Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I thought I'd move this to the top.

I can't speak for the StPierre's, but for me it's not about the money. It's the people that I would rather not deal with.

I keep monitors because I dig them.

I love to see bright orange dumeril's heads when they pop out of the egg. I love to play with the babies and give them a good start on life.
Then I have to sell them, answer a bunch of insincere e mails, and ship them out knowing full well more than half will die due to neglect.

Then there is the inevitable phone call a month later...
"Hey man, the animal you sold me stopped eating two days ago. How are you going to make it right?"

So yeah, I'll sit here and feed my animals, heat my animals, enjoy my animals, and let the eggs rot, losing money every step of the way.

Yeah I understand that way of thinking, as it is hard to let them go to new homes. But my point was if you say that and think that way. You cannot rightfully talk about people buying wild caughts and not c.b.b. now can you??

I think thats very contridicting.

But thats just how I see it and you have thr right to see it your way. No big deal.

I also did not state it as to being all about money or losing money. I was not the one that said i don't incubate them cause I lose money with others selling imports as c.b. for lower prices.

I think it is great if you care so much for your animals you do not look at them as an investment to make a profit. But to me the statement of not incubating them cause I lose money is all about the profit. But maybe I just read it wrong.

Is the cart before the horse or the horse beforet the cart?

We can captive produce monitors until we are blue in the face, but we cannot complete with free monitors.

If the market was not saturated with common cheap monitors, then there may be a market for captive bred. As it is, there are few options.

One option is to produce rare monitors, but that is also effected by the base price of the mass of monitors, which is by the way, set by wild caught imports.

So I have done the same, let hundreds upon hundreds of eggs go without being dug up. The reason is the same, its not worth the trouble.

I imagine when you start producing monitors in some number, I will be hearing, but these are truly captive hatched, No I mean it. No not farmed raised, captive hatched. Dang, it really is worth more money. I know those cheap ones look good. But these were captivvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeee really. What would you do if you produced 500 waters a year? the answer, go broke.

You see, we have no protection against dumping and living animals for a few bucks is dumping. FR

I have already delat with telling people that. It is a pain but I still go forward to offering the choice. I am sure like you said if I had 500 waters sitting here I would feel much the same as you.

But I do not have 500 waters sitting here, nor do I ever plan on mass producing them to those numbers.

I know alot of people looking for and waiting for captive monitors. So thats why I have the opinion I do.

But it may change one day we will see so far I feel the way I do.

I thought the same thing about dumeril's. I knew a lot of people who wanted captive bred dumeril's, but how many is a lot? 10 people, 20 people, 30?

You can fill that need in a year with a couple of pairs. What then? Once I got them into the hands of the people who seriously wanted captive bred dums, then I was left with the others.

I'm not trying to prove you or anyone else wrong, just giving my experience. I hope you didn't get the wrong impression from my first post. I re-read it and the last sentence could be read as sarcasm directed towards you, but it wasn't meant to be.

I am just resigned to the fact that I most likely will not produce any more dums.

I never really disagreed with you.

My way of thinking is this, if production is overwhelming and I have to much quantity. Then simply stop the production by whatever means you see fit. But if there is demand but no product, then why not offer it if even in small numbers?

Yes I did take your comment as sarcasm thats the bad thing about reading, you can only intupret the words and not the true meaning behind them.

Good luck with wherever the road takes you, hope the wind is pushing you in the right direction.

Later

I don't care if people buy wild caught animals, I have bought many myself.

I never said I don't incubate them because I lose money.
I said "It's not worth it". Meaning the headaches that come with selling live animals to people.

All you can really do is try and make sure that the person on the receiving end is prepared for the animal.
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Currently have:
0.1 Antherystic Elaphe guttata - Corn Snake
1.0 Elaphe vulpina gloydi - Eastern Fox Snake
1.1 Morelia Spilota Cheyni - Jungle Carpet Python
0.1 Leucistic Elaphe obsoleta linheimeri - Texas Ratsnake

Saving for:
Agkistrodon Contortix mokasen - Northern Copperhead
Timor Monitor or Frilled Dragon

I've been reading this thread with interest. I do not raise/sell reptiles. I'm 'way over 50, and have only been keeping lizards for about three years. I DO buy captive bred. Only captive bred. The only wild caught I have is the savannah I rescued that I posted on awhile back. (Thanks again to Bloodbat, who was the only one who answered my posts.)

I never planned to own a monitor, and certainly not a savannah, but I also couldn't let the previous owner either give the poor thing to some kid who would continue to keep a 2 foot lizard in a 20 gal. tank and maybe throw it a mouse every month or so, or let her turn it loose here in sunny central Florida.

I confess I was almost afraid to post after reading some of the comments made to new keepers about how people shouldnt own monitors if they did not know how to handle them, but I needed some answers to questions my reading did not address. (Yes, I read extensively - books, not just care sheets)

The more I read, the more I become interested in monitors in general. I've been particularly fascinated by what I've read in the posts here about the ackies. Imagine my concern when I read that some of the respected breeders who I had heard were breeding ackies are not bothering to incubate eggs, because it is "not worth it" or because they don't want to deal with the people.

So what is a new monitor enthusiast to do? Go the the shows and look for "Fly By Night, Inc?" If there are no well bred, well cared for captive bred hatchlings, presented by knowledgable breeders, what can people do but buy wild caught? And if all that is readily available to new enthusiasts are hatchling niles and savannahs, with inacurate info on eventual size, etc. there will be more improperly cared for monitors that, once they become too large/too aggressive/too expensive will be dumped loose, as is already happening in south Florida. And when the laws start to be passed to prevent anyone from owning a monitor, who will protect your private breeding operation and my enjoyment of my reptiles?

Just my thoughts and concerns,

Leslie (Now, how much do I have to pay someone to incubate some ackies for me? I CAN provide references from breeders as to my care of their animals. )

Though i agree with some of the reasoning behind the original post and some that followed for not continuing to breed/sale c.b. animals or shall we say deal with the hassle of it all. I look at it like this. Most of you started out probably keeping keeping 1, 2 and 3 monitors at a time, watching,learning, attempting to perfect the art of husbandry. Then somewhere on your path to perfection(i.e. immitating nature)you got this crazy idea to breed. Now maybe at first it was all about trying to give your monitors some of the same experiences it would have in the wild( understandable) but before you know it your producing 20 to 30 eggs ayear. Now the question becomes what to do with all these hatchlings. Light bulb comes on again.. These are cb so i can sell them for more than wc,ch, fh, etc. All the while never realizing that the minute you sell that first hatchling, you just started a business! And like with any successful business, you need a fail proof business plan thats constantly evolving to meet and exceed your goals. My point is simply this- you had to know, expect or at least consider the hassle involved in the trade you were so eagerly jumping into and preparing for it. So for you to simply let the eggs go to waste is to admit that you failed and not only did you fail yourself but you are also failing the trade. The reason i say that is because for every captive bred born animal not produced another 500 to 1000 animals is taking away from its population. So we need people like you that have put in the work, time,and effort and gained an abundance of knowledge to the point where you are able to produce healthy cbb, to influence others to do the same.

Jaye

I'm just a hobbyist, breeding them is part of the hobby.

However, if I were to look at c/b monitors as a business, the market isn't very good. Most successful reptile businesses do as much, or more wild caught sales as they do captive bred.
99% of the people who purchase monitors do so on a whim, and will not pay $300 for a captive bred sav, when they can get one for $50 including aquarium and astro turf.

Goanna Ranch and Rare Earth deal in exclusively c/b animals, but they made/make money other ways. The person who owns Rare Earth is a successful business person in other areas, and Goanna Ranch is the same. Not to mention Goanna Ranch makes more money selling mice than monitors.

Pro Exotics is an example of a reptile business that seems to be functioning well. I bet if you asked Robyn where the better margins are he will tell you wild caught monitors, c/b snakes, and dry goods. I bet their monitor breeding program is costing them money.

Reptile shops pay very little for w/c animals, if you were to produce 500 c/b animals per year it would have no impact on importation. There would just be 500 more sick savs dieing in aquariums.

Australian monitors do fairly well, only because they cannot be imported so there is no competition from low cost imports. Having said that the market is becomming saturated. I can remember just a couple of years ago when red ackies were $650 each, now you can find them for less than $300 each. I imagine in a few years red ackies will be around $100.

I agree with most of what you said, but not the last paragraph. I would bet within ten years, we will have to import ackies, kimberlys, Pilbaras, caudos, and such, the reason is, less and less are being produced.

While there are a few hobbyist producing these, the larger facilities have seemed to stop or slowed way down. I wonder why?

Oh about Pro Exotics, its nice to be backed with NFL money too. FR

I wonder if people are getting out of the "dwarfs" because they aren't popular. I think the 99%er's that are impulse buyers are looking for animals that are 4 foot or bigger.

A croc or albig makes you look a lot tougher than a caudo.

Why spend a bunch of time $ breeding ackies if no one wants them?

Now I just need to keep larger monitors that don't need as much water..............

Funny how dums are the color of mud........eh? Merten's too...kinda.........

BTW, mertens are very cool. Thanks duuuuuuuuuude.

Guess I'm tough enough. I built an inclosure for ackies I don't have yet. lol

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

The trouble is that when someone develops an interest in a species that is not 'popular,' it is very hard to locate someone who raises them, whether as a full time job, or as a hobbiest. If the people who have them had some way of developing a "wait list" for potential babies, then it would be possible to screen or educate potential purchasers of the species, and find appropriate homes for the healthy little lizards that they would like to breed. And the folks that are looking for a specific species and who are not part of the 'Important Lizard People' network where everyone knows everyone else would be able to do what I prefer to do; support the breeders of cb animals with my purchase.

Yeah, I can look on the classifieds and find people selling ackies, but I would rather have some knowledge of who I am dealing with and whether or not they produce healthy animals.

I understand, or rather, I don't understand, the "Macho Big Lizard" mentality. Yes, the huge 7 1/2 - 8 foot water monitor that I saw in Ocala a few months back was magnificent, but I like the idea of being able to have all the monitor characteristice in something that is not likely to get big enough to eat my grandson!! So, it anyone knows of someone who raises ackies, possibly in central Florida or who will be attending either the Orlando FIRE show or the Daytona show, let me know. I'd like to talk to them.

Leslie

I Lmom. I too and way over 50, oh man that sucks.
I get the feeling, your new, even if old. You are missing the entire boat. Even the life boat.

You think its about you(customer) well its not. Its about the business and the government. What, you did not think of that?

You mentioned your Sav. Do you understand, they come in the country at a 500,000 clip a year. By the way, thats a guess, from a whole lot of different numbers, kinda, the lower end.

(With those numbers in mind, how special is rescuing one)

Now consider, thats every year, then add, niles and waters. These three species, are the bulk of the imports. They come in at a huge price of less then five dollars, give or take a buck or so.

Now consider this. IF you had a pair and the base price is five bucks, how could you.
1. feed them
2. house them
3. use energy to keep them warm or cool.
4. spend time to do cage maintenance.
5. purchase stock

I know, in order to break even or make a profit, you can make it up in numbers. Hmmmmmmmm Well that ain't going to work.

Lets see, if I feed the pair mice and they eat 5 mice a week, at the average retail price thats 5 bucks a week. Ok, lets try wholesale, at .50 cents a mouse, thats $2.50 a week. So just in food alone, there is no possible way to break even after 20 weeks. But wait, we forgot to count the mice they ate as babies, or if they skipped a year, or if some eggs did not hatch, or the eggs were infertile. Remember, thats not counting, building space, electricity, vet bills. Also, consider because I love monitors, I am including the labor for free.

Now, I know, there are always some out there that say, I want to buy CB, to support conservation. Unfortunately if you lined all of you up, and counted you as a dime each, I could not get my coke refilled at the corner store. Unfortunately, your talk is cheap. Really cheap

You should consider, that a breeder is in for the long haul. Then consider, the customer is in for the short haul.(short attention span)

In your case, if we do a good job and sell you some ackies, you will no longer be a customer. Even worse, you will become a competitor(if we do a good job). A competitor of the worse kind. A hobbyist, which is one who dumps their babies because they love them. I really cannot stand that, not as a breeder, but as a reptile lover. Love has value, life has value, if you love them, why are you giving them away. Would you give your kids away? whoops I take that back. Bad analogy. Why would I spend so much on food and caging for a five dollar or free monitor?? That is indeed the reality and truth. Peoples respect is based entirely on what it costs. Sad, sad, sad, but true.

The government, why is it there fault? There are many reasons, but please consider this. They protect almost any thing they can(in a sense, the world is endangered). They do so without consideration if the species really needs protection(at this time). Yet, they allow, millions upon millions upon millions of those three species in, without a problem. How odd is that??????

What is their agenda, is it political? it surely is not driven by conservation. They could let in 100 a year and force us to breed them. Think about that. Good day, Rush, whoops FR

In the first place, I never said there was anything special in my rescuing one savannah. But, as you said, life has value, and I will do whatever I need to do, and spend whatever I need to spend to provide this monitor with the best care I can provide. I've done it for years with horses. You want to talk about something that needs a lot of space and has REALLY expensive regular veternary needs??!! Not to mention $35.00 per animal for foot care every 6 weeks!

I feel rather insulted with your statement that if someone sells me some ackies, I will no longer be a customer and will become the "worst" kind of compition. You don't know me. I have no intention of breeding, except possibly eventually for my own education and for my own collection. As with my horses, whatever is brought here or born here, stays here. I have read that in the wild ackies live in social groups, so it seems logical to get more than one, to be able to observe the interactioin. Or am I wrong about the social groups?? As to losing me as a customer, try telling that to the breeders of animals I have already pruchased. I research breeders as carefully as I research the animals, and when I wish to add to my collection, I go back to the breeders who have produced healthy animals and were happy to educate me in their care, without coming down on me because I don't already know everything.

Yes, I get it about the wc invasion and the government, but that is not going to change until the people whose bottom line is being hurt do something about it. Education and available cb animals is part of the solution, whether you choose to be part of it or not. Maybe you could get a subsidy from the government NOT to breed monitors, like some of the farmers get?? lol

Actuallly, FR (You're Frank Retes, right?) its all your fault!! It was one of your past posts that got me curious about ackies and started me researching them! I recognize your great contribution to the current knowledge about monitors. I read - a lot - and I see you name often in credits or footnotes, or thanks for your input. I enjoy your marvelous photos (like the recent one with the tripodding duo) and I have already bookmarked your site in progress in the hopes of learning even more.

So, give an old gal a break. I buy captive bred not as much for conservation, but to be able to buy healthy lizards from someone who can help me to learn everything I need to know to provide the best care, and also to support the folks that are breeding cb and sharing their knowledge. Think back, if you will, to the joy and wonder you must have felt watching your animals. Would you deny me the same opportunity? Why?

Leslie

Unless you keep a large collection you don't understand the concept off limited resources (this includes time , space ,and food - time is divided by raising food , feeding and maintaining adults to keep them healthy , watching them to collect their eggs , housing and caring for babies , answering emails and making sure the people who purchase your lizards can take care of them properly and yes I actually do talk to everyone who buys a lizard from us )

Ron and I take care of all the animals we have here alone . We raise 90% of the food our animals eat to ensure that they only get fed the very BEST .This means that we also have to care for their food which alone is a full time job.

Some of you might have unlimited resources and space , I don't .
I don't believe in crowding babies just to shove a few more out the door . I don't believe in feeding what I hatch garbage so that I can push a few more out the door cheaper . I am not going to short change my animals to hatch something I can't do right for lack of resources which include both time and space . I can't justify hatching these eggs instead of the ones that do pay my bills and feed everything that lives here including my child.

Geez do you really think that people who breed lizards for a living do it for just the money ? There are a lot of easier ways to make a living . Trust me if you don't love it you are not going to be able to do this .Hell it's a lot easier to bring in shipments of wild caught reptiles and tack on a few dollars each and shove them out the door telling people anything they want to hear . The only people who think there is a ton of money breeding large carnivous lizards the right way are the ones that don't really breed any themselves.

I have to talk to a lot of people daily because of these lizards , most of which are super nice people and a pleasure to talk to . I dislike talking to rude demanding people who try to guilt trip me and don't repect or value Ron or my time (when I used to have monitor care info on my web page I used to get tons of these)

You really want these eggs you can spend the entire day every day of this breeding season sitting out in the 90F heat and 90% humidity watching for them to lay them because I'm going to be busy doing the million other things I have to do =P

Geez some of you are judgemental little *bleep*
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Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

Hey stella I keep a pretty large "collection", too. All my guys get about 90% of the feeders I raise as well. I do it all alone. Honestly, I havent made one freakin dime off them, and love it.

You wanna sell me your albigs? I'll put em to better use and wont whine for a second.

Amen Rich! I hardly breed anything away from work now. Glad to see you still are doing what you like and aren't influenced by the whole trade side. I bailed that a long time ago. Field herping and taking pictures is expensive, but alot more rewarding. Talk to ya soon,
Jeff Lemm

I was really hoping to see Dum's as being commonly bred in captivity, maybe it's just as well, there just aren't many people that can properly take care of a 4ft or more monitor.

I really believe until imports are stopped or seriously slowed down, there will be no long term captive breeding of those species. Not only is there no incentive, there seems to be alot of counter incentive, and in the end, the imports are commonly labeled as c.b. anyway. Obviously no financial reason, and anyone that cares about monitors will get sick of seeing them going out the door to disappear forever.

I completely understand your position, it's something I've thought alot about. Luckily or unfortunately (depends on how you look at it), it's not anything I've had to deal with.

--Robert