I'm in line with Karen E for the BIG super bonanza. HEY does that UNDO all my spending for the year???

My goal is to breed for happy healthy pets. I am more than happy to discount males to non-breeding homes (on a neuter contract or neutered before they leave). Last year, I produced 7 joeys (4 girls and 3 boys), one of the boys I lost to dehydration before 3 weeks OOP. Of the 6 remaining, one stayed with me, 2 are in non-breeding homes, a male leu het was sold to another breeder to help strengthen their leu line, one female was given to another breeder towards a glider I purchased, and the other girl is still here with me at 18 1/2 weeks OOP until we can arrange for her new mom to get her home. My vet bills for 2008 totaled $2216.87 (a partial tail amputation, 2 er vet trips, and then just normal visits). So far for 2009 I've gathered $967.12 in vet fees which included seeing the new vet with all of my gliders and fecals/exams on them so that we have seen the vet in advance of any unexpected visits. I also have them scheduled to go back in October as I plan to take them in twice yearly for routine visits, and then anytime else it's needed.

I purchased 5 gliders in 2008 - a leu, a ringtail mosaic 12.5% leu het, a bb 12.5% leu het (all came home in April) and then my wf creamino and wf 100% creamino het who came home to me in October. I made payments on my leu, paid in full for the leu het girls, still owe on my creamino and the het.

Then, new rept covers, toys, pouches, fleece, toys, mealworms, treats, food and stealths came to $3172.17.

I'm honestly not in it to turn a profit, I'm a hobby breeder (and the IRS would see it as a hobby because I don't expect to have any profit in 3 years out of a 5 year span). I've got 3 pairs and a trio, and then one more cage with 2 girls in it. I have room for one more cage if I should decide I can't part with a joey (or 2 or 3, lol) but I refuse to have more than 6 cages. My gliders are here forever and once they've been retired from breeding they'll continue to live right here in the same spoiled splendor they do now. I only feel it's right that after them blessing me with joeys that I bless them with a happy retirement in the same home they've been in all that time.

I guess mostly I'm in it for the joy I get in raising my joeys, and for that feeling I get seeing their new slaves love them as much as I have before they go home.

I have a work at home job that 100% of that money goes into my gliders as well as any money made by selling the gliders I do. On top of that I take a small portion of my check and hubby's check each week, I get part of the tax refunds and I take my bonus from tax season in May and that all goes to my gliders too. I didn't get into color breeding thinking that I'd be making tons of money. Here especially the old saying "you've got to spend money to make money rings true." It really doesn't hurt so bad until the end of the year when you add it all up and realize how much you've really spent... It's amazing what $10 here and $20 there adds up to over the course of a year!

sadly this is exactly what I meant by people wanting to save money to make money, lets say you do only take one.. yeah looking at the super bonanza is what many people are now doing, but with the one they are buying they are spending the big bucks, but mixing them with only knows what to make up the financial difference, thus muddying the lines..

what I see , it is far too late to try to stop it, but every little bit counts, the breeders that are trying to keep the lines clean will always be able to charge more for their gliders because of it, they will have to continue to line breed in efforts to keep those lines, since the gene pool will close itself, at the top end. They won't be able to get good clean lines from their down lines. Those others that are trying to cut corners, are going to continue to contribute to the problems, and with little care as to what they are doing.. simply because in 7 years, they will no longer be around to see the aftermaths of their actions. Those that have been out here, trying to keep the lines clean will still be trying to do that.

It is very much like the dog and cat situation, you have those that care about the lines, and keeping the purities of the species, and then you have those everyday people that allow their cats and dogs to breed with anything and everything where they have mixed breeds of mixed breeds simply an over population of unwanted animals..

Fact is if you want the best, you will pay for it.
using my example before regarding the Rolls and Lamborghini's, how many of those do you find in the junkyards? There is not an over population of them, not because people don't want them, but simply cause all those that want them can't afford them. When the colors become an overpopulation in the community, they too will start to find their way into the rescue homes, but until then, I hope the breeders keep those color prices up, reduce your breeding numbers if need be, but try to stop the overpopulation, it also would reduce, the number of fly by night breeders that would damage the lines of those that should be kept pure.

Peggy, don't forget your IRS contribution. You took in $5700 and the IRS gets approx. 30% of that. They get their money from the selling price, which does not include any money spent out of pocket for vet checks and such. When people see that a joey is sold for $5000, they never take into consideration that breeders pay taxes on that. Our wonderful government gets about $1500 from the sale of a $5000 baby, leaving the breeder a lot less than the $5000.

I know this discussion is about colored breeding, but I have to say, I have seen tons of gray gliders being sold with no lineages. Most of these gray gliders go on to a home where they will be bred, since it seems lately that just about no one can own gliders without breeding them. How many people have bought gray glider from (PPP) Perfect Pocket Pets and bred them with no lineage, having done no research on breeding, just to "experience the joy of having babies". Then they go on to sell these mill bred, probably inbred, babies and the cycle continues. At least with the colored gliders, they usually come with extensive lineage. If you look, you can find a colored glider with no inbreeding co's and even pure line gliders. Which should we be more concerned about? The colored gliders with great lineage or the gray gliders being bred with NO lineage?

Stacie, actually the ones that are doing both, breeding their unknown grays to their clean linages, and selling for substantially less to those that just want to own a color.. just so they too can do the same thing.

those are the ones our concern really need to be with.

I think one problem, not to dwarf all the issues already mentioned, is that the glider population (and number of people owning sugar gliders) is growing faster than than the number of vets TRULY qualified to treat them.

Another issue, that goes hand-in-hand, is that there are more owners keeping sugar gliders than there are vets and/or scientists in the US studying their health in the lab.

It is good we keep pedigrees, but we need more vets and scientists treating our swelling glider population, catching illnesses early on, doing genetic health testing, and just overall following the health of our captive gliders.

Keeping pedigrees is a step in the right direction, but gliders are becoming too popular now for us NOT to have people in the medical field either confirming our beliefs or denying them. In order to compensate we have breeders/owners/lovers/fans/whatever trying to fill the gap (based off of shared knowledge, trial and error, personal experience, pedigrees, and what knowledge that has been proven scientifically).

I'm not placing all the blame on the lack of research (in comparison to the rapidly growing glider popularity), I'm just trying to bring up another dimension to the already overwhelmingly complicated NOT in the weave of our glider
community.

IMO....

gliders REGARDLESS OF COLOR make WONDRFUL pets...

the AVERAGE AMERICAN cannot afford a pet that costs as much as some of these colored gliders...

if the breeders know this, then WHY IS IT that they are charging that much for them when they MUST KNOW that 90% of the colored gliders sold for prices that are more than the average person can afford are obviously being purchased by people only willing to pay that much because they intend to breed them and try to make money from them?

Doesn't it seem like a double standard to say "we want to stop all this line breeding" and then with the same breath say "and the best way to stop it is to charge so much for colored gliders that only people who intend to breed them can afford them"?

A national glider registry similar to the AKC's record keeping process would be a HUGE help to avoid inbreeding...

looking at the dogs there isn't just akc registered dogs, you have a wide variety, those that are registered is still far more expensive than those that are not, and the akc registry hasn't stopped irresponsible breeding practices amongst those that still want to breed.

in order to keep a clean line, you do need some breeders that have them and are not over populating those lines.

there may never be a real solution to this problem, the problems that we are seeing is only going to magnify, till we stop the mill breeders and condense the un-kept records on linages into an all owner standard, and that is never going to happen.

I suggested to someone earlier this week, regarding a problem to get an extensive questionnaire going on. well that may not be a bad idea, there have been people to try a registry for gliders, but they depend on people posting and sending in information on each glider and keeping it updated, fact is they don't/won't whatever, it doesn't happen over a period of time.

There are some people out there that think they are going to set a standard for everyone, and that everyone is going to follow that standard, it isn't going to happen.

people are not going to sit back and allow the color breeders who care about clean lines, to set the standards for the colored gliders. As long as people have the freedom to make their own decisions, regarding their own situation, then they are going to do their own thing.

Karen!!! I remember you giving me advice YEARS back, when I was still in the Glidin' Teens section. How have you been?? Things were so different than.

Simple supply & demand. The supply is relatively small and the demand is high.

I personally have 2 WFB's, 1 leu, and 1 ringtail moasic. They are all pets. I didn't purchase any of them to breed. I paid the price because I fell in love and wanted them. Not everyone who has high dollar gliders purchases them to breed.

Read Part 2