I agree with Cerat.

Lets say I buy 5 slings for R1200 each. It takes +-2 years to raise them to breeding adults (depending on species )

That's 2 years where my investment has not brought in any profit.

Now in this 2 year period the people have been breeding them like crazy and the prices has dropped to R200 a sling. which will inevitably happen :huh:

Now after two years since the day I purchased my little breeding group, I have successfully bred them and I'm sitting with a 100 slings to sell.

I have to admit it would suck to sell them for R200 each having paid R1200 for a sling 2 years ago and putting all the effort in to get them to this stage.

That's why I keep spiders for the love of them and the money made is just a bonus

If you look at the current state of the hobby, spiders are rapidly getting cheaper and cheaper because species are being over bred and the surplus can't get sold because the market is saturated.

This will lead to a crash. People will stop breeding because there's nothing in it for them anymore. Except the love of spiders and that's not always enough.

I think the solution to this is that we need to start exporting the surplus spiders we have from our breeding attempts.

Do yourself a favor and go and look for prices of spiders in the US and in Europe, you will fall on your back at the prices for spiders such as Lasiodora, cyclosternum, brachypelma and other genus's that's prices has dropped to ridiculous prices in SA, like R10, R25 a sling. In the states the same spiders are being sold for 15$ and up. As an example. Curlies on ken the bug guy's site are selling for $15 for a 0.5inch spider :ohmy: you do the math that's a lot more than R2 or R20 or R50 for a little curly sling. That seems to be ridiculously overprices compared to the prices in SA :blink:

This example is but one of many :silly:

The exchange rate is in our favor and we should utilize it

This is easy guys nobody can tell another person what to sell his spiders for. If you want something you will pay whatever to get it. Supply and demand!

This is quite interesting

Everyone has a valid point

I am a student-so yes I want to be rolling in the hood with a pair of M.Balfouri's-and perhaps if I want to live of maize meal and water for a whole semester I can buy me some of them, South Africa's economy is pretty horsepooh, so not everyone is on the same level,and that is why people will always want to undercut and that is why people will always try sell cheaper than another so if one guys sells a certain T at R600 and another at R1000-the guy selling at R600 will sell his faster due to fact that you can buy a bread and a 2l milk and some nappies for your new born with R400 money staying over, so yeah many breeders are going to loose a large amount of money and time which they invested and the sad thing is yeah you can not really stop it. Working in the music industry in my spare time to make some dough its much like the tarantula hobby-there is 2 many bands and not enough people coming to shows, and even if you get really huge bands to play at your shows-its not always going to be profitable and if your living of the profit your going to get pee'd off if your not making any and in the end it is going to steal from your passion in a sense, but in the end-Yes we want the hobby growing and yeah it is good to make some cash,but it should certainly take some though about prizing and its effects

Vanhimself wrote: Interesting question that has been flogged to death.
Main points to consider - you a 24 year old that probably has a job, does not rely on breeding T's as a business. I am almost certain breeders make a living off it after years in the business. So their sales pay their debit order that your job pays. Lets continue with your analogy - So you cant really afford a few high value T's - yet you reckon if you were attain them you would breed them on a large scale to sell them for peanuts.
This makes as little sense as buying bread to sell it for cheaper.

Lets not digress, the point is NOT to make money, but rather cover costs. If a profit is possible, thats awesome.

Lets take the recently available Panay Blue's as an example:
In order to aquire at least one of each sex i would safely need to buy a minimun of 5 slings which would cost me R3000 (R600 each).
Worst case scenario, I end up with 1 female to 4 Males and therefore i am limited to 1 sack per molt cycle if the female matures in time for the males.
Im guessing the yield is about 100 slings to be fair.
So 2 years later, the T's have not paid themselves off yet and i am ready to breed them.
I acheive a successful sack of 100 slings and i can now sell them for R400 as there have been no other yields in the past 2 years because the mature pair are the product of probably the only pair in SA)
400x100= R40,000.
so i paid R3000 and got R40,000 back two to three years later.
thats R37,000 profit. over 1000% return.
So excuse me for saying that i dont mind NOT making 1000% return. i would be happy with 100% - 200%.

Yes, that is a very different example to the likes of the more readily available metallica's, but my point is there i think.

i have had Tarantulas for quite some time and in November last year invested a large amount of money to buy breeding stock of several species. And i bred them.....and due to indiscriminate pricing done by several people i have had to give away slings at ridiculous prices. Once you have had to sit for days and feed(with bought crickets) 2000 slings......and then having to sell them at R 5 a sling after paying R1 for the tub and medium, paying for the heating, etc. That is not time or money well spent. I will now be selling of the breeding stock of the cheaper ( market flooded) spiders. You are welcome to buy them and feed them and breed them and then give them away for cheap....and then next year we will be listening to your bitching about "to much work for to little money"!

We are losing very knowledgeable breeders out of the trade because they can no longer afford to continue breeding at those prices. The guys doing the majority of the price damage has been in the hobby for less than 2 or 3 years ( ie. they know very little!!) on the contrary people like Pink T and Mammon are getting out of breeding for the hobby because it is no longer worth their while. when you start selling smithis and emilias at R 70 then Tim and Fangs will be leaving as well and guys like the recent wave of new breeders will realize that it cost a lot of money to drive around to get spiders mated and buying breeding stock and then they will disappear as well......and who remains? They guys breeding curlies and salmaon pinks that nobody wants!

There needs to be cheap and expensive spiders so people can make money so they can afford to buy expensive spiders so they can breed them and keep healthy numbers in breeding.

And then let me give you a rundown on my versicolour breeding this year.... i have 4 females.....and raised 2 males.....mated them all........oops later realized my males were infertile and bought a another male, mated them....got 2 egg sacks......1 egg sack thrown away by female after a week, second egg sack munched by female....a year has gone by and lotsa bucks spent to get ZERO slings! And you would like me to give away my successful Versicolour slings at R 75 each? You must be smoking something! i wanna see you sell your versi slings at R 75 each.

one last thing........we use the money we make from selling cheaper spiders to drive around the country to other people to mate the scarce species and then sometimes that is not successful....but the money was spent......and we can no longer sell cheap spiders at a fair price so we do not make the money to subsidize the rare spiders breeding! therefore i can tell you now that if i succeed in breeding my 4 ephebopus species that i will be charging as much as i can get for them so that i can afford to drive around the year after to get them mated again.......until some unscrupulous people break their price......and then we will have to see what happens

I am a capitalist and a realist! if you cant make a few bucks doing it then very few people will be doing it! I am revering to breeding spiders and not just keeping spiders!

Scarab please keep on making money out of spiders! it is the only way that will keep it worth your while to keep on experimenting with other species that would be expensive to buy and breed!

A price spread is needed! salmon pink and curlys should be cheap, but smithis should be medium priced! Don't break the price! and some species should be very expensive!!! and i am quite sure they will remain pricy for some time to come!

I now rest my case (on cheap slings)in this discussion.

Let me stress that i wanted this to be a debate, no need for this to get heated.
I FULLY understand that making money is a reality in this life.
I just dont see the benefit in selling T's at such high prices.
I also believe that the price of the T is only ONE aspect of when it comes to potentially flooding the market, there are a few more that play a role i.e Getting the specimens to maturity, fertility of males and females and most importantly breeding experience.
Just beacause a rare and valuable T sells for less does not necesarily mean they will flood, the market can still be yours but you could lower prices.

As with any investment there is a risk taken. Needless to say these lovely creatures are risky if you are relying on them for bread and butter. As i mentioned, i am by no means wealthy, i work 2 jobs and i begin studying a BSc next year. Obviously, i would love extra money to ease the stress.


There are douzens of ins and outs here, we all have valid points to make.