$10 Burms- get yours cheap!

And therefore, Oren your doing your job as a promoter of safe reptile owning :thumbsup:

Yes and no, I can't take responsibility sometimes, nor do I have the right to deny customers... I can -advise- people to consider other pets... but if they insist they know what they're doing... is it really my right to judge and decide not to sell them based on first impression? It's problematic.
I won't sell a burm to a kid... but there's a limit...
For instance, I found out today that the person to whom I sold my GTP around a year or two ago was not so good a keeper- enough so that she died -two weeks- after he got her from me.

It's not a very easy thing to balance out... and I think everyone is trying to do their best... but we don't always succeed.

True Oren! I mean, I am selling some snakes now I really want to sell them to people I know but theres no way I can do that for sure. Selling to someone who I don't know would be very hard for me. Granted these are colubrids and not a threat to a human but still.

Originally Posted by kathylove

Yes, a few, thank goodness! And maybe you will eventually be one of those professors imbuing those future scientists with a proper attitude, lol! We need more of that!

Yep...one of many goals I have. I plan to have a good conversation with Andrew of USARK to see if there is anything I can do.

Originally Posted by snakemaster24

Lauren, I hate to disagree with you because, your experience far surpasses mine BUT even though we don't stop developing until we are 23, is it not the SELLERS job to then, question and ask for I.D.? I mean if you were selling Retics and I walked up and handed you the money would you say, OK heres your new baby retic! No, it is your job to use your brain and say OK, this is a kid. I'm going to ask if
A) He has parents permission
B) Knows what he is doing
C) Has proper husbandry for the animals lifetime.

There is obviously a great flaw in the way that people sell large reptiles/hots. And there needs to be some uprising in the reptile community to fix it so that the gov't doesn't have to get involved!

No, of course not. I agree with you 100%. I'd ask the same questions of a 40 year old, too, come to that.

In fact this is just the reason Tara and I are not real sure about whether we want to breed anything with a selling price of less than a couple hundred dollars. It seems to me that if someone pays $500 for a pied ball python (I am lowering the price to reasonable amounts two years from now, when our girl is ready) that they will be less likely to ignore said animal when the "newness" wears off. That doesn't mean it's a 100% thing... just that it is a better chance than the person you sell the $15 normal ball python to.

I also do not believe Tara and I will ever sell to anyone who is buying the animal as a pet for a child. I have seen way too many instances of children REALLY WANTING a new pet and then two years down the road the animal is homeless. Or the kid really wants the pet and does great with it and four years down the road college hits-- the dorm won't take the snake-- so again, homeless.

I think if you want to get your kid a pet, get it a mouse, rat or gerbil. They will be long gone by the time college hits.

So what we question then is will we ever be able to make sales? I think so, on the internet. I think we will offend some people because we will ask questions of them about their collection, their experience and their intents for the animal. Does this make us bad sellers? I don't think it will, but like Jeff, I bet there will be a lot of people that complain about it and think it is ridiculous.

I wish that we could take some of the characteristics that good dog breeders have and pull them into our reptile business. A good dog breeder interviews a purchaser. They always ask questions, and they expect you to ask questions. It's much more of a working relationship than the "exchange of goods" that so many reptile sellers practice.

Originally Posted by Kokopelli

I personally have pointed people to other directions when I thought that even a dwarf boa wouldn't be a fit pet for them.
Some people forget that these are animals rather than furniture... and once they consider them as furniture, it's just a matter of getting rid of the cheap merchandise.
Venomous snakes also cost very little when compared to non-venomous morphs... and in some places they are very easy to get... it's not a snake thing, it's an animal thing- wild and potentially deadly animals are being sold irresponsibly world-wide.

Yeah, the venomous thing is bothersome too. We were at Hamburg once, which is in Pennsylvania, a neighboring state, and stopped to admire a sellers wide band copperheads. He started talking to us and offered to take money off the asking price to get us to buy. I said "Oh, thank you, but we live in Maryland and they are illegal to own there."

His reply?

"No one stops you at the border."

Edit: I wanted to ad (before David goes ballistic) that I know there are young people who are seriously into herps and willing to make sacrifices to care for their collection. But those young people seem few and far between in what I have experienced.

Originally Posted by Hypancistrus

In fact this is just the reason Tara and I are not real sure about whether we want to breed anything with a selling price of less than a couple hundred dollars. It seems to me that if someone pays $500 for a pied ball python (I am lowering the price to reasonable amounts two years from now, when our girl is ready) that they will be less likely to ignore said animal when the "newness" wears off. That doesn't mean it's a 100% thing... just that it is a better chance than the person you sell the $15 normal ball python to.

I, too, thought like this but every project will decrease in price and some projects have byproducts. When I bred burms I did albino granites and granites but some of the byproducts were albinos and normals. I could not sell those for a lot and so I was forced to try to get market price on them which became VERY difficult when I screened buyers. I actually ended up giving some away to people that to the the best of my ability I determined would be good owners.

You are probably correct that a larger price tag bypasses some of your idiots but I have seem very dumb people buy very expensive snakes. Education is the key and policing our own is a lot of what this hobby needs.

Originally Posted by MohrSnakes

I, too, thought like this but every project will decrease in price and some projects have byproducts. When I bred burms I did albino granites and granites but some of the byproducts were albinos and normals. I could not sell those for a lot and so I was forced to try to get market price on them which became VERY difficult when I screened buyers. I actually ended up giving some away to people that to the the best of my ability I determined would be good owners.

You are probably correct that a larger price tag bypasses some of your idiots but I have seem very dumb people buy very expensive snakes. Education is the key and policing our own is a lot of what this hobby needs.

That is why we are being very careful in what we choose to breed. We figure Pieds, like Albinos, will always hold some value, more than say, a normal. Albinos, for instance, seem to have stabilized for now around $300 or $400 depending on the line. I think anything pricier than $100 is enough to make people stop and think for at least a minute before buying. We're also trying to choose animals we REALLY like instead of just "what is available," and the way Pieds transmit their trait is fascinating to us. You can literally have a low white pied and a high white pied, breed them together and get all sorts of patterns on all ends of the spectrum. Very cool!

We have also considered the idea of doing what dog breeders do and having folks sign a contract that states that if the snake ever cannot be rehomed, we will take it back, no questions asked. I.e. if the person is down to looking at rescue or euthanasia is a solution, we'll take the snake.

I really think people in the reptile community might balk at these ideas. And I'm stuck between us not making the sale and having loads of babies we can't sell, but not really caring because I know I will care about the fates of all of our babies.

So this is why we're not yet breeding. Too many unanswered questions for us at the moment.

Lauren, as much as I can't stand your lecturing you were right! I had an event happen in my life beyond control and I had to get rid of alot of my snakes. And as much as I promote youth snake ownership, I learned the hard way. I'm glad were on the same page!

Originally Posted by snakemaster24

Lauren, as much as I can't stand your lecturing you were right! I had an event happen in my life beyond control and I had to get rid of alot of my snakes. And as much as I promote youth snake ownership, I learned the hard way. I'm glad were on the same page!

It's not to say that older people don't deal with the disruption of life events... but with teens and college age people, the events are so much more common and in many cases out of your control (i.e. dorms that won't allow pets). It's good to be cautious during those years.

Yeap, its a good thing I plan on a community college but I am going to be really careful with my animals. And my dad and step mom are letting me have freedom but at the same time they are careful with what they let in the house.