Leatherback

[bplakers]

I currently have 3 leatherback females one microscaled. I was looking to get a male to breed with them. I would like to produce alot of leatherbacks. Not for the money as much as to bring the price down for them and have some out there with better color. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I should get for male? A bright color normal or leather or trans. Open to opinions. THANKS

 

[quigleysmom]

I am new to having a bearded dragon and no where near ready to get into breeding, but I think I would also like to breed the leatherback dragons due to the incredible colors and variety. I have looked at a sight called bloodbankdragons.com. The pictures they show are awesome and I know they are open question, but I have not dealt with them personally. Good luck.

 

[bplakers]

I have. Have you seen the price tag on the dragons they have? Bought two trans from them and wasnt what I expected so ended up trading them for my microscale and another dragon from atlbeardeddragons. She is identical to the one they have posted for sale. Ended up selling the other one.

 

[jeserah]

You can get really nice quality leathers for under 100 bucks if you know where to look. Dachiu regularly has dragons for sale under that price. In fact, most breeders nowadays (save bloodbank, mostly probably because you're buying the name) has decreased their leather prices. And remember that breeding for color doesn't usually coincide with good genetics.

This is purely my opinion, but I wouldn't breed just to saturate the market with more beardies of a certain type. There are so many horror stories out there of people mistreating their dragons simply because they didn't take the time to learn about them. I mean, the rescue section of these forums clearly illustrates that. I would feel bad and also responsible to put baby beardies in a position like that. I would only breed if there is a legitimate demand for it. For instance, a lot of people on this site are interested in me pairing my two dragons in the future, and I might, *might* do it if they are persistent.

Anyway, don't misunderstand me, I'm not bashing your post (I'm glad there's someone else out there who likes leathers too! :mrgreen: ), but I thought I would put in my two cents!

 

[TheWolfmanTom]

Morning,
Dont know where you shop at, but if its just Bloodbank, your not putting in enough research.
I have worked shows from NY to GA. I have seen leathers as low as 45 dollars to about 200.
So I dont know how much more you want to bottom out the price.....lol
There are leatherbacks out there to various degrees as well.
What your calling a micro leather is just the best of what this genetic strain has to offer.
My girl Alley is a good example.

Now My Girl Georgia, is no where near as smooth, but is still an Italian Leatherback.

Genetics is a tricky game.

 

[tundradragons]

on a side note to the above posts because I totally agree with them,

leathers mixed with anything will product leathers as long as they are the codom variety (IE Italian leathers) if you mix them with a trans or hypo, you will get hets unless your leather is het for one of them, personally I would recommend a double het if your leathers are het for anything, if they are not a hypo trans male will produce babies that are het for these and will increase the value of your babies.

do not breed to flood the market, you will only hurt our industry not help it.

do not line breed, I hope you know the genetics of your leathers, if not I would not breed them. (although it sounds like you know what you are doing in this sense.)

you can buy leathers cheap. just go to any show, I've seen them around 50-400 dollars depending on quality of color and smoothness and hets.

Tom's right, microscale is just a coined name for a better quality leather. same gene is used to produce them. if i remember it's a codom and a recessive paired to produce them.

breeding is EXPENSIVE...... and breeding a lot of babies is going to cost you a lot if you plan on selling them at a base market value of $40 (this is cost on a dragon if you sell at the proper age).

personally, I feel no good breeder should sell a dragon under $60, remember petco sells normals for 79.99!!

I applaud you for asking before just buying a male and producing leathers. but I urge you to reconsider your projects focus of cheap dragons.

it is far better to breed for quality, not quantity.

Thanks,

 

[bplakers]

Yeah I think I kinda worded my post wrong. I'm not wanting to put out 100s to 1000s of babys a year. What I was wanting was when I breed them that most of there babies come out leaherbacks. They are all het hypo and microscale is het hypo het trans (pretty sure on trans part I'd have to go through my log to be for sure though.) I live in Iowa to and there aren't really any reptile shows around here close that I heard of. There is one in Des Moines, IA but to me it seemed like it was going to be a joke so I didn't take the 4 hour drive. Called the lady in charge and asked her about bringing a dragon to trade with me and she told me I had to buy a table or do it in the parking lot in Nov during winter in iowa with reptiles. The pics you posted of that orange dragon is what the "type" of dragon im trying to produce out of my first pairing. Nice color and real smooth. And as far as price goes I have no intentions of selling dragons for bloodbank prices. I just want to put out some healthy colorful leatherbacks. The pet stores around here have dragons maybe once a year and are always looking for others. I'm not wanting to sell them all to pet stores would rather send them to there home after they leave here not to a in between place until someone buys them.

I've looked at alot of sites. From what I've seen either they arent putting up all dragons they are trying to sell or just dont have any leatherbacks.

Right now though someone said that they would let me use one of her dragons to breed to mine when they are ready. She has alot of amazing dragons and will cut down on my costs as far as getting a male right now. So I'm hoping that works out.

Thanks for all help.

 

[koiboydavid]

Very well put Charles!

Too many "breeders" today are driving down the cost because they get in over their heads and breed too many dragons and then they realize how expensive they are to take care of them and so they just try to sell them for less than they are worth. Many of these really aren't "worth" much simply because they are from what I call garbage genes.

You leathers are most likely codom and you aren't going to be able to increase the # of leather progeny.

 

[DragonsNDoodles]

Hi David!! This is Michael- I picked up a Spike x Sunny baby from you in September (a citrus leatherback girl). I actually went over to Stephanie's house tonight- she got a citrus boy from you a couple weeks ago from the same clutch. Both our dragons are doing great! Her boy is going to be one monstrous dragon and is already showing us who's boss by blackbearding through the glass. My girl, Winnie, is getting brighter with each shed and is still as smooth as she was when I picked her out. She has become really tame, also, but not quite as tame as my older girl, Eeyore.

Anyway, I don't have too much to add to this thread except to say that as long as you know the bloodlines of your possible breeders and you have tested them for good health and know what sort of babies they will produce (and you can financially take care of eggs and hatchlings for however long it takes them to get adopted or sold) then I don't see a problem. I think your first post was a little misleading in its wording... it seemed like you wanted to breed in order to saturate the market and force other breeders of leatherbacks to drive prices down. This would simply lead to a switch in the type of dragon that the breeders would breed even if you could single handedly produce such a tsunami of baby leatherbacks. However, if your intentions are just to produce quality, colorful dragons and everyone in your care is healthy and happy, I say go for it until you get tired of it!!

 

[bplakers]

Selling them all check out the feed on forsale get a steal.