never plan on breeding that animal or not.

Alicia

I am not sure if ordering from you would really save them money, after having to pay for more shipping and box charges, I would just bite the bullet and pay the extra from the other breeder. If it is a problem I would charge more for females. Maybe you can let people mix and match thier morphs? Like a female Candy Cane and a male Lavender, as long as they end up with 1.1 . I don't know why people prefer to have so many females, it is always good to have an extra male around. What if your female is ready NOW and your male is in shed or not in the mood? What if you have 1.3 corns in a certain project and your male dies? or turns up infertile. Plus, with more than one male you can keep your stock unrealated. And last but not least, if I am going to pay the big bucks for something like a Hypo Lavender and I can only afford one, you bet it would be a male so I could spread the love around. (Thats exactly what I did and fell so in love I ended up buying a female also later that season.)
Do what ya gotta do, people who whine about price are not interested in the animals wellfare and wouldn't make good owners anyway. They would probably be the same type that keep their animals in filthy conditions to make keeping them easier and cheaper, Then offer their babies at rock bottom prices that no humane breeder could beat.
Honestly, I think your prices are very reasonable and sometimes a bit too low. IMHO We are talking a lot of slaving producing these animals. It seems you may be better off producing less and charging more.
But that is just my opinion

I also, just wanted to ask if you tend to keep a lot of the males, because looking at your 2001 surplus list, you don't seem to have a lot of either left compare to the thousands you produce.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand your question. In just about every case, I am heavier in males than females, and this is normally the case every year. The whole point of this thread is because I don't want it to get worse and I am seeing many more instances of people ordering lone or extra females this year than I can ever remember happening in the past. I have been talking to Don Soderberg about this problem and he has seen the same thing happening with him. So something is definitely up.

Now this has always been a slight problem, but it normally will straighten out over a season by the wholesalers ordering a bunch of animals and not really caring what the sexes are. In such cases, they get mostly males and I tell them the lower prices are contingent upon them taking them that way. At shows, I will often take males of something like Hypos het Lavender and lower the price and sell them as regular Hypos. Or Amelanistics het for Butter will have the same thing done. It gripes me to have to do this, but that's the way it goes. At least it helps to equalize the sex ratio on the more valuable animals, but it's at a cost that may not be justified if I look at it long and hard enough.

I have found that I just cannot control the selling of lone females at shows. Tried it and it just doesn't work. So what I will do in some cases is to alter the price to let economics help me out. For instance, for $50 Blizzards, I will mark the males as $40 and the females at $60. That way a pair of them works out to be the same as if the price remained at $50 each. But anyone wanting a Blizzard and the sex doesn't matter will normally buy the cheaper male. And somone whom only wants a female will pay a premium for it. But this is real tough to put on a price list without having it look cluttered. I suppose I could do it, and may give that some more thought before too long.

But it is extremely disheartening to be at a show and have someone pick out a stack of nothing but females to buy. Sure I can refuse them, but it certainly would be bad PR to do that. Heck, at one of the Mid Atlantic shows, I had a bunch of people seemingly determined to only buy female Fluorescent Oranges from me. I resisted saying they had to buy pairs. And most walked away empty handed. This went on for HOURS. Finally I caved in and said OK and darned if there weren't two other people standing there that I had refused to sell lone females to earlier. I thought they were going to string me up. So of course now I had to sell them lone females as well.

Every year I get so aggravated with the shows that I swear I am going to stop doing them and only sell via mail order. Then I have a rash of problems shipping and swear I am going to give up shipping and only sell at shows. Anyone whom thinks this is all fun and games isn't seeing the whole picture, for sure.

Just a day in the life, I guess..................

well when listing your prices just put
ex. Blizzards hatchlings '02 $40-$60

And when they call or e-mail you to ask why? just say 40 for male and 60 for female.

And another thing do a show in Texas so i can shop from you. I would rather pay money for more snakes than shipping and I cant afford to go to the shows you go to elseware, because i wouldnt have any money for corns after i pay for transportation!

Ouch. Touchy Subject. And to think 9 of the 11 corns I just placed a deposit on with you are females. Doh.

Truth be told, If you had higher prices for females I'd have placed the same exact order with you. As hard as it may be to beleive I try to get 1.1 pairs when I do place an order but it doesnt always work out that way. Ive previously purchased 6 males at a clip from Don. And some months back I purchased 2 males and 2 females from you, Rich. For me at least its just a matter of what I want/need at the time.

Anyway... As far as I'm concerned it's your business to do with as you please Rich. I know you want to be fair but bottom line is your the one stuck with extra males in the end & this is your livelihood so you should do what you think best for yourself. Those of us that really want a specific morph or gender will purchase from you (or Don, or Kathy etc) regardless of price. (within reason of course).

These are just my opinions of course...

I do have one inquiry though. Are we talking specifically within single color morphs or would this apply to an entire order?

Would a 5.5 order of Snows be looked upon the same as an order consisting of say 0.5 Snows & 5.0 Ghosts? Just curious about specifics.

I can feel for you Rich on the show subject, I hate selling at them. The only reason I go is to see people I wouldn't see otherwise. As for this female thing I think it is just coincidence. Shipping charges would wipeout any savings. I think it's more likely that people are catching on that one or two males can service a lot of females. I think selling in pairs or charging more for females is about all you can do and I'm not sure that will be effective. You might want to ask that person how it's working out with them. Personally if I wanted an extra female paying a little more wouldn't make any difference. IMHO

Well I see both sides of the coin, and I thought something like this might happen when I saw what Kathy decided to do. Who could blame her, assuming that she produced a even 1 to 1 ratio of females to males (I know it does not happen that way but for the point of this...) and if she sold mostly 1.2 orders by October all she would have left is males. The extra price is part deterrent, part job security, part CYOB. .

This is your livelihood, you have every right to protect it . She saw a problem with her business and corrected it if it is affecting your business then you have every right to take what ever measures you see fit to take. The idea of posting two prices works ( I snagged your Html and looked at it on a web editor it looked ok to me.). The only problem I see is if you offer a male for $40 and the female for $60 you lose $10 if they buy just the male.

Who is to say it is a blanket policy. the question I have is Carol, who bought a male Hypo Lav then later bought a female, would she still have to pay an extra fee if she bought both from you at different times?

Those of us that buy from Don, Kathy and you do so for two reasons all of you have a good reputation in the trade and you have animals that are unique or hard to find. I like paying less for something as much as the next guy but I for one don't mind paying a extra fee or you being sexist (placing more value on one sex over another) in pricing.

I can totally understand that you would not want to be so male heavy at the end of a season.As much as I hate to admit it, it may not be a bad idea to raise the price of females.Here is my question is it possible that people are buying some of the females as they feel a female would be less aggressive than a male?I mean I realize that alot of people are buying in the hopes of breeding, but until you make a name for yourself and produce a certain quantity per year I do not believe there is much chance of getting rich from breeding corn snakes,(If all you are doing, is selling at wholesale prices you won't make much money!).What will you do about trios,and reverse trios?What do you do if you charge more for females, and find you have missexed a male as a female?I prefer shows to mail order as I get to actually SEE 5,6,or10 babies and pick the one I want,usually regardless of sex.

My $.02

I think it's the law of supply and demand. If people are demanding lone females, raise the price of lone females to match the demand.

I realize something like this may not be fair to the people who are buying a lone female to replace one that died, but there are probably alot more people out there who are trying to get 1.6 of some morph just so they can get the most hatchlings for their investment.

Perhaps price the males and females separately from the pair price? That way those truely interested in the females can still buy them separately, and those looking to start a snake harem will be discouraged. It would encourage more people to buy pairs. You'd have to adjust the prices so that the price makes the demand equal the supply, but I could see a triple price listing: male-female-pair working out. Say, like a male XXX would be $50, a female XXX would be $75, and a pair of XXX together would be $120 (a slight discount for buying as a pair).

Dunno if that sounds good to anyone or not, but it's my idea.

You gotta do what you gotta do!! I personally am getting orders from you and Kathy, some as pairs and some as singles from both sexes, to be pairs for what I already have. Like someone already mentioned I wanted some unrelated pairs.I don't think that higher priced females would really matter, I would still get what I wanted.

Just to let you know Kathy told me that as long as the M to F ratio was equal and she could chose which morph they can from then she wouldn't charge the extra female fee. I needed to have the right sexes to make my pairs, so I paid more!


Colleen

Well, being fresh-blood in the "industry" it almost felt to me in the early game as if breeders were temp-sexing their corns for males because of how hard it can be to find a female in the "off-season". Obviously it was (is) more the result of the buyers, not the breeders.

Is there a general ratio that's not 50-50 birth rate?

Regardless of the reason however, Bippy hit the nail on the head - it really comes down to market forces. As the breeder it sounds like it's in your best interest to charge more for females - regardless if your motivation is setting a price that "the market will bare" or simply trying to ensure you don't have a warehouse full of yearling and older males to contend with.

Hrmmm - maybe there's a placee in the market for sex-changing corn snakes

j/k

^Curtis

I think it isn't as complicated as some might think. Why buy two males and two females when a trio will produce the same amount of offspring. There is always going to be a higher demand for females than males. It isn't just with corn snakes, but with any reptile or any animal for that matter. The more females you have the more offspring you can produce.

If someone is buying your females to resell, then I'd put a stop to that quickly. The likelihood of that happening is slim though.

I think what the industry is seeing is a wave of small breeders coming into the picture and utilizing a higher ratio of females to males to get the most production out of a small setup. In my case for example. I'm looking to have 10 to 20 females in possession to breed in the Spring. I may purchase a few males, but I have two friends who have many males that are letting me use them for stud purposes this year. I'll compensate them in some way, but my point is the only males I'm going to buy are ones that they don't have.

Peter

I guess I should let you all in a little secret that all of the more experienced breeders know, but you never hear about. We all know whom are the beginners are simply by how they order animals from us. Anyone whom orders 1 male and 4 females obviously does not have a clue about what they are doing. What are they going to do if that one male dies right before breeding season? Of suppose he is infertile or just a lackadaisical breeder? It does happen you know. Basically that person is putting all of his eggs in one basket. Even with 1.2, those two clutches you are hoping for STILL hinge on that one male doing the job.

One thing that all experience breeders realize after years of doing this, is that the more males you breed to a female, the greater the chances of 100 percent fertility. When I start a new project, do you really think I keep 1 male and 8 females or something like that? Heck no! I keep the entire clutch. If I cut out any of them, I make sure I have an even ratio of males to females. Three males and three females would be optimum for a double heterozygous genetic project. For triple hets, I would absolutely keep everyone I produce. And when breeding season rolls around when they reach size and maturity, I will breed every female with every male in the project.

I learned this the hard way. A friend of mine whom produced the very first Blizzard Corn (Art Myer) asked me to take his animal (a male) on breeding loan since he didn't have any suitable females for it. I got it early enough that I was able to put it into my mandatory 3 month quarantine, and then the following Spring I bred him to 10 to 12 of my females. Since he was a new line for my work, I used him SOLELY as the breeding male to those females. Guess what? He was a dud stud. Every female I mated him to threw 100 percent slugs. You all can find this out for yourself, and maybe you will be lucky enough that it doesn't happen to you, but do you REALLY want to raise up those babies for two to three years and then have something like that happen to you?

Another example: When the albino Honduran Milk Snakes first became available back in 1995, I was lucky enough to get one of the first pairs available on the market. I specifically asked for two pairs of them, but one pair was all I could get. So I raised them up for three years and on that last brumation period when the female was to come out of the cold sleep and produce for me, she wound up dead for no explainable reason. That project was definitely shot all to hell. Come to find out, that the male had absolutely NO interest in any of my other females either, so that was a lot of money spent on two animals that wound up being worthless. If I had had two pair of them, surely I could have at least produced something to make that project worth while doing.

So think about what you are doing and remember Murphy's Law. Find the weakest link in your chain of breeding expectations and try to strengthen it. In most cases, this weak link is because all of your hopes will be hinging on the males doing their job.

You have NO idea how many times I get phone calls in the Spring months from someone panicky because they lost the male and now don't have one to mate to their primed and ready females. I remember one year I had a guy call me all worked up because he lost his male Lavender corn and was desperately looking for one to breed to his females. I always have a bunch of them and could possibly have found one for him, so I asked him how much he would spend for something like that. (yeah sounds mercenary, but I LIKE to have lots of males during breeding season). So he hemmed and hawed a bit and then said he figured maybe $200, maybe a little bit more. Let's see, he only wants to spend $200 on a male that would make or break the chances of him producing Lavenders from a couple of females. Figure on 10 each, thinking conservatively, from two females and we're talking about an easy $2,000 that male could earn him. Actually more, but I like round numbers. If he had said he would pay $500 for that male, I might have been able to find one for him. But either he didn't understand tha value of that male, or he didn't understand what he would lose by not having that male available. Sorry, I don't have one to spare.

Don't put yourself into this same position some breeding season. Most of the bigger breeders do have a good supply of breedable males at all times, but they are not going to give them up easily or cheaply just to help you out from your lack of foresight.