First baby bin... What do you think?

[Lpsouth1978]

Wood Glue. That lashing had to take some time. Instead, just use wood glue. It will harden stronger and is much easier to do.

Wood glue takes WAY too long to dry. I just ended up using small zip ties to hold it all together. It is MUCH quicker than lashing and glueing everything together. When I finish getting a jungle gym together, I hot glue leafs from the vines over the little sharp parts of the zip ties. It is more safe and looks better!

 

[MantisFTW]

I have to ask, about how much did it cost for everything? The bins, the PVC, the dowels, lights, etc. Im really considering breeding but im also worried about how costly its gonna be. I know lighting will be expensive as heck. I really like your setup though, especially the drainage part, I would love to do something similar once I have enough space.

 

[Rango3d]

Yeah the setup cost isn't bad. What gets expensive is feeding the babies. They eat non stop for the first several months. I don't think most people consider that. Just in feeding costs, you could double what you spent in set up costs.

But you'll learn that with experience.

 

[Lpsouth1978]

I have to ask, about how much did it cost for everything? The bins, the PVC, the dowels, lights, etc. Im really considering breeding but im also worried about how costly its gonna be. I know lighting will be expensive as heck. I really like your setup though, especially the drainage part, I would love to do something similar once I have enough space.

I have not really kept track of my costs, but I will try to give a general breakdown of everything:

$200 - PVC and fittings
$150 - bins
$50 - mesh
$100 - vines and dowels
$120 - misting nozzles, tubing, and fittings
$130 - Misking pump
$400 - lights
$50 - misting reservoir
$50 - misc costs
Countless hours of planning, building, tweaking, re-building, changing, and research.

Total = approximately $1200 when all said and done.

I plan on spending about $150 to get about a dozen fruit fly cultures going and another $30-$40 a week on crickets once they hatch. Hopefully between the fruit fly cultures, crickets, and my large Dubia colony, I will spend less than $500 dollars in the first three months on feeding them. So rounding up, I would plan about $2000 the first go round. That being said, next time I just have to worry about replacement bulbs and feeders, so the cost should be more like $600-$700 per clutch. If I break even on this endeavor I will be happy.

Luckily, I am not looking to get rich off breeding. I am doing it for the experience and for the love of these beautiful creatures (though if I make a few bucks along the way I won't complain).

 

[MantisFTW]

Holy cow... does it really cost that much to breed? Pretty discouraging. I do not have that kind of money to spend no matter how much I love panthers and want the experience of breeding them.

Ive never bred anything before so I have no experience breeding period. Ive always thought that breeding could be somewhat like a job where it pays a lot more than you spend as far as baby care, especially if youre selling baby panthers for around 250 a pop and if you have 20 egg clutches.

I dont know, I could maybe skip out on all the PVC, but I feel like thats a huge part of the system. Im just gonna have to do more reaearch before I get too attatched to the whole breeding idea.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Good lesson to learn from other Mantis! Breeding is definitely not a cash cow! Even if you don't have as extensive of a setup as seen here (which is awesome btw!) just the cost of feeding the little buggers is ridiculous! I bred my own fruit flies so the first month or two was cheap, but then when they upgrade to crickets you need thousands of little crickets on a weekly basis! So if you have to order like I did it was several hundred a month just in feeding costs. So the selling cost sounds appealing, but it definitely isn't all just profit.

 

[junglefries]

Panther babies actually eat a lot! It is the shear number of veils that get you. 25 panther babies are easy to feed, 160 veils not so much.

 

[MantisFTW]

Well, its still something to think about for when im a little more on my feet, I guess. I would still like the experience of it at least once. On the plus side, once you buy all the materials for breeding like the bins etc, you would never have to buy them again. That would just leave the feeding expenses, which still sounds pretty bad, but at least youre not spending several hundred on other supplies over and over again. (at least I hope not!)
Havent done too much research yet as far as baby bins/care in fear of getting too attatched to the idea...

 

[Lpsouth1978]

Well, its still something to think about for when im a little more on my feet, I guess. I would still like the experience of it at least once. On the plus side, once you buy all the materials for breeding like the bins etc, you would never have to buy them again. That would just leave the feeding expenses, which still sounds pretty bad, but at least youre not spending several hundred on other supplies over and over again. (at least I hope not!)
Havent done too much research yet as far as baby bins/care in fear of getting too attatched to the idea...

The feeding costs will be the most difficult for me because I will need the feeders on a schedule. Whereas I have been able to get all of the things for the setup itself, a little at a time. I usually save about $100 a paycheck to put toward the baby bin setup. As of right now I still have about $400 worth of supplies that I need to purchase and only about 1.5-2 months to do it in.

 

[Chameleon Creator]

You can bulk order 6000 tiny crickets on ghanns website for $50 just FYI

 

[Lpsouth1978]

You can bulk order 6000 tiny crickets on ghanns website for $50 just FYI

I saw that, but you also have to pay shipping on them and I would imagine that will be in the $20-$30 range as well. So I will be looking at about $60-$80 a week for crickets, especially once the second clutch hatches.

 

[Chameleon Creator]

I think it's around $20 for shipping. I honestly don't believe they will chow through 6000 in a week though, perhaps 2 weeks? Still drastically less expensive. I've never fed a newborn clutch however so maybe I have a reality check coming but it just doesn't seem like they would down 6000 a week. Alternatively you can order 6000 twice at once and save yourself the shipping charge for the second order? Just a thought.

 

[Lpsouth1978]

I think it's around $20 for shipping. I honestly don't believe they will chow through 6000 in a week though, perhaps 2 weeks? Still drastically less expensive. I've never fed a newborn clutch however so maybe I have a reality check coming but it just doesn't seem like they would down 6000 a week. Alternatively you can order 6000 twice at once and save yourself the shipping charge for the second order? Just a thought.

This will be my first clutch, but I recently read a post from a mother member (can't remember which one) that said they went through 4000 crickets in a week with 27 babies. So far I have 52 eggs, so can plan on about 8000 crickets a week once that all hatch.

 

[Lpsouth1978]

This will be my first clutch, but I recently read a post from a mother member (can't remember which one) that said they went through 4000 crickets in a week with 27 babies.

I just found the thread. It was actually Jannb, our resident veiled queen, that wrote it, you can find her comment in post #2 in this thread. https://www.chameleonforums.com/feeding-veiled-hatchlings-babies-133657/

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I was ordering 3000 crickets about every 7-10 days to feed around 20 baby panthers for most of last winter.

Creator - one of the problems with ordering a ton at a time is for little babies once the crickets start growing they're are too big for those little mouths. I had a few batches of crickets outgrow or come in too large for the babies so I had to order more even sooner. So it actually doesn't save in the end! I could use those crickets for my other critters once they grew big enough, but had to feed and house them until then.

 

[Chameleon Creator]

True. That's insane the amount of food they eat regardless. I feel like if you have a couple colonies going of feeders it would be far less expensive. You still will need to order pinheads either way I imagine.

 

[Lpsouth1978]

I have a LARGE Dubia colony, but I won't be able to feed them to the babies for a couple of months. I also plan on getting about 12 fruit fly cultures going before they hatch. I am hoping that will be enough fruit flies in conjunction with the pinheads. I want the cultures to be able to produce at least as fast as I am feeding them off. It just seems like at the rate they will eat them, 12 may not be enough, though I have never kept fruit flies so I am not really sure.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I kept 4 ff cultures at a time rotating their hatching date by about a week apart. When they're high producing cultures they put out absurd amounts of flies. My suggestion is to start a new culture about one week after one starts hatching - take about half the flies for the new culture. Those tend to be the strongest flies to create a good new culture and the old culture will still be producing for another 2-3 weeks usually, which is when the new one starts hatching. Hydei cultures take longer to hatch than melanogaster by nearly 2 weeks.

 

[rshewfel]

Hey, colorado people!

Lpsouth, shoot me a pm when these are getting close to hatching and I can help you out on the insects. I raise all my own fruit flies, hornworms, roaches, and soon to be crickets. I can at the very least give you some pointers to keep cost down.

Good luck!

 

[CarlC]

With all the babies I have at the moment I am using 5000 seven day old and 1500 fourteen day old crickets. I try to keep 12-15 producing cultures and 10 new cultures of FF's. Aphids are offered once or twice a week when my cultures are really blooming.

Carl