A big solid normal female ready to breed or proven breeder was worth her weight in GOLD.
I got my share of them, and was set!
Co-doms and I were going to rule the world! Hets were going to pour from the eggs, and I would be oh so golden for my projects from then on...
And then, normals just weren't good enough anymore. People got tired of them, wanted more, wanted bigger and better.
After a while, people didn't want anything to do with them, and now, it is hard to even sell them to petstores, much less other breeders.
CH flow in easily every year, right before the CBB breeders hatch out most of their stuff..
So what to do with the normals?
Sometimes I wholesale them to petstores (Remember that I live in a LARGE Metropolitan area) where I get very little for them. Sometimes I give them to schools to teach children about care and husbandry.
Its kind of sad that Normals are not respected anymore as anything worth while...
Normal females now are being traded out, sold for pennies, or just discarded.
Granted, with my space limitations, and I'm sure others as well, you just can't validate keeping 30 Normal females when you need that space, but it seems like people are all doing it at the same time, flooding the market with Normal breeder females.
I remember when people paid $500 for a good female normal. Now? $75-$100, tops.
Why does this bother me? Well... it doesn't really bother me as much as concern me. What will happen to those normal babies that are being bred? I hope they all get awesome pet homes, but this may not be the case.
Normals are the "throw aways", and I really don't like to think about them that way. They are awesome in their own right, but in a breeding biz where the next big thing is more and more combos, normals are stuck in the corner.
Long live the Normal.
I know I'm keeping mine!
6 comments:
I love the normals! Much love and respect to my normal hatchlings. I try to sell them to people that want them. I feel I do my best for these living creatures. Unlike the "breeder" that will remain nameless who puts normals in the freezer. That guy has a special place in hell reserved for him.
I'll take your normals! Every normal you hatch reflects a baby that gets to stay in the mother land. It just means that CBB will have to compete with CH prices.
With the exception of pieds and really exceptional pastel, I actually think normals are the prettiest. All copper-gold and black... it's tough color combo to beat.
I feel so sad for normals, especially those that are born with breeders who put them in the freezer or give them a similar fate just because they're not some special color or pattern.
Normals may not be the prettiest out there, but my favorite snake is and will always be my first ball python, who is a normal female. She is my sweetie girl. And if my place were burning down, she would be the first I'd grab.
I just hope no matter how big of a breeder I get, I never lose respect for the normals.
I've also been thinking a lot about inbreeding. Most of my morphs are recessive, right? But even with the dominant traits, with this push to combine as many genes as possible into as few snakes as possible, well, we're going to end up with pretty small genetic sample in another decade or two.
Maybe if we start having to think more about outcrossing every other generation, normals will suddenly come back into the spotlight...
Jamie....
Please do tell who puts them in the freezer. That person needs to be stopped!
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