Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I usually don't post here but some things have been bugging me latley. I have been keeping and breeding dragons for about 5 years now and have seen the market go down alot. I don't sell alot of my dragons online but have sold a few over the years. This year I plan on doing more marketing and selling online and would like others opinons on this matter. It bothers me to look in the classifieds and see blood dragons being sold but in fact they are yellow,orange, or normal or to see someone advertising orange,red,yellow whatever the color may be but they look just like normals. It doesn't matter if the dragon came from blood parents, if its yellow its a yellow dragon, if it looks normal its a normal. I know its possible the dragon could carry those morph genes but in the end its not what they are advertising it to be. Also everyone wants their dragon to be a morph of some kind. Whats wrong with a nice looking normal? You use to be able to sell yellows, reds,oranges and sandfires for top dollar. Now you are lucky to get $100 bucks for a nice looking dragon because someone sees that $60 sandfire or blood which is really a normal. I wish people would be honest with their advertising and sell them according to what they are. Anyone else have opinions on this?
Link

Hi
some times the color come up after 6 months then the pics looks like normals
but they get very nice after 6 months like this beardie on picture i buy him when he whas looking like a normal but i buy him as a sandfire gold and after 6-10 month his color came up.
so some times they look like normals but the coloring take some time !!
byeeeeeeeee

http://run.to/b22

I'm going to agree and disagree....

When it comes to bloods, if it is a Dragons Den line blood, then no matter what color it looks like, I think it should be labeled as a blood or from "blood lines". Something to keep in mind is that color is dependent on many things including stress, diet, and lighting. I would rather know the genetics behind what I'm buying and then be able to see what color it looks like at the moment. The other thing is that bloods also change color a lot with age--it can start off more yellow or normal and then turn "blood" later down the road. This is the case with many morphs (sandfire, reds, oranges, etc). Many "normal" looking dragons turn very colorful down the road depending on genetics. Of course morphs can go the other way too--start off red and turn brown.
Especially when buying for breeding purposes, I would hate to buy a "blood" labeled as a yellow since it is showing more yellow, only to breed it to a blood down the road and not realize that I'm inbreeding. I think this happens a lot.

However I will agree that I would like to see people clarify by saying what color the dragon shows, and then what bloodline it comes from. i.e. "dragon showing normal coloration, from red x gold lines".

And I dont think there is anything wrong with a nice normal! They are almost hard to find these days and very necessary with all the line breeding out there!

Just my 2 cents.
Dana

I understand that a normal can show color as it ages and that dragons change colors depending on the situation. I like what you said about advertising what it is and then stating the blood line. However as a breeder and in my experience a colorfull baby will remain colorfull and a normal will remain normal with a few exceptions. Your chances of having a nicely colored dragon are much greater if it is nicely colored as a baby. As a breeder you should know your line and what it will look like as an adult and advertise accordingly. Maybe show a picture of the parents to give the buyer an idea. I always do this as parentage plays a big role in what a baby will look like. Its also a risk you have to take as a breeder when seeling dragons that look normal whether or not they will color when grown. If my dragons look normal I will sell them as that because unless you are willing to raise 50 dragons to adulthood to see what they will look like as adults thats what they are at them time.

>>>>> Maybe show a picture of the parents to give the buyer an idea.

I always show a picture of the parents.... here is an example of one such "parent picture". This is a picture of the parents from my next clutch. It will be posted WITH all dragons from that pairing and it is also posted at the top of that clutch availability page on my site. As with all my available babies

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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
www.beginnersbasics.com

I'm only able to do this with a certain few of my dragons, but with a few of my breeders I have pics of great grandparents, grandparents, mother and father, and the baby the customer purchased. I wish more breeders would have kept detailed info on such important pricless info if your goal is to one day breed. I was lucky enough to deal with some of the great breeders I've dealt with have. Inbreeding is a big problem, and with detailed back parentage it gives you a much better idea of where dragons were purchased, and from which lines breeders they originated from. I also agree that people should add in their ads exactly what lines the breeders came from as to lessen the chances of inbreeding in the future. I was lucky enough to do this with my first breeding of Candy & Foster as Chris Allen kept detailed info as long as pictures of some of these retired breeders.
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Mystical Dragons webshots pictures
Mystical-Dragons Website

Actually, my most colorful adults started off very dull or even "normal" in color as babies. And the most screaming red baby that I've ever bought is now one of my most dull adults.
Especially with west coast lines, dull babies often color up a lot with age.

Dana

color for several months, shed into that high gold color that is not seen in many.

Another that was red as a baby, shed duller each shed and ended up a nice color, but nothing like it showed as a baby.

I also agree, that the dragon being content and all its needs met, once settled into a new home can be a dramatic difference in color
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www.reptilerooms.com

Strange about the west coast dragons coloring more up with age. From my experience I agree. It seems many of the east coast dragons look absolutely gorgeous as babies but tend to fade a bit with age. It's almost as if they have been selectively bred for baby color rather than adult color. Obviously this is a generality and there are many exceptions but it has been my experience.

Here's a picture to show what Dana is talking about with color changes:

Here she is as an adult:

Here's an east coast dragon as a baby:

and as a sub adult:

My first point is a picture is worth a 1000 words. Someone posted pics today of babies that were two days old and they displayed amazing colors. I don't care what they call it that would be a dragon I would be interested in buying. I agree that I see something advertised and the picture looks nothing like my expectation. The problem arises with the ease of breeding dragons, enabling more people to do it with success. There is a misconception that dragons have to have a "cool" name to sell. I do think it is important for certain "bloodlines" to be named ie. Sanfire, Blood etc. What happens is the "bloodline" name becomes more of a description rather than an actual bloodline because of overuse from people not actually ownung that bloodline. Also because genentics apparently work differently in dragons than they do in snakes they names become more muddled. With a snake something either is a hypo or it isn't. There seems to be a wider acceptance in dragons as to what a hypo is. I will finish my point with the one I started with. A picture is worth 1000 words. Show me the animal, show me the parents and keep the names. Unless, it has an actual documented bloodline, like Sandfire or Blood.

Excuse the typos I was in a hurry. I see that Sundial responded to this message. I would like to say they are a near perfect example of ho to market and sell bearded dragons. Great animals, great pictures, more great pictures, and the animals carry the "name" of their parents. Did I mention great pictures?

Mike

>>Excuse the typos I was in a hurry. I see that Sundial responded to this message. I would like to say they are a near perfect example of ho to market and sell bearded dragons. Great animals, great pictures, more great pictures, and the animals carry the "name" of their parents. Did I mention great pictures?
>>
>>Mike

I agree! I love seeing Coral x Stella, etc. But also keep in mind that small breeders like myself could not possibly market our babies as "Cheyenne x Lacie" or "Dakota x Sunshine" People would have NO clue LOL. Sundial is KNOWN in the herp world! Honestly, would you click on an ad that said "new hatchlings from our Dakota x Lacie line"? You wouldn't have a clue what color they were "supposed" to be.

Unless we advertised as "Dakota x Lacie" then also added (Super orange x red) behind it on the subject line...... Come to think about it, I like that idea lol. I will shut up now hahahahahahaha
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Lisa
Cricket free babies!
www.beginnersbasics.com

Actually I have checked out evryones site on this forum as I think most of us have. Now maybe not everyone owns a "snickers", but if there was a link leading me to the parents and the offspring I would certainly follow it. When I mention Sundial I was mostly talking about their layout and quality of their pics. If there are pics of killer parents and clear pics of babies from them I would be just as likely to buy from you, or tracies or Mystical or Georgio or anyone else that had the pics. Also I have no problems using color names to describe the babies it's just the names of bloodlines have become to generically used. I have a Sandire female about to lay and the father was a red X sandfire. Those names are generally recognized and should be used. I agree with the original post that too many "normal" appearing dragons are being given Fancy names without the evidence of their bloodline. When you have breeder pics available and some people even show the parents breeding (ie. Candy & Foster for an example) then ther is an expectation of what those babies will look like. (hopefully)
I wish I had more monet to spend on babies because there are a lot of pics that show up on here from all of you that make me crazy!!

Mike

b/p
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Trevor Bennett
E-mail: yruemailinme15@yahoo.com
yahoo SN: yruemailinme15
location: Salem, Oregon

Thanks for the kind words...
To be honest, I got to a point where I was at a loss as how to label our dragons--so many were from generations of our breedings that were crossed so many times, it just became ridiculous to say sandfire outcross german x yellow x orange X german x normal x red...etc etc... so I just started by labeling them with the breeders' names and then an explanation. LOL.
It is definitely tricky!
Dana

But without a doubt that info is priceless these days. I would not think twice about purchasing from you knowing you have these details on hand, and knowing you did your best not to line breed or inbreed them, and actually thought about this while choosing your breeding stock. These days sometimes it's even hard getting a picture of the parents never mind the lines they were actually created from, or who exactly they were purchased from.
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Mystical Dragons webshots pictures
Mystical-Dragons Website