Dart Den
Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...
Dart Den

Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

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Value of Dart Frogs ?
#1
Topics I would love to discuss in a Breeder's Union.
When looking for a frog , what is the value of satisfaction? I have read a few posts of late bickering about $5 dollars here, $10 there.
How many people think they have a full understanding of acquiring healthy frogs, providing an environment suitable (hopefully better than suitable) for breeding, caring for eggs, caring for tads, morphing tads, rearing froglets to the stage at which you are very certain they are stable and ready to go ? What is the value of 100% satisfaction? I would much rather deal with a vendor whom I have absolute faith in than save a buck or two. Peace of mind when dealing with these awesome frogs should be first and foremost. I read stories on Kingsnake of someone buying 5 frogs from a "known "( in my mind) bad shop , asking for some help after the fourth out of five has died. Kingsnake is not exactly where you want to end up asking health related question because you are down to your last frog. Are people selling frogs without any backing....yes. Are there guys out there who do not swing in the wind moving prices around willy-nilly because someone now has a very prolific pair of "whatevers" breeding this month....yes. Are there people selling very cool, healthy frogs at below"market price" ...yes.
Supply and demand will always have to include quality and peace of mind. If you look at some of the top people in this "hobby" or the world involved in Darts , it is fairly obvious they are not doing it for the big bucks. And there is little reason to "panick " into.... SLASHING!! EVERYTHING MUST GO" mode. These frogs all go up and down in price and popularity. Talk to any "guru" out there and they will tell you some very interesting stories about prices of frogs that are $30 now and frogs you can not touch for $400 that used to go for $30.
A quick one on something I saw today.
A healthy ,female imitator of breeding age is worth what?
"Market" price for most froglet, juvis , sub adults , is an average of about $70 . Imitators sex out very (for some) female heavy. It would not be unheard of to have bought 4 ims and end up with a 3:1 group. What would a know female ( who gives a crap about proven or not , she will most likely produce, ...my guess. Also it is most likely proven because that is really the only way to 100% be sure of sex) be worth to a person in that situation? At the rate the breeder who supplies the original group supplies another female it will end up costing another $280 to secure (maybe??) another female, all the while boys are stacking up. Just want to give a little real life input there. I love to know what I am getting and who I am dealing with.
Bottom line. The people who end up with the really cool stuff are usually not the people with the biggest wallet or purse.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
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#2
I would have to fully agree! I am a poor college student working only about 20 hours a week. However, I would still much rather pay $10 more each frog than buy from a known bad breeder. I read vender ratings long before I even look at their prices. With the frogs I just got...first I went by their rating, then I saw they had the type of frog I was interested in and that is how I made my choice. When I called I didn't even know the price. I ordered them...then said "oh, btw how much are those?"
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#3
i think that there is also something to be said for supporting what you believe in. for example, i owned a coffeeshop atatched to an artists' collective. when we went out to see art or music, more often than not we were offered free entry and often free copies of new albums, etc. i always insisted on paying...if people can't eat, they cannot put the time and effort into making music, promoting art, or..... raising frogs. i am willing to pay breeders to lovingly produce frogs instead if creating a mcdonalds style market where only 'mass production' is economically viable. surely variety would suffer along with quality.
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#4
I think price in this hobby should barely be a consideration at all (and i am by no means rich), unless it comes down to 2 well known trusted breeders who both have exactly what u want. If we wish to maintain the integrity of the hobby and the frogs, its best to buy from established/trusted breeders who can back up their frogs with info about bloodlines and locality whenever possible, and help you with any problems you may have with your animals.

I for one am sticking to all the well known breeders and some of the trusted individuals on dendroboard/dartden for most of my future purchases. I consider them the "normal channels". I will only go thru others if they have something i just cant get anywhere else anytime soon, or if i find something locally i may purchase it as i did a few azureus a while back, which i only really did because ordering online was to expensive for me given the cost of shipping vs the low number of frogs i could afford. But i think saving up and placing an order large enough to offset the cost of shipping is definately the way i will likely go the majority of the time.

I have mixed feelings about all the "little guys" who are breeding a pair or 2 of frogs and selling offspring for extra money to their friends or even online. I wonder if they are representing their animals accurately, if they have the bloodline and/or locality data to send along with the frogs, are they good healthy frogs that will contribute to the integrity of the species as a whole when bred...ect..ect...

In all honesty i plan on breeding and selling a variety of darts in the future, but i want to find good breeding stock, have as much info about them as i can, and if i do sell any animals that i dont know alot about the bloodlines and/or locality i will tell people that and reccomend they do not breed those animals or breed them to animals that they do have that info on, unless it is just because they want more of that particular species. Also i would suggest they inform anyone they sell the animals or animal's offspring to in the future to pass along that info to their customers with the same suggestions.

Buying questionable animals from questionable and/or inexperience people does little to help and may actually harm the hobby in the long term.
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#5
Dave,

You mention two extremes. The experienced, reputable breeder who has built him or herself a name and the "little guy" who is only breeding a pair or two for extra money. Don't forget there is a middle ground...those people who are trying to establish a great reputation, care very much about the quality of what they produce, and are being mentored by some of those big time breeders...but they are not old school, have not been in the hobby for years and years, and haven't produced tons and tons of frogs. In my opinion, as long as they are producing quality, healthy frogs and know what they are doing, there is no harm in purchasing from them.

"In all honesty i plan on breeding and selling a variety of darts in the future"

"Buying questionable animals from questionable and/or inexperience people does little to help and may actually harm the hobby in the long term."

It seems that once you start breeding and selling animals, you would fall into the middle ground category that I mentioned above...am I correct? It's obvious that you would be aiming to do everything correctly, but you would maybe be a "little guy" since no one would have ever bought from you before...what if everyone felt the same way you did and would not buy from you? I agree with everything you said except for the part about ONLY buying from established, trusted breeders...yes, use common sense and look into those you are purchasing from, but even the established breeders had to start somewhere.

Just food for thought.

Kristen
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#6
I believe this post came from my want add on DB. I asked if anyone had a female imi for sale. Somebody dropped a name saying someone who had one for $150. Great, thanks for the help, I appreciated it. Everyone else chimed in saying what they should cost. All I wanted was to see if people had any to sell. Maybe I don't want to spend $150 right now. Maybe I am not in a rush. I just wanted to see what was out there, if anything, before deciding. Do I know how much I would spend, no. It depends on the situation at the time. Who, how much, positive about sex, shipping cost, availability, rush. All those things. I think it went overboard for a wanted add, but what can I do? No one knows how I feel about where I get my frogs from, or who I want to buy from. Also, prices clearly change, some people don't support that. My guess is those that bought a frog yesterday for $75 seeing them today for $60 are the ones getting upset. If you are happy with the purchase yesterday, why is their a need to justify the amount you spent?
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#7
A few things...first, I think you are taking that personally when no one really aimed it at you...you just happened to be the one that posted the want ad and had someone reply about the $150 female. The person mentioned that there was a female imitator for $150, then others started commenting on that price. So what if you wanted to buy it anyway, that should not stop you. If I, for one, was desperately looking for one particular frog or sex of frog, I would not hesitate to buy it provided that it was what I was looking for and I could afford to pay that price at that time. It's all about supply and demand, and like someone pointed out, right now at this point in time, there are not many to be had...that's not to say that tomorrow, someone else will not post another female imitator as being available. Anyway, I don't think it was directed at you...you just happened to get caught in the middle.

Secondly, you say, "Also, prices clearly change, some people don't support that. My guess is those that bought a frog yesterday for $75 seeing them today for $60 are the ones getting upset. If you are happy with the purchase yesterday, why is their a need to justify the amount you spent?"

I think you missed the point...the ones that are bothered by the drop in prices are not bothered because they are saying "dagnabbit...and I paid $75 for these suckers a year ago"...who cares...like you said, prices change with supply and demand. The reason some are disappointed is because this seems to be a fairly recent thing due to a few people producing them like crazy and then selling them at a much lower price because they are overflowing with them...not saying that I blame them, since if I had them coming out of my ears, I would probably want to get rid of them quickly. However, I probably would not do the same thing out of principle. Anyway, that is why some people seem to be bummed about it. There isn't much anyone can do, though. That's just the way it is...deal with it, move on, right? Smile

Kristen
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#8
Ya let me clarify, the people your talking about are what i meant by some of the well known individuals on dartden/dendro board. The little guys i was refferring to are randomn joe public who has a few frogs to sell and most of us have never even heard of him. Also i was talking about the large importer/exporter people who sometimes offer darts and often have questionable buisness practices and animals...which i didnt really specify...my bad Wink

And ya as long as they are healthy quality animals im fine with em, i just hope they represent their animals accurately and that if they have no info about them they are up front about that. I recognize that everyone has to start somewhere, but we've all heard about people getting under fed froglets, or sick frogs or whatever from big importers or some randomn joe and that i dont support...i would only dare buy from these people if it was something i just had to have and couldnt find it anytime anywhere soon from someone else....and hopefully i wont get screwed Wink
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#9
Dave...glad we got that sorted out... :wink:

Take care,
Kristen
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