Breeding...

[Iktomi]

Hey all...just found this forum and love it so far.
Does anyone know where I can find a pricing guide of sorts for spiderlings of various species? I'm thinking of breeding and wouldn't know what to charge the local exotics shop...
Thanks in advance!

 

[Code Monkey]

Well, assuming you ever succeed (and depending on species) you're likely to get far more slings than any one shop will take off of your hands -> example: A. geniculata might produce 1000 slings from just one sac!

You're going to either have to solicit a lot of shops or sell online if you want to get rid of all the slings without culling.

That said, look at the online dealers and get a feel for what the average price is for the different species. There's over a hundred species regularly in the trade and another hundred-fifty or so that have been in the trade and may or may not appear sporadically - you aren't going to find anyone who's going to do your homework for you. Anyhoo, take whatever the dealers are charging and figure you can get 20% to 30% of that price in small quantities, if you actually do find someone to take all the slings off your hand at once, figure maybe 10% of that price a pop. If you sell directly to hobbyists, you can charge prices in line with what the dealers are, but you got to make a lot of trips to the post office.

Bottom line: you don't breed tarantulas to make money. Sure, you might get a few hundred dollars from a sac, but if you aren't doing it for the love of the hobby, there are a hell of a lot more profitable ways to make money. Further, most pairings don't result in viable slings - it's a lot of investment for equipment and livestock with zero guarantee of any return.