I ve just seen some of these at wharf aquatics there huge i dunno how much they are but if anyone is interested its worth looking into.

If what your interested in is huge heating bills, destruction of your acres of land (cos thats what you'll need), an endless stream of crap, paying for your vet to visit you because they get so big they are hard to transport and building a massive greenhouse/shed for them to live during winter......they are the tort for you

__________________
Phoebe

Keeping: Hermanns and Whitei's

and they dig the deepest longest tunnels, specialist fencing required!

I had four with me a few weeks ago for one day, they ate HUGE amounts, pooped HUGE amounts and only the biggest railway sleepers kept them in one place!

Tamie

does anyone have their details? i have a friend in portugal who is after some adult females to join is colony his heating billl is cheap i bet!

__________________
Marcos

I'm surprised to hear that there is a 'market' for this species; I'd have thought that relatively few households have the space to keep them when adults. Seeing hatchlings for sale makes me concerned that in 20 years time or whatever there'll be loads of them in rescue centres etc. because the owners don't have room/facilities for them. Also, of the pictures I've seen of grown-on sulcatas raised from hatchling, there's very few where the shells aren't FUBAR - they're really prone to pyramiding.

There cant be a market for them surely? And i doubt there's any profit in them, ive seen them in pet shops for around £1000, considering they have them in for a long time and very few people can keep them. Its safe to say its such a specialist breed you wont be able to compete with large scale breeders.

Even breeders who breed popular species dont make a profit.

__________________
I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah.....I'll do what I want but irresponsibly!!!

There is not really a market for them as a pet species. I can sell babies at £120-150 but they are not UKCB, and why would I?

I would have to tell my customers they need to give up their whole garden (assuming they have a nice large garden) buy a shed, pay a small fortune to heat it, spend as much time cleaning it out as a horse would take, and probably similar costs to feed, and ... then, maybe in 10 years time they could breed them and make some money back on the thousands upon thousands spent in heating and food bills.

That is of course if you happened to get lucky enough to buy a group of the correct ratio sex, that you had a large enough garden for them to tunnel and breed, if you found the eggs in time, and if you successfully incubated and hatched the eggs.

Ergo, I would never stock this species, and I don't think there is a market for them at all. If you love them and want to give one or a group a good home, and can provide for them.. and help with UK bred for the specialist/hobbyists who really want to commit to an animal of this size.. then great.. but if you are already thinking of clutch sizes and potential profits then this is not a species for you.

Tortoises are never a get rich quick scheme. They are rarely, if ever, a get rich over decades scheme even. If you work out how much a tropical tortoise t akes to feed and heat all year round, compared to the small clutch sizes and the comparable difficulty in breeding, you will realise you will be lucky to break even, let alone turn a profit.

__________________

There may be a market. in regards to clueless people who buy them thinking they're pretty little things as hatchlings. Without truly understanding the care and space these beautiful animals require.

But tbh if you're thinkin this will be a quick way of making some money then you're poorly mistaken, they eat and sh** like a horse.like already mentioned.they will eat u out of house n home. They need over wintering.they CANNOT be kept in tortoise tables they need acres of land with huge heated sheds/stables. Think of the electricity bill alone. Food, etc n think how little profit there would be actually made


Katie

__________________

....and another thing....!

A breeder in this country with all the overheads mentioned above would be competing with farming/ranching operations in W Africa. These guys have minimal overheads, and just scoop up the babies as they appear and export them to Europe/USA/Japan

A farm that springs to mind comprised a large walled enclosure around maybe 2 hectares of land with trees/scrub etc. The wall cost peanuts to build and the only outgoings were a guard on minimum wage (not much in West Africa) chucking some grass/branches in occasionally, which were free. Once it was stocked with a dozen or so wild-caught (i.e. free) adults, the babies just appeared every year. Air freight wasn't that expensive when mixed in (not literally) with all the other royal pythons/bosc monitors etc.

I just can't see any British set-up that would compete with this.