Can I ask you guys how the come up with $50 spend on each baby cham please? Its just that seems alot and im wondering if food for them is more exspence over there than it is in the uk?
Check this link where Julirs speaks to the cost of raising 69 Veileds:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/breeding-advice-16151/#post133931
Im basing the below estimates on raising a clutch of 20 panthers.
Fruit fly culturing is inexpensive, even after one buys the banana, potatoe, oats, bran, yeast, bee pollen etc. Let's say that's twenty bucks total, or a buck per chameleon. Unfortunately, you cant just feed them fruit flies, especially as they grow bigger.
Stick insects are practically free to me, as are wood sows, and mealworms. Superworms dont cost much to raise either. So I wont include these, though if you were buying or counting the cost of time....
Pin head and small crickets are about five to ten dollars per 100 to buy. And you'd go through that in like a week, so $20 to $40 per month. Costs less if you raise them yourself.
So we'll say its $20 per chameleon, per month, just for crickets. Raise them up to at least three months and you've spent $60 per chameleon. Or as much as $120 if you raise to 6 months before selling. Plus the few bucks for the fruit flies.
Small butterworms cost me about 35cents a piece. As soon as the chams are big enough I like to offer these two to four times a week. So let's say three times a week from the fourth week until the end of the third month would be $8 or $9 per chameleon, and raising them to six months would cost double that, so let's say at least $16 per little chameleon.
So far that's $1(flies)+$60(crickets)+9(butterworms)=$70 to raise them only three months, $135+/- to the six month mark.
Silkworms, if you buy eggs and hatch out babies to feed off fairly small, maybe that would cost about $15. If you buy the chow rather than pick mulberry leaves locally, another $10.
So now we're nearly $80 per chameleon raised to only about three months old. And that's just feeding them.
Let's not forget there is the cost of multiple cages, UVB lighting, possibly heat bulbs, electricity, drippers, possibly something to remove chemicals from the water, plants, supplements, possible vet visits. Not to mention your considerable time.
