ferret, i think you may be spoiled on having a competent veterinarian. i have searched and searched for someone that is worth their metal and that guy is over 8 hours away.
ive found myself agruing with vets oh husbandry, bringing home a savannah monitor with severe burns, and slicing open a female veiled after my herp vet "turtle expert" told me salvaging the eggs was futile. guess waht the majority hatched out.
Well, I found it much more satisfying to donate the most recent clutch to members of this forum here (see our thread "The Jackson Nine"), instead of trying to sell them to a pet store that might sell them to knuckleheads who will be going to a lizard funeral soon.
i totally get where youre coming from with with this statement BUT who hasnt been a knucklehead as some point. NOT one of us ever realized what we were getting ourselves into, even with all the research in the world.
i feel like its a bitter sweet experience being a keeper/breeder.
sending your kids home with someone you dont know. ive seen everything from complete moron excel to overly intelligent people have their chams die from "complications"
i feel like any time ive ever sold a chameleon, maybe just maybe, im igniting a passion like my own.
But back to the original subject of the cost of panthers, then are breeders making a fortune $300 at a time?
like i said when i was over your house, they will charge that much because they can charge that much.
should they? depends. if youre entire income is reliant on clutches of panthers and dealing with overhead, advertisement and most of all the cost of keeping its totally understandable.
but honestly theyre no more difficult than veileds. only difference ive seen is clutch size. there is no reason to have to spend so much on a male let alone a female. on occasion you find hobbyists and private breeders that will drop them at a fraction of what the norm is.
when i bred i made MUCH MUCH more off of the veileds. people were more willing to spend $25 than $250 for a baby. its less of a risk. you would have to see an enormous influx of available panthers to make it drop dramatically.
what do you think sells more and makes a larger profit. an affordable car or some high end BS. both will get you from a to b. its just supply and demand
in fact as i mentioned before in a separate thread i stopped breeding because i had an escapee panther eat nearly and entire clutch worth a few thousand. almost all of his siblings a generation younger. johnathan swift.
i dont think anyone else double/triple/quadruple checks the cages to make sure theyre shut like i do. even without youngins around that was kind of traumatizing..... ill never stop blaming myself for leaving that cage ajar.
thats when it was no longer a self sustaining hobby and i had to sell off the majority of my breeders.
anyways why do they cost so much? becuse they can.
why do we pay that much? becuse we have to.
again places like kammerflage and screameleons and camco have to, its their bread and butter, they dont work part time at longhorn steakhouse or contract painting jobs. thats their livelihood.
