Breeding Operation

Well if you live that far north you will loose all your money to pay for space and heat. Market is already saturated. Interesting q though.
 
Breeding animals is not as profitable as one would think. People like to just think of the price tags you attach to the babies as being pure profit, and that is not the case. Raising and maintaining healthy breeding stock, much less acquiring it, is very expensive. And raising babies even more so. Someone posted a thread on how much it cost them to raise just a clutch or two of veileds and the costs were astonishing! Just think of how much it would cost to have 20-30 full individual setups with all the caging, lighting, decor, heating, misting, feeding, etc. If you go into something like this just hoping to get rich then you're not going to be properly investing into the health and lives of your breeding animals, which will get you fewer, or unhealthier, or undesirable offspring, and you're not going to see that happy price tag on them. If you want the money you're going to overbreeding your females to produce the most offspring as possible, which shortens her life and decreases her health, which in turn probably won't get you the healthiest babies. If you truly invest in your animals to maximize their health and genetics for the benefit of the animals you will get healthier offspring, but you're in it for the long term before you off set your costs and really start making profit. Plus you have to make a name and reputation for yourself before people readily accept your high price tag. The big chameleon breeders certainly didn't get there a year or two after starting breeding. They've been at it a long time. And with so many of them now that reliably produce healthy offspring with good genetics and colorations it's hard to break into that market.
 
ferretinmyshoes said:
Breeding animals is not as profitable as one would think. People like to just think of the price tags you attach to the babies as being pure profit, and that is not the case. Raising and maintaining healthy breeding stock, much less acquiring it, is very expensive. And raising babies even more so. Someone posted a thread on how much it cost them to raise just a clutch or two of veileds and the costs were astonishing! If you go into something like this just hoping to get rich then you're not going to be properly investing into the health and lives of your breeding animals, which will get you fewer, or unhealthier, or undesirable offspring, and you're not going to see that happy price tag on them. If you want the money you're going to overbreeding your females to produce the most offspring as possible, which shortens her life and decreases her health, which in turn probably won't get you the healthiest babies. If you truly invest in your animals to maximize their health and genetics for the benefit of the animals you will get healthier offspring, but you're in it for the long term before you off set your costs and really start making profit. Plus you have to make a name and reputation for yourself before people readily accept your high price tag. The big chameleon breeders certainly didn't get there a year or two after starting breeding. They've been at it a long time.
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I would normally agree but what the OP is talking about is not just a profit out of the house type thing. Sounds like with 200k they could afford to open a cham breeding business with seperate blood lines and several different locals in stock through out the year. If done right it could be very profitable. I would like them to know basic husbandry and have some experience but that wasn't the question here either. Sticking to the original question, if you have 200k and know what you are doing and market it correctly then I would say yes you can make it profitable. Granted that is all you do because it will indeed take up all of your time and more to make it work.
 
jsikes88 said:
What type of operation could $200,000 produce in a two years :D
Im thinking well past $1,000,000
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I kind of missed that part originally! In 2 years you will have one or two clutches of hatchlings per pair if they're a species like veileds or panthers with 8-12 month incubation periods (assuming you nail all aspects of incubation and hatchling care on your first try and get good survival rates). So even if you assume that you sell off every single one of the offspring, which is a bit beyond ambitious as a start up, you're probably barely recouping the startup costs at that point. I do not think you would be producing that much that quickly at all.
 
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ferretinmyshoes said:
I kind of missed that part originally! In 2 years you will have one or two clutches of hatchlings per pair if they're a species like veileds or panthers with 8-12 month incubation periods (assuming you nail all aspects of incubation and hatchling care on your first try and get good survival rates). So even if you assume that you sell off every single one of the offspring, which is a bit beyond ambitious as a start up, you're probably barely recouping the startup costs at that point. I do think you would be producing that much that quickly at all.
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And I think I looked too much at the money and not length of time haha. Ferrit is absolutely correct on the time frame. In two years it would hardly be enough time to make a profit but if you gave yourself more time and assuming everything was perfect then maybe on down the road there could be a profit. But like others have said before, do it for the right reasons... not the wrong. Breeding chameleons for profit is the wrong reason, you will just end up wasting your time and not enjoying it. They are fragile creatures that require a lot of attention and often times mass breeding results in minimum care which is not what they need. Not saying you will do this or even having those intentions but just throwing that out there. Hope all of this helps and if there is anything that we can help you further with like basic husbandry or even help with breeding we would be more than happy to help! :)
 
Nothing ever works out perfectly the first year....

Plus.. to sell that many you are talking 1,000,000/$200 = 5k babies. Without expenses... And selling some for cheap.
 
Seriously with $200k. and 2 years!! I would have almost every rare Cham avaliable (and im not talking Panther locales), lol
 
has been done before

if you took a minute and add up the amout of sires and x2 for females, break down a company and see...
its not far fetched, who would love to make $50g a year watching chameleons? making sure they are healthy and running a legit operation? bet almost everyone here.
just flying the idea around, look at FLchams, in his bio he states how long it took him.
as far as being up north, that really doesnt matter, start up costs would include your expenses for the time it takes those clutches to hatch. and if your going to expo's i can see selling alot of chameleons fast.
i mean i dropped about $4g last month on chams, having great sucess fast.
whats a few more digits? i make decent money right now, but who wants to work for the man when you can be him lol
 
jsikes88 said:
if you took a minute and add up the amout of sires and x2 for females, break down a company and see...
its not far fetched, who would love to make $50g a year watching chameleons? making sure they are healthy and running a legit operation? bet almost everyone here.
just flying the idea around, look at FLchams, in his bio he states how long it took him.
as far as being up north, that really doesnt matter, start up costs would include your expenses for the time it takes those clutches to hatch. and if your going to expo's i can see selling alot of chameleons fast.
i mean i dropped about $4g last month on chams, having great sucess fast.
whats a few more digits? i make decent money right now, but who wants to work for the man when you can be him lol
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I like your style! ;)
 
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