# Help!!! Breeding



## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

How many offspring do the most fecund dart frogs produce in a year? And what are the most fecund species?


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

Epipedobates anthonyi perhaps? 10+ offspring at a time. Unstoppable!


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Chris S said:


> Epipedobates anthonyi perhaps? 10+ offspring at a time. Unstoppable!


How often do they lay? Do they have off seasons?


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

Frogleter said:


> How often do they lay? Do they have off seasons?


I think after the clutch hatches, they can lay again. So likely every 20 days or so...I've never kept them though, just going off the top of my head.


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Chris S said:


> I think after the clutch hatches, they can lay again. So likely every 20 days or so...I've never kept them though, just going off the top of my head.


Thanks! 
what species do you keep and how often and how many offspring do they have? I'm trying to get an idea of most species


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

I keep primarily Ranitomeya imitator. Some pairs are more prolific than others. If you pull eggs and raise them outside the enclosures, they often will reproduce faster. Hard to pinpoint how many they have....I can get maybe 6-12 froglets out of a producing pair, but I'm not breeding them for the sole purpose of producing more offspring.

Why are you so concerned with how many offspring they have?


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## Lovelyk (Feb 7, 2021)

Frogleter said:


> How often do they lay? Do they have off seasons?


Weekly. I was getting clutches averaging 8-12 offspring almost weekly last summer. Inducing a dry season might help slow things, but I just separated my female after a while.


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

Lovelyk said:


> Weekly. I was getting clutches averaging 8-12 offspring almost weekly last summer. Inducing a dry season might help slow things, but I just separated my female after a while.


I would reference Lovelyk here, since I don't actually keep E. Anthonyii


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Chris S said:


> I keep primarily Ranitomeya imitator. Some pairs are more prolific than others. If you pull eggs and raise them outside the enclosures, they often will reproduce faster. Hard to pinpoint how many they have....I can get maybe 6-12 froglets out of a producing pair, but I'm not breeding them for the sole purpose of producing more offspring.
> 
> Why are you so concerned with how many offspring they have?


It's a long story but I'm trying to get into breading and using the profits to undersell the rarer trafficked frogs to prevent commercial poaching


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Lovelyk said:


> Weekly. I was getting clutches averaging 8-12 offspring almost weekly last summer. Inducing a dry season might help slow things, but I just separated my female after a while.


That's a lot jeez, do you keep other species and if so what are their breeding tendencies?


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Frogleter said:


> How often do they lay? Do they have off seasons?


I'm especially interested in *Dendrobates auratus *


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

Frogleter said:


> It's a long story but I'm trying to get into breading and using the profits to undersell the rarer trafficked frogs to prevent commercial poaching


I don't think this will be applicable in this case, or for D. auratus. They are quite common as captive bred in the hobby.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

As a hint: the easiest to breed and most prolific frogs aren't going to be ones that are routinely commercially poached. 



Chris S said:


> I don't think this will be applicable in this case, or for D. auratus. They are quite common as captive bred in the hobby.


100% agree.


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

I should have mentioned: it is a noble cause, but if you breed and sell frogs, it might be better to donate proceeds to some existing organizations to help support them. They often have strong infrastructure in place already to better support initiatives like that.

Wikiri is one that I can think of off the top of my head.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

The relation between captive breeding and wildlife trafficking (and even between CBing and legal importing of WC or "farmed") is way more complicated than outsupplying smuggled stock. There are lots of relevant threads in the archives for those willing to look for them.

One really good way for a hobbyist to reduce wildlife trafficking is to only keep species and morphs of known legal origin lines, and to be willing to pay top dollar for those lines. This, of course, is contrary to breeding those species, it should be noted. Breeding smuggled species encourages smuggling of species so they can be bred, which encourages smuggling of species...you get the idea.

Also, those very prolific species are very hard to sell. The exotics market is already saturated with common easy to breed animals, many of which end up in rescues (ball pythons, leopard geckos) or simply neglected until they die (frogs). Breeding for sheer numbers is not exactly an unproblematic endeavor.

Best to keep some darts you think you might like for a while to see if you do like them -- some herp species I've come in hot on turned out to be miserable captives and it was a relief to be rid of them. Even if you like a species as captives, the next step of breeding is, as they say, "a whole nother thing", and getting heavily involved in breeding a species for breeding's sake can be a big turn off (compare: getting a full time job in a hobby you love -- also buzzkill material).


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## Lovelyk (Feb 7, 2021)

Frogleter said:


> That's a lot jeez, do you keep other species and if so what are their breeding tendencies?


No, I just keep the one species. Breeding occasionally is a fun experience, but I’m not out to breed them for the sake of breeding them and there’s really not much (any) profit in selling these. Once you figure in cost of keeping, then the frog sales are pretty negligible. On the other hand, rarer species of frogs can be sold for more, but that tends to be because they’re rarer, producing them takes more time and yields less. Others are explaining this issue more thoroughly, but that’s my perspective on things. Not really in it to sell, but my frogs certainly are capable of producing a massive stock.


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Chris S said:


> I don't think this will be applicable in this case, or for D. auratus. They are quite common as captive bred in the hobby.


I know, I'm going to breed profitable frogs and use the money to offset taking a loss on breeding the endangered species.


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## Lovelyk (Feb 7, 2021)

Frogleter said:


> I know, I'm going to breed profitable frogs and use the money to offset taking a loss on breeding the endangered species.


Sounds nice, but I don’t think one person breeding in captivity does anything for endangered species in the wild.


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Lovelyk said:


> Sounds nice, but I don’t think one person breeding in captivity does anything for endangered species in the wild.


It does. People are getting rare and difficult to breed frogs from poaching but it wouldn't be worth it to poachers if the price of the frogs was lower that's why captive breeding is so important for conservation.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Frogleter said:


> I know, I'm going to breed profitable frogs


What frogs are those?


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## skittlenips (Jun 22, 2016)

fishingguy12345 said:


> What frogs are those?


Dude posted on another frog forum saying he wants to make the most profit. I think he saw how much some frogs sell for and thought it would be an easy money maker. He’s just using the “for conservation” as a justification.


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Thats why I'm here I can see how much they sell for and do some math and knowing the yield per full breeding cycle is a huge part of the equation to finding the most profitable frogs.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Frogleter said:


> It does. People are getting rare and difficult to breed frogs from poaching but it wouldn't be worth it to poachers if the price of the frogs was lower that's why captive breeding is so important for conservation.


Actually, smuggled lineage frogs are illegal in the US to keep or breed -- the Lacey Act is not a joke, in spite of what the broader internet may imply.

@Frogleter , I'd highly recommend you:

learn about smuggling and what motivates it -- look in the archives, read the linked papers; go to Google Scholar and research herp trafficking there. Loose cannon "conservationists" are not remotely good for the larger project of keeping this all legal.
learn about the laws surrounding smuggled, CITES listed, and other "rare" species (search 'illegal frogs' here). This is a VERY important point.
get some experience keeping frogs before committing to some far out plan. It may not be "rocket science", but isn't a cakewalk either.
As you get actual care experience you can get a feel for the financial aspect. Speaking for myself, I've been doing this frog thing for a while and am way, way in the hole financially, and the hole is getting deeper.
Slow down, do some research, rinse and repeat. This thread is threatening to spiral out of control on a couple points. You've gotten some sound advice both in this thread and elsewhere, best to work with that.

Given that there are some legal issues here (and you're unwittingly pushing on some norms with the 'profitable' vibe), consider this post written in my moderator voice.


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

skittlenips said:


> Dude posted on another frog forum saying he wants to make the most profit. I think he saw how much some frogs sell for and thought it would be an easy money maker. He’s just using the “for conservation” as a justification.


What other forum? I use reddit and have asked the same thing, you can't really find the information anywhere on Google and what better way to reduce trafficking can you think of? I make 70k per year as an accountant, breeding frogs out of my basement isn't my get rich quick scheme I just think they're cool and after being in the Amazon in ecuador and seeing them I thought it would be a cool hobby.


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

Frogleter said:


> What other forum? I use reddit and have asked the same thing, you can't really find the information anywhere on Google and what better way to reduce trafficking can you think of? I make 70k per year as an accountant, breeding frogs out of my basement isn't my get rich quick scheme I just think they're cool and after being in the Amazon in ecuador and seeing them I thought it would be a cool hobby.


It is just that, primarily a hobby. There are a few places that do it on larger scale, especially in the U.S., but you aren't going to be chugging out a profit on breeding a couple pairs of Ranitomeya or Oophaga in your basement as a part time job. If you aren't in it for the hobby aspect of it, with profit as a possible secondary, you are in for a big surprise when you find the hobby takes up almost as much time as your accounting job 

Your breeding in the basement of the most profitable frogs won't really reduce trafficking either. If you flood the market with frogs, the price will drop, but the work to breed and raise them will remain the same. The ones that are in higher demand and sell for quite a bit are primarily egg feeders and extremely difficult to breed, but they are also established in the hobby.


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## ParrotAlex (Aug 7, 2021)

Seconding the points already made here, and I'd also like to note that not even AZA-certified zoos or other facilities, which are at the forefront for conservation in the United States, are allowed to keep some of these species without proper permits. In some cases, they may serve as a holding or rehabilitation/quarantine facility for illegally imported animals, but they cannot keep or breed them permanently- they are nearly always returned to the wild.

Wanting to aid in conservation is a noble thing- but you have to be sure the things you're doing are actually helpful for the conservation of a species in the long run. A much better thing to do would be to simply show support for well-established and trustworthy captive-bred lines, from good, reliable sources- vote with your wallet, and reinforce the idea that there is no market for smuggled frogs. It's what I call the "Petsmart Fallacy"- someone may purchase a sickly animal from a big box store, but in the end, the big box store has made a profit from the purchase of the animal, so they just keep selling more.
Smuggling is the same way- Regardless of your intentions, if you buy a smuggled frog, you're voting with your wallet and saying that there is a market for the smuggling of frogs. If nobody BUYS those frogs, then the smugglers will stop trying to sell them, because it's a waste of time and money.

And if you're trying to make any kind of profit from your hobby- find another hobby, mate. If you crunch the numbers, which I assume is in your wheelhouse as an accountant- you'll find, as other people have said, that this is not a hobby from which a profit is reliably made. Sure, some rare, advanced-to-expert species may fetch a higher price, but who's gonna buy those species? The advanced-to-expert keepers who're already breeding them?


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## Frogleter (12 mo ago)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Actually, smuggled lineage frogs are illegal in the US to keep or breed -- the Lacey Act is not a joke, in spite of what the broader internet may imply.
> 
> @Frogleter , I'd highly recommend you:
> 
> ...


You're just making assumptions and gate-keeping useful information I'm not your political opponent, I did my research I know what motivates smuggling (money) and I know how to reduce it and I'm also aware poaching is illegal it's kind of in the definition if you're gonna refuse information fine but don't make up stuff to make it harder to get from non-Aholes I'm doing my research beforehand to see if my idea is possible; I think you should know everything you can before you dive into something. I thought it was odd the information wasn't available but the fact that so many want to hide it tells me what I need to know. You're about as helpful to the issue as the issue itself, regardless at this point I'll be getting into it even if I have to go into it without all the information good thing frogs aren't as difficult as power-hungry frog "experts" I hope they are more helpful though have fun with ruling the frog world and playing with your living room art.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I donate ~ 10% of the sales of any of my frog offspring to charities such as "save the Choco"


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Thread is closed.


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