I have a few things I would like to trade but I cannot find a soul willing to do so. The only reason I have the idea is because on some ads your will see the option for it, but there’s no filter in availability to search for animals others would be willing to trade.
I feel like this could be a whole section of MorphMarket on its own and a way to really build/get the separate communties to thrive and really take off further.
Just a thought
Trading itself is usually rare in the hobby. Most people are trying to get rid of snakes and will only consider trading with things that fit into their projects, which are very specific. Your best bet would be to sell one snake and use that money to buy the other. I wouldn’t be opposed to having an additional section for trades but I think it would be best as a filter.
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As Erie-herps said trading is pretty uncommon within the hobby. Over the 20+ years ive been active in it ive only participated in 3 trades. One was with a local friend, another was with a friend of a friend that was within a driving distance that was manageable and the last was with another friend about 4 hours away.
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Personally, I would only give/receive snakes if I was wanting/willing to work with them and the other person is someone that I trust/close friend. I love snakes, and plan to offer snakes to people that have truly impacted my life, if they are willing/wanting them, of course.
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I’ve only done a trade once and it was with a local breeder. I like the idea of trading, but it’s complicated. For one thing both parties have to be interested in the other’s snake and if you’re looking for very specific genes, that might be difficult to find a match. And then the second part is shipping. A lot of people would be uncomfortable shipping first.
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I like the idea of trading since I’m not interested in selling/profiting but enjoy breeding and working with different genetics. I would think a listing of what you have and what you are looking for might result in occasional matches. I imagine this would be only beneficial for a niche group of hobbyists though as opposed to serious breeders.
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I have done trades for boas I want. All of them I have initiated the trade. So I shipped first and a few I even gave 3 or 4 boas for one boa in return. I only sell boas I produce so I have room to play with the cost. I am not a reptile flipper. When you buy reptile to sell you don’t have room to adjust your price.
My adult sunglow motley jungle I traded 17 baby sunglow boas for him and some cash.
Take care
Tom
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Yeah, I think trading would have to be so specific to each person, that 90% of the time they will not be interested in trades. I have done multiple trades with inverts (isopods) even in the past year, but I feel that trading snakes is an entirely new ballpark. The isopod hobby is mainly based on species because of the HUGE variety of species. Of course they do come with select mutations though. Snakes however, are only prevalent in a few species with hundreds of mutations/combos, so to find someone who is willing to go through the hassle of trading online and has snake(s) comparable in value to yours, are very few and far between.
EDIT: I know there are more species than just a few. There is a lot. Just the most prevalent at Ball pythons, Constrictors, etc.
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I feel like there probably are plenty of smaller breeders who would be open for a trade, it’s just going to be hard to find someone who wants what you have at the while also having something you want.
When I listed my female pied, I had someone message me offering up a BCC in trade. Which, while I’m sure he’s lovely, I’m not really looking to start up with boas right now
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I’m happy to trade locally if I’m interested in what the other person is offering, but more often than not I get offered things I’m not looking for, like lizards or snake species I don’t keep.
Shipping is a whole different thing and I’m honestly not even sure how it would work, let alone whether or not I’d want to try it. I’d have to trust the other person a lot to even consider it, so it’d have to be someone I know and have done business with before.
No offense, but I’m not shipping one of my snakes out to someone I just met over the internet on blind faith that they’re gonna send me a snake too.
Personally, I think that there could be a way to go around this so that you would want to do this. Similar to a deposit, a form of payment would be attached if one of the parties in fact did back out of the deal. I would never do this, nor recommend this, as if you feel uncomfortable doing so shows that you shouldn’t. I only plan to trade/give to people that I am close to and trust that they will see the deal through.
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I’ve traded once, a Crestie for a Gargoyle. Made sense since I was looking for a Gargoyle and the same guy was looking for a Crestie, we both had exactly what we were looking for too!
And I may be trading again, Crestie for another gargoyle.
I think if you and other person really wants something then I don’t see an issue.
There’s some people over here in the uk looking to trade an ETB for Royals and another a pair of green spotted snow corns for Royals atm on a WhatsApp group I’m on.
In fact on the other groups too there’s always someone asking to trade and in fact most of them do get one!
One thing you could do is give each snake a reasonable price. The snakes would have the same price and it would be like buying them from each other. If one person didn’t ship the other snake back you would at least have something from it and it wouldn’t be a total loss.
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