Reptile & Amphibian Forums

will be available at Petco or other chain stores.
Considering I just say a PAIR (1.1) for only $150 more then I paid for just my male...
I think they'll be in Petco in the next 1-3 years...
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

-To clarify-
The pair was in the classifieds.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

2007 will put male pastels in the pet stores,females will continue to hold up longer.Just my thoughts on this.Terry

Last year...
this year, the same pet store doesn't want them.
Someone under cut me, and supposedly selling males for 150 each...

Yup...they'll be $100 at Petco by next year.

Grrr...
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Maybe in some pet stores but i can not see them in Petcos. I use to work as a manager for a local petco for 3 years, i coulndt even get in a sin milk snake without corp giving me a hard time. We use to get lists that had albino nelsons on them and Petco said that they were too much money and the general public would not buy the animal. I dont think that too many will spend what Petco would charge for a pastel. Not only that but also 90 percent of the people who shop at petcos will not be able to tell the difference between the 2. I still to this day have people come up to me at shows and say why is that animal more then this one. I say cant you see the difference they say ones a little lighter but for the price difference i wouldnt buy it. LOL ... I know that alot of Petco customers would probally be the same way.
Just my opinion from working there. I think alot of smaller pet shops will end up having them first. If Petco does end up carrying them, i dont see it happening for awhile.
Kim

PETCO makes a profit by buying WC animals at almost no cost, marking them up 500% to cover care and the ones that die. If PETCO buys male pastels at $100 each, they would have to sell them at for at least $250 just to make a profit. Who is going to buy a male pastel for $250 from PETCO?? I know I wouldn't want my pastel male with mites...
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

mark-up wise at $100 cost = $ 400 profit. A 100% retrieval of cost is only payed of cost. So actually at 500% mark-up this is only a 400% mark-up. This is if the animal is sold at $500. Catch my drift ? Profit and margin are 2 very different things. Even the profit has bite ins. I won't go into the complexity of these 2 things as I have before on numerous occasions. I would say that if Petco did sell a $100 cost animal and sold it for $250, the profit is at 150 % ( real )and that is with reservations. Then there is the margin of profit that includes every thing so the store MIGHT make a profit at showing at / of : $100 recovery of cost ( $100 ) then $150 after. Out of $150, after everything is paid maybe a $50 to $75 pure profit. The contingent on any retail is volume sales as in these mass merchandisers.
Off topic now : at the very last reptile expo that i attended, captive born / bred balls commons were going for $25 and a few worried breeders sold some at $20 plus one breeder gave you one if you bought 2 then went on at $10 each. As I said, CAPTIVE as this show does not allow wild or imports !
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I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

That is nothing new, at just about any large show you can find females for $15/ea and it has been that way for awhile. Also, they almost never sell them all...
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

No way Petco will have them next year. And they will NEVER have them for $100. There are hundreds of Petco outlets and if they ever decided to carry a high end animal (resale over $100) like this, they would need someone to supply them with thousands of animals during the season. Do you know anyone that would breed thousands of pastels only to turn around and sell them for $50? Neither do i.

Yes, 2000 pastels sold at $50 each = $100,000. If you are breeding super pastel to normal females you only need about 200-300 females and about 40 male super pastels...

If you are producing your own super pastels and females, the primary cost would be feeding ($20,000/ year?). Plus you could boost profitability by keeping some of the pastel females back and breeding super pastels to pastel females and sell the resulting supers at higher prices...

laugh, but this is what it is coming down to.
A battle of the numbers. Pretty soon, you'll here people talking mergers... NERD will stand for New England Ralph Davis...
OK, maybe not

Ryan
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

The cost of housing. Plus the cost of heating. Then you would need to hire someone to help you clean and feed. If you have an employee you may need insurance. If you don't own suitable property you would need to rent the space. It would not be as profitable as it first looks. You also have to ship them out to the petcos so that is more labor of packing and such. I'm not saying it can't work only that the profit may not make it worth while.

I know plenty of people that house more than 300 females in their own home, drive and fly to shows all over the world, clean cages endlessly, and never spend a waking minute not thinking about their snakes...and still do not make $80,000 a year. Heating for 300 balls would only cost about $1000/yr or less (~ 30,000 KWH at 0.05/KWH).

There are a lot of people that make less than $40k/ year doing a lot worse jobs...
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

Actually i think you would need alot more than 300 females to produce 2000 pastels. Even if you had 40 male supers and EVERY male was able to take on 7-8 females, you would need for EVERY female to become impregnated and lay 6.5 fertile eggs each. I`ve been breeding balls for a few years now and i have not had a single season where all of my females took. But i guess anything is possible.

I was thinking if you had a mature breeding program. In which case you would be averaging more like 10 eggs per breeding female. In that case only 2/3 of you breeders need to go. It is all hypothetical anyway, but most 2000 gram females that I have had laid at least 8 eggs.
If you wanted to be certain of producing 2000 pastels then you should have about 10,000 females ready to go...right?
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

Actually i`ve had many 2000 gram females in prime breeding condition not take. And if you average 10 eggs per clutch i`d be shocked. I had 4 2500 gram females lay 6 or less last season alone. Don`t get me wrong, i did have a 3000 gram girl give me 9 eggs (7 fertile) last season. I guess i`m just not the ball breeder you are.