Boaphile reveals the "Labyrinth" Boa

[Wildside]

The big reveal - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tr4NYlhXoe0)

[Revenant]

Want! Want so bad!

Stripey snakes are my drug.

[Wildside]

I'm excited that the trait is Co-dom and that boy is an import.

[MoreliAddict]

It's okay...

Right before he pulled it out, I was saying to myself: "watch this just be another brown snake"...

[Kaetlinv]

love the stripe and diamond combo, on top of the nose-to-tail color gradient. Would've liked it to be a different color though, lol.

[Wildside]

love the stripe and diamond combo, on top of the nose-to-tail color gradient. Would've liked it to be a different color though, lol.


It's a co-dominant gene. Put one in Manny Frade's hands and give it a couple years ;)

[Revenant]

I'm excited that the trait is Co-dom and that boy is an import.

No sound on this, so I couldn't hear any of that. Nice.

Nothing wrong with a lovely brown snake, imo. Don't always need to be eye-bleeding to be gorgeous.

[Kaetlinv]

Dont get me wrong I think he is beautiful, I like a lot of contrast though, personally. :)

[jaleely]

just looks like a snake, to me. lol i'm boring though, i don't really need morphs.

[rmfsnakes32]

I love boas and would be tickled pink to have one of those!

[Wildside]

just looks like a snake, to me. lol i'm boring though, i don't really need morphs.

Shhh Miss Amazing BCA

[MoreliAddict]

It's a co-dominant gene. Put one in Manny Frade's hands and give it a couple years ;)
Problem is you'll then need to give it a few more years for the price to come down. lol

[Wildside]

Problem is you'll then need to give it a few more years for the price to come down. lol

Quoted for Truth.

Manny's prices are pretty good though.

[Aaron_S]

Pretty sweet boa. It may revive the market a bit. Most interesting part that I'm trying to figure out is that the labyrinth is the het for the crystal. RANDOM. Stripes = colour change. weird.

[Wildside]

Pretty sweet boa. It may revive the market a bit. Most interesting part that I'm trying to figure out is that the labyrinth is the het for the crystal. RANDOM. Stripes = colour change. weird.

Revive the market? The only thing wrong with the Boa market in the US is the price people like Jeff Ronne put on brown striped snakes.

[knox]

Whatever happened to Corns looking like Corns. Boas looking like Boas. Pythons looking like Pythons?

I am glad there is a market for things like this, and people who appreciate them. I, myself, have always been more a fan of the "wild phase" in my taste of snakes.

It's a fun hobby!

[KORBIN5895]

Actually the problem with the boa market in the states is the fact that boas have 20-30 babies for a joke. Couple that with people selling their "surplus" for ridiculously low prices and you will never pay much for boas again.

Prime example. Last December I wanted a sunglow. I found babies were selling for $500-800. This season baby sunglows were prevalent at the $400-500 mark in the spring. Right now you can buy sunglows het moonglows for $350 - $400 shipped.

[Wildside]

Actually the problem with the boa market in the states is the fact that boas have 20-30 babies for a joke. Couple that with people selling their "surplus" for ridiculously low prices and you will never pay much for boas again.

Prime example. Last December I wanted a sunglow. I found babies were selling for $500-800. This season baby sunglows were prevalent at the $400-500 mark in the spring. Right now you can buy sunglows het moonglows for $350 - $400 shipped.

I don't see the problem...


Where you been anyway?

[KORBIN5895]

Here is the problem. Cheap snakes become disposable. I don't have an issue with cheap snakes myself but look at how many normal royals are being tossed aside.

I have been in hell. You?

[Wildside]

Here is the problem. Cheap snakes become disposable. I don't have an issue with cheap snakes myself but look at how many normal royals are being tossed aside.

I have been in hell. You?


I didn't see you there.


What exactly are you talking about "tossed aside"?

[MoreliAddict]

I didn't see you there.


What exactly are you talking about "tossed aside"?
Not sure if this is what he meant but I always see ads for people trying to rehome normal Royals.

Still waiting to see a "take my granite carpet python for free, moving away" ad...:suspicious:

I don't think it's because they're cheap, I think it's because there's so many of them.

[Wildside]

Not sure if this is what he meant but I always see ads for people trying to rehome normal Royals.

Still waiting to see a "take my granite carpet python for free, moving away" ad...:suspicious:

I don't think it's because they're cheap, I think it's because there's so many of them.


It probably has to do more with normals being what's available in Pet Shops. Read: More accessible to morons aka people who get a snake just because it's cool to have a snake. Then when the newness wears off they put it on craigslist or kijiji and try to get their money back.

[Aaron_S]

Most people that walk into a pet store don't realize there's an entire industry of people deeper than that. People who have rare stuff and breed for a living. Most of the people that may have an idea don't know where to look so the pet store is all they got.

Revive the market up here I should say. Canadians generally aren't as diverse as the States. Even when I do something new they usually don't last long as they try to make a business but fail. They don't realize the thing they need to do is open up to the States as their market and not just Canada.

[KORBIN5895]

I will be producing moonglows this season ( unless my bad luck streak continues) which were selling for $2,000 up her last season. I would be better off to sell all of my moonglows and import a male from the states. That's how low the prices are getting in the states. If I had $10,000 I could use to purchase moonglows from the states and import the I could make $24,000 in profit.

[shaunyboy]

Actually the problem with the boa market in the states is the fact that boas have 20-30 babies for a joke. Couple that with people selling their "surplus" for ridiculously low prices and you will never pay much for boas again.

Prime example. Last December I wanted a sunglow. I found babies were selling for $500-800. This season baby sunglows were prevalent at the $400-500 mark in the spring. Right now you can buy sunglows het moonglows for $350 - $400 shipped.

its not just boa's mate i think your post applys to a lot more species mate


re carpets
Jungle Zebra co-dom Morph.....

2010 = £2000

2011 = £1200

2012 = £400

2013 ???? i guess they will be down around £250 or less if you shop around

the more produced the cheaper they get,it's simple supply and demand,once the supply outwieghs the demand,prices come crashing down.making them affordable top uis mere mortals :D

re Albino Carpets
i've been offered an Albino female for £1500,go back a few years and that would have cost roughly £9000 or more

hell i can remember when granite Carpets were up around the £8000 mark,now you can pick them up for a few hundred pounds,all this over a 4 year period

just gotta love the way a new Morph gets milked for cash ;)

cheers shaun

p.s.i quite like the look of the boa in the link :D

[KORBIN5895]

Well I just watched the clip...

How the heck has he proven it to be codominant when they are only 3.5 years old and he hasn't produced offspring like the father or mother. Does anyone else smell desperation? What happened to actually proving out the genes before make such statements?

[shaunyboy]

Not sure if this is what he meant but I always see ads for people trying to rehome normal Royals.

Still waiting to see a "take my granite carpet python for free, moving away" ad...:suspicious:

I don't think it's because they're cheap, I think it's because there's so many of them.

i will probaly take crap for what i'm about to say,but thats never stopped me before ;)

re normal royals and other unwanted snakes

feed them to a Black Headed Python...

a BHP eats mostly reptiles in the wild,so i have no problem keeping BHP's to feed any unwanted snakes to

imo the carpet market is flooded with below average looking mongeral carpets,my answer to the problem of,what to do with unwanted normals produced in Morph breeding is.....

feed all the siblings to a snake eating snake

mother nature at her best,problem solved

imo morally there is no difference in feeding snakes or rats to the species you keep

cheers shaun

[shaunyboy]

Well I just watched the clip...

How the heck has he proven it to be codominant when they are only 3.5 years old and he hasn't produced offspring like the father or mother. Does anyone else smell desperation? What happened to actually proving out the genes before make such statements?

i watched the clip without sound,so did not pick up on that mate

there is NO way he should be shouting that it's co- dominant or any type of Morph,WITHOUT prooving it out,what a plank :wacky:

cheers shaun

[MoreliAddict]

i will probaly take crap for what i'm about to say,but thats never stopped me before ;)

re normal royals and other unwanted snakes

feed them to a Black Headed Python...

a BHP eats mostly reptiles in the wild,so i have no problem keeping BHP's to feed any unwanted snakes to

imo the carpet market is flooded with below average looking mongeral carpets,my answer to the problem of,what to do with unwanted normals produced in Morph breeding is.....

feed all the siblings to a snake eating snake

mother nature at her best,problem solved

imo morally there is no difference in feeding snakes or rats to the species you keep

cheers shaun
I agree with you here, 100%. Feeding off unwanted snakes makes just as much sense, if not more, than feeding off more rats.

It's almost another version of natural selection. To survive in the wild, these snakes must be tough and hardy. To survive in captivity, these snakes are best off if they have pretty colors and patterns. See where I'm going with this?

[KORBIN5895]

First off I agree with the bhp idea and may get one myself. I think they are awesome.

Secondly boaphile has been having some issues with customer service lately and seems to be taking a hit for it. I think this proclamation is to help rejuvenate his lagging business. I am also going to do some research as I have seen a snake very similar and it wasn't called a labyrinth...

Anyway for him to import a pair of boas, breed the once and claim they are a co-dominant and the sister is the super form is borderline ludicrous.

[Wildside]

First off I agree with the bhp idea and may get one myself. I think they are awesome.

Secondly boaphile has been having some issues with customer service lately and seems to be taking a hit for it. I think this proclamation is to help rejuvenate his lagging business. I am also going to do some research as I have seen a snake very similar and it wasn't called a labyrinth...

Anyway for him to import a pair of boas, breed the once and claim they are a co-dominant and the sister is the super form is borderline ludicrous.

They're not gonna be what's hot anyway. Have you seen the Celtic Morph Manny Frade is gonna be working with? They're gorgeous! They make Jeff Ronne's Labyrinth look pretty meh.

I personally like snakes with a lot of color and wicked cool patterns. IMO pattern morphs are the biggest reason morphs like moonglows aren't holding their value. Moonglows are awesome looking babies but grow up to be another boring white snake.

[Aaron_S]

its not just boa's mate i think your post applys to a lot more species mate


re carpets
Jungle Zebra co-dom Morph.....

2010 = £2000

2011 = £1200

2012 = £400

2013 ???? i guess they will be down around £250 or less if you shop around

the more produced the cheaper they get,it's simple supply and demand,once the supply outwieghs the demand,prices come crashing down.making them affordable top uis mere mortals :D

re Albino Carpets
i've been offered an Albino female for £1500,go back a few years and that would have cost roughly £9000 or more

hell i can remember when granite Carpets were up around the £8000 mark,now you can pick them up for a few hundred pounds,all this over a 4 year period

just gotta love the way a new Morph gets milked for cash ;)

cheers shaun

p.s.i quite like the look of the boa in the link :D

I don't think it's just carpets dude. I think it's a compound reason. First you've got a lot of people who have females/males in a collection and when they get that new morph they are able to produce a lot of them. Not like 10 years ago when everyone was new and only started out with like 5 animals and it cost more to start up.

Also, I think people are trying to "get rich quick" so they quickly sell their animals for less and it keeps dropping to market because "Oh noes! I can't sell my snakes the first minute I put them up for sale!"


Kevin, the boa market crashed hard. All around. I know a guy who spent probably 6 figures on his collection and now it's worth much much less. The reason being were the bans that scared a lot of people.

[millertime89]

Also, I think people are trying to "get rich quick" so they quickly sell their animals for less and it keeps dropping to market because "Oh noes! I can't sell my snakes the first minute I put them up for sale!"

After talking with a lot of breeders of numerous species this seems to be what's happening. New people get into the breeding side of things and produce snakes that are in high demand and undercut other breeders to make quick sells and the other breeders have to match those prices or loose business. It was somewhat evident at Tinley, some people had snakes priced at one point, and some had them priced lower, and by Sunday the higher ones were priced the same as the lower ones.

[Aaron_S]

After talking with a lot of breeders of numerous species this seems to be what's happening. New people get into the breeding side of things and produce snakes that are in high demand and undercut other breeders to make quick sells and the other breeders have to match those prices or loose business. It was somewhat evident at Tinley, some people had snakes priced at one point, and some had them priced lower, and by Sunday the higher ones were priced the same as the lower ones.

Buy them up and re-sell them.

They'll sell. It's not like back 10 years ago when people only had 10 X morphs on their table. A lot of people said 'I'll be the next NERD' and bought a LOT of animals. They'll slowly die out.

It's really a catch 22 as a lot of breeders, even big guys, let out breeder females or males and then that person instantly can sell animals. They don't need to recoup the time invested in the animals. Only the price of the parent.

[shaunyboy]

I agree with you here, 100%. Feeding off unwanted snakes makes just as much sense, if not more, than feeding off more rats.

It's almost another version of natural selection. To survive in the wild, these snakes must be tough and hardy. To survive in captivity, these snakes are best off if they have pretty colors and patterns. See where I'm going with this?

yes mate i see where your going with this,and i agree with you.....

imo,it's just a slightly different version of natural selection,with us humans doing the selecting ;)

cheers shaun

[shaunyboy]

I don't think it's just carpets dude. I think it's a compound reason. First you've got a lot of people who have females/males in a collection and when they get that new morph they are able to produce a lot of them. Not like 10 years ago when everyone was new and only started out with like 5 animals and it cost more to start up.

Also, I think people are trying to "get rich quick" so they quickly sell their animals for less and it keeps dropping to market because "Oh noes! I can't sell my snakes the first minute I put them up for sale!"


i completely agree Aaron,i gave Carpets as an example,as thats what i'm most familar with

i think its really funny all them people who invest heavily in the latest new Morph,just so they can go on to make a pile of cash 4 year down the line.....

only to find out hundreds of other folk had the same idea and that Morph,is now selling at a quarter or less than what they originally paid

re market in general
a friend of mine who happens to be my morelia mentor,crashed the price of the bredl python market a couple of years ago,bredl were worth £150 to £200 each,when my mate had a large bredl clutch,he put them out at £85,so everyone selling bredl had to follow suit and drop their prices,

my friends intention was to make bredl carpet pythons more accessable price wise to the masses

this year he did it again with Zebra,Zebra Diamond Jungle Jags,Diamond Jungle Jags,next year he will most likely bring the price of Granites down dramatically

as said his motives are to make Carpet Python Morphs more affordable,that way more folk buy and breed them,giving the world a lot more beautiful morelia

cheers shaun

[Aaron_S]

i completely agree Aaron,i gave Carpets as an example,as thats what i'm most familar with

i think its really funny all them people who invest heavily in the latest new Morph,just so they can go on to make a pile of cash 4 year down the line.....

only to find out hundreds of other folk had the same idea and that Morph,is now selling at a quarter or less than what they originally paid

cheers shaun

It still works out beautifully if they have patience!

I'll use ball pythons as it's what I know and I'm sure it can still relate to other species. Even very large species that have lots of young like retics/burms/boas

Buy a male for $10,000 Co-dom mutation we'll call Morph Z.
First year you get lucky and he goes late in the season to only 5 females(we have 10 in total). They all give an average egg count of 6 eggs. We have 30 in total.

We get the perfect ratio of 15 Morph Z and 15 normals.
We get the normals eating and wholesale them for $25 bucks a pop. $375 is what we get in total.
We get some decent odds on the sex for Morph Z and we have 7.8.
We don't need a male so all 7 go for $5,000 each. We hold back 4 females and sell the other 4 for $6,500.

Total amount in first season.
Male Morph Z's $35,000
Female Morph Z's $26,000
Normals $375

We total $61,375 dollars in our first year. Not including the hold back 4 females for future breeding and the other 5 females that we still have. I was going to continue this for 4 years but decided not to. I think everyone gets the picture.

I know some people will say those aren't the prices of today so I'll do that math for you as well.

Morph Y is selling for $100 bucks a male. It is a co-dom trait.
I have 10 breeding sized females for him. 3 of which are Morph X (co-dom trait) and 7 normals.

Morph Y breeds all 10 females in your first season. 2 of Morph X give you a total of 11 eggs. The third doesn't. 5 of the 7 normals give you eggs and we end up with 30 eggs. (These are averages)

All hatch.
We end up with 15 normals from the normal females. We also end up with an additional 3 normals from the other breeding females. We sell them all for $25 bucks and end up with $450.

Morph YX's we end up with 2. We hold them back.
Morph X's we end up with 3.
Morph Y's we end up with 18.
We have 9.9 Morph Y's.
We sell all 9 morph Y's for $100. We have $900.
We hold back 4 Morph Y females and sell the other 5 for $150. We have $750.
We sell the other three Morph X's for the same prices and we had back luck and got all males. We add an addition $300 to this total.

Normals $450
Morph X $300
Morph Y $1650

We have a total of 2400.

If we take away our initial investment this year of $100 we are at $2300.

If we take away cost of maintaining the babies until sold and the adults for a year we'll say a total $800 (that was my cost on my collection at this size)

We still end up with a total of $1500 profit for really not doing a whole lot. In year one. Now this example is done at bottom prices so I don't see them really decreasing but if they do be a 25% margin even then you'll still make money as you held back crosses and could sell those the following the year for a bit more.

You put a little money in, you get little money out. You put a lot in, gamble, you can get a lot out.

The old saying goes, it takes money to make money.

[Aaron_S]

I get his reasons but honestly, there's a lot of people who do this for a living by breeding and he's just hurting their pockets for him to take the moral high ground.

It's a business when you shove a lot of cash into this. It's like stocks and mutual funds. It's a gamble yes, but one that can, has and does pay off.

I don't see what his rush is to bring them "to more affordable prices" as it'll get there in time all on it's own.

[KORBIN5895]

And the he can be solely responsible for all of the poor snakes that all the wanna be breeders produce and can't rehome.