So the panther market has crashed?

Seems like we've finally seen the panther chameleon bubble pop. Browsing the classifieds there are so many great looking panthers for sale at such low prices. Just 5 years ago good bloodline/color panthers were going for $350 easy and up to $500 wasn't surprising for some. To get one for $200 was a steal. Now I'm seeing $200 as the norm and even some less than that not even getting interest. Most of the ads here have no views, including mine! This used to be the place to buy good chams! I can't even sell one of my great chams with free full bloodwork and lineage three generations back on both sides! This is why I only bred once. And I'm seeing some other smaller breeders getting out of the game. Are panthers just not moving anymore? Or are people going elsewhere to get them? Were there just too many panther breeders that supply has finally outpaced demand? It's a shame to see panthers starting to drop as low as prices for veileds practically (no offense to veileds). Just a surprising trend as it seemed to happen so fast. Thoughts?

When my daughter first got into panthers in 2004 some were very pricey then. I can remember her paying $700 and $800 for adults. I think it's just to many people breeding them. Soon they will be like veileds. There was a thread here a while back where a panther was turned into an animal shelter. One mass breeder was releasing them into the wild in FL so it's going to be very sad for the panthers soon just like the poor veileds.

Believe me, Ferret, I'd love one of your panthers, because I know you take great care of them. However, I know my limits, and that is at 2 chameleons at a time - any more is simply not fair to them or to my husband who usually has to feed them. I've also noticed this trend, and I think it's the "get rich quick" theory of cham raising, since most of the ones on here are from new members or unknown members. From now on I'm going to be extremely choosy who I buy my chams from, unlike some of my past purchases. I was just lucky to be able to adopt a Great-Grand this past July right after the passing of my old veiled, otherwise I'd be in the market for yours.

Good, no offense... Only real reason why I don't own one is because of the price. Feel its alot for such a delicate animal.

At least price is doesn't seem absurd, I can actually contemplate getting one rather than being like, Nope... Not happening lols

Panthers for all!

I'll be getting another one in 6 months, me hopes!

I got a fertile egg from a pair with a 70% male rate. Its a red body blue bar and it cost me only $40

Dayna, I think Facebook has changed alot of the buying and selling on here. I belong to three different groups on there and I see many members who used to be active on here are very active members of these groups now. Many members that used to just be keepers on here, are now breeders. When I started back 5 1/2 yrs ago or so, there were not that many panther breeders to choose from. Now there are so many!!. I will say this though, that none of these people are selling them for $200. They are charging alot more and Shauna Garcia of Tree Candy Chameleons has a very sought after Ambanja line that you have to be on a waiting list for just to give you an idea of what is going on out there in the breeding world..

Carol, or anyone here lol, who are the currently active breeders in Florida for Sambavas? Just curious.

Or anywhere in US for Sambava!!!

<Puts on his hip waders>


What is being seen is natural. How you adapt is the choice all of you have.


There was a time when baby Bearded Dragons sold retail for $400 (Gasp) and they sold damn well. Multiple reptile keepers got on board, now they sell for around $30-50 bucks for the common ones and the colored ones still can fetch $100-300.

Look at the different types of geckos. There was a time when leopard geckos were selling $100-300 for normals. Now my 11 yr old breeds them for pocket change. Better than selling lemonade out front when you think on it.

On to chameleons..............

Panther's are simply THAT well established. The average customer does NOT know the differences in colors, morphs, locales, or even us as breeders. They just look at a picture, look at the price, and take the plunge.

So how do you adapt?

When working in the retail pet stores, I was around when the times changed. By that I mean Petco decided that being a little supply store was not enough and they had to adapt to compete against Petsmart. The Titans came and the mom and pop stores tried to hide in their huts as the gods warred above them. Not everyone survived.

We adapted by doing what neither of those business models would do, we specialized. We hired staff and trained them in both how to teach customers the care of the animals AND how to make sure a customer bought stuff they needed instead of just walking out with that knowledge and going to cheap *** Petsmart. It was an uphill fight.

Look at Ed Krammer over at Krammerflage Creations. Single best example of adapting and thriving with Panthers out there. His animals are top notch, most here know that, but he has a business model at the reptile shows and on line that helps him get that point across. At the last show I saw dozens of vendors selling Panthers for cheap, like $75-200 cheap.

Despite that saturated market, Ed still sold a bunch of his high end Panthers for top dollar. How? Hard work and adapting is how.


The days of just listing a Panther online and it selling for top dollar are over for now. That was the easy way to sell anything.


In a saturated market you have to stand out, Ed does that with superb customer service, a willingness to help, and having some smart people around him whom he trained or taught.

Anybody can breed Panthers with some effort and sell them on the internet. Not everybody can TALK to a customer and teach them the value of the animal being purchased and communicate how to keep the animals alive. Ed adapted.

There are some people selling very expensive Leopard geckos online. Talking $100-300 bucks. They just list them online, no real effort. Imagine how ticked they are when an 11 year old posts pictures of an animal that looks the same for the low price of $45. They get pissed because now it is not as easy to sell the animal for that amount, they need to work at it now to explain why theirs is worth more. Some will adapt and others won't.

Panthers are still a money maker, it's just not as easy as it used to be. Adapt.

ferretinmyshoes said:

Most of the ads here have no views, including mine!

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Not sure if this could be a reason but its a problem for many other free sites; a plugin program called adblock. I use it myself and have it turned off for a few sites but its on as a standard. It's a plugin for Google Chrome (which is the most popular web browser) and it blocks by standard most of the ads on the internet with only a few slinking through the filter. What I have seen other sites do is to have a message where they ask users to turn these plugins of for that specific site as many don't know that ads found the site. I have also seen sites not allowing visitors using that plugin, forcing them to turn it of. Maybe time for a site update?

I have no intelligent thoughts to add to this conversation other than to say, ferret, your panther in the ad is a very beautiful guy. He is an absolute steal at that price.

samfish said:

Or anywhere in US for Sambava!!!

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Kammerflage Kreations

Maki said:

Carol, or anyone here lol, who are the currently active breeders in Florida for Sambavas? Just curious.

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Chimera Reptiles. They are in Florida I think on the east coast

carol5208 said:

Chimera Reptiles. They are in Florida I think on the east coast

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Thanks Carol!

I agree with Carol.. I still come here every once and a while but no offense this forum is dead compared to the chameleon pages on Facebook. There is always people selling Panthers there.. and as she said there is still people especially when it comes to higher ambanjas thriving. People who get a good hig blue line going are still able to move the males for 350 plus.. It seem ambilobes go for 150-200 plus shipping which I would say is just an oversaturated market.. But rarer locales are still eclipsing the 500 mark such as mitsio, masoala, cap est.. But without a doubt Facebook has changed the game and that is the place to buy and sell reptiles now.

distortionz said:

I agree with Carol.. I still come here every once and a while but no offense this forum is dead compared to the chameleon pages on Facebook. There is always people selling Panthers there.. and as she said there is still people especially when it comes to higher ambanjas thriving. People who get a good hig blue line going are still able to move the males for 350 plus.. It seem ambilobes go for 150-200 plus shipping which I would say is just an oversaturated market.. But rarer locales are still eclipsing the 500 mark such as mitsio, masoala, cap est.. But without a doubt Facebook has changed the game and that is the place to buy and sell reptiles now.

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What groups might that be?

Are there facebook groups that act as a classifieds where people sell chameleons?

Or do you check each breeder's individual facebook sites when they have chameleons to sell?

Chameleon central usa, chameleons gone wild. U.s.a, strictly chameleon sales and trading, the official: chameleon central uncensored

There's more too.

Chameleon central usa and chameleons gone wild are probably the most popular

distortionz said:

Chameleon central usa, chameleons gone wild. U.s.a, strictly chameleon sales and trading, the official: chameleon central uncensored

There's more too.

Chameleon central usa and chameleons gone wild are probably the most popular

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So you as an individual are going to EACH facebook page looking for a purchase? Yeah I'm not gonna bother.

Unless facebook has a classified page I'll stick with main stream websites that do.

When it comes to this site, this is still the hands down best place for information. Any facebook page that is OWNED by a chameleon company (or some person just working out of their spare bedroom) looking to sell animals for a profit will never be the go to place simply due to a conflict of interest when information pops up that is NOT to their liking and they delete it. I've seen it before when a reptile company owned their own webpage with forums.