Well heres my rant for the night... I think its GREAT how many people love bearded dragons. I am not the type of breeder to discourage anyone from breeding. It can be an amazing, really rewarding thing IF done right. What I CANT STAND is idiots who breed on a whim or for quick cash who dont have a CLUE what their doing. Firstly you should have a solid grasp on the care and husbandry of these animals before you even THINK about doing it. Second, you need to accept that its expensive and youll be lucky to break even... if your caring for these babies the way you should. For the average hobbyist (without access to wholesale costs and thier own farmingthe expense of feeders alone is scary. A baby will eat between 10-50 feeders a day. A female can lay between 1-6 clutches of anywhere from 1-40 eggs. Do the math. Then they need to be housed in small groups according to size and temperament. Each set up must have its own lights etc. Then we have the other considerations, are the parents healthy? Where are they from? What are they REALLY? Is the female old enough or too old to breed? The care of a gravid female is and should be much more intense. Egg binding and calcium deficiency, can harm the mom and cause issues in the babies that are not always initially apparent. Inadvertently line breeding or breeding a female lacking in calcium etc can cause mad and all sorts health issues, neurological issues etc in the babies. These same people will then often sell the babies much too young, overwhelmed by the amount of care. I personally would MAYBE sell a very healthy baby to a very experienced home nonlinear than three weeks. Generally mine are not sold until between 8-10 weeks at the earliest. Why? Because in those first weeks many issues can arise, neurological issues become visible and its just irresponsible to do so earlier. Its your responsibility to ensure thier eating, growing shedding properly etc before sending them to thier need home. They often also sell them cheap to make a quick profit and get them gone. I dont sell my babies cheap. Why again? Because as a breeder Im taking my time to do everything I can to give my personal collection/breeders the best and feed and care for those babies in the bestow possible and if you done that right its not cheap. Also as much as I hate to say it but if someone cant afford more than $30 for a dragon they probably cant afford to care for it and sorry by Im not interested in seeing the babies Ive produced filling up some reptile rescue three months later or floating around on Craigslist. Im more interested in making beautiful dragons than turning a quick buck. If you love reptiles, than as a consumer you need to think about where you purchase your animals and who from . Cheaper is NOT always better. YOU hobbyists dictate the market. If you buy babies off irresponsible people then you contribute to this b.s. continuing. You support unhealthy dragons being bred by inexperienced people who dont care at all what thier producing or contributing to the reptile world. Your supporting the overflowing reptile rescues and making it impossible for people who do give a shit continue. When I see someone who got thier first dragon less than three months ago, who has openly demonstrated how little they know, bragging about thier pregnant beardie (how does that EVEN happen?!?!) With a hundred things WRONG right off the bat, it pisses me off. Be responsible, do it right or JUST DONT.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 08:09:55 +0000
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