# Breeding Dart Frogs?



## Kolle's Plants and Frogs (10 mo ago)

I'm looking to start breeding dart frogs but I'm not sure where to start. For now, I'm can only do part-time but my goal is to go full-time. What species do you recommend to start with and what methods work best for you?


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I hate to rain on your parade, but you should get experience KEEPING dart frogs before you try breeding them.


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## Kolle's Plants and Frogs (10 mo ago)

fishingguy12345 said:


> I hate to rain on your parade, but you should get experience KEEPING dart frogs before you try breeding them.
> [/QUOT
> 
> 
> ...


Ok, I have had dart frogs for about 2 years, I'm still in school and I'm in no rush to start breeding. I know I'm nowhere near ready but I'm trying my best to figure out what I need to do. I have done my own research I have just wanted to see what other people have had success with


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

When you say "...go full time", are you saying that you hope to make breeding frogs a primary income stream?


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## Aphanius (Sep 24, 2021)

TropicWav3s said:


> I'm looking to start breeding dart frogs but I'm not sure where to start. For now, I'm can only do part-time but my goal is to go full-time. What species do you recommend to start with and what methods work best for you?


So here's a dirty little secret about the pet breeding industry: almost all of the "professional" breeders you see on Youtube, Instagram, at reptile shows etc. either have a day job to pay the bills or a spouse who is financially supporting them. I've seen videos from more than one Youtube breeder stating that the real source of income is the video revenue, and the breeding operation just provides content for their channel. The few people who have their sole source of income from animals are making their money from dry goods and retail markup animals they bought wholesale. Basically, if you are selling animals retail you don't have the time to produce enough animals to keep afloat (since you spend most of your time dealing with customers, shipping, etc.), while if you are producing enough animals to make a viable retail business you don't have the time to run the retail end. Thus the few guys who make a living only from breeding animals are selling wholesale, and the margins in that business are very slim. You basically follow the pig/poultry factory farm model, and produce only those species with constant high demand in minimalist sterile setups, which isn't the type of business that most people want to get into when saying they want to become an animal breeder.

I don't want to crush your dreams, but social media has generated this mythical image of a career "at home" breeder that doesn't actually exist.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Welcome to DB. 



TropicWav3s said:


> Ok, I have had dart frogs for about 2 years,


What species do you keep now?


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## Kolle's Plants and Frogs (10 mo ago)

Dane said:


> When you say "...go full time", are you saying that you hope to make breeding frogs a primary income stream?


Well currently I breed fish and work but I would someday just like to do animal breeding with "tropical" animals.


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## Kolle's Plants and Frogs (10 mo ago)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Welcome to DB.
> 
> 
> What species do you keep now?


A pair of Epipedobates anthonyi and a pair of Dendrobates Leucomelas.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

TropicWav3s said:


> A pair of Epipedobates anthonyi and a pair of Dendrobates Leucomelas.


Great place to start. I'd recommend not producing more anthonyi -- the market is not there for them. Animals with no market end up in shelters (for some species), and simply getting culled (for others). 

Leucs are a decent species to breed. Try that and see how you like it. I bred leucs for a couple seasons, and don't anymore for a handful of reasons including the fact that I don't really enjoy raising tadpoles. It will give you a good feel for how much input and equipment dart tads and froglets need (more than a person might think), and what the challenges of marketing them are (substantial), and whether you actually like the whole process enough to commit to it in a larger way (I've learned this about a few herp species -- that they're kind of cool to keep, less enjoyable to breed, and a royal pain to sell.)

I breed about a dozen very diverse species of herps, and though I haven't cleared a profit after doing it for a decade I can say conclusively that at this point my relatively higher priced and easier to house and breed reptiles are financing my dart frog expenses.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

There's no real money in breeding dart frogs or most herps in general. Best case scenario you'll have bought yourself a low-paying job. For the energy you'd need to put in you'd be better off doing something else instead of courting burn-out. 

Being a hobby breeder and enjoying a little extra money from that to fund your passion, that's more realistic, and even then you need to be careful about what and how much you produce, and be prepared to deal with the public which can be surprisingly draining.

I get it, there are some people and companies out there that seem to make it work; but that brings up all kinds of questions regarding longevity, ethics, species selection and market demographics. Throw in a shifting legislative landscape and I'd hesitate to commit to herpetoculture as a business. In fact I'd literally do anything else -- and I love raising frogs and have some experience in the business side of it.


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## skittlenips (Jun 22, 2016)

Fahad said:


> There's no real money in breeding dart frogs or most herps in general. Best case scenario you'll have bought yourself a low-paying job. For the energy you'd need to put in you'd be better off doing something else instead of courting burn-out.
> 
> Being a hobby breeder and enjoying a little extra money from that to fund your passion, that's more realistic, and even then you need to be careful about what and how much you produce, and be prepared to deal with the public which can be surprisingly draining.
> 
> I get it, there are some people and companies out there that seem to make it work; but that brings up all kinds of questions regarding longevity, ethics, species selection and market demographics. Throw in a shifting legislative landscape and I'd hesitate to commit to herpetoculture as a business. In fact I'd literally do anything else -- and I love raising frogs and have some experience in the business side of it.


To me it seems breeding large obligates can actually be a good side gig. I have a redhead pair that’s producing and people are already asking for me to let them know when froglets are available and these frogs aren’t cheap. I don’t think you could support yourself but I don’t see how you can’t pull a good bit of money in each month if you have several pairs.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

skittlenips said:


> To me it seems breeding large obligates can actually be a good side gig.


Maybe. But for how long? That's a question worth asking. And as I said above, hobby breeding is one thing, going into business is another entirely.



skittlenips said:


> I have a redhead pair that’s producing and people are already asking for me to let them know when froglets are available


YMMV but in my experience, inquiries are one thing, actual buyers are another. Some people are tire kickers, others want to trade you for a 3-legged gecko and a cracked Exo-Terra with a 15-year old T5 fixture, and still others will 'commit' but magically have a run of very bad luck or sick grandmothers when the time comes. It happens often enough that I have to wonder why people don't take better care of their grandmothers LOL.



skittlenips said:


> ... and these frogs aren’t cheap.


Err...see above.



skittlenips said:


> I don’t think you could support yourself but I don’t see how you can’t pull a good bit of money in each month if you have several pairs.


Maybe, if your market was big enough and the economy was in decent enough shape for hobbyists to have enough disposable income ... just keep in mind every time you sell a pair you're creating your own competition.

(Obviously people get money for most of their surplus frogs, but like I said -- I wouldn't try to make a living at it.)


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Fahad said:


> YMMV but in my experience, inquiries are one thing, actual buyers are another. Some people are tire kickers, others want to trade you for a 3-legged gecko and a cracked Exo-Terra with a 15-year old T5 fixture, and still others will 'commit' but magically have a run of very bad luck or sick grandmothers when the time comes. It happens often enough that I have to wonder why people don't take better care of their grandmothers LOL.


I had a list of people who "really wanted" offspring from my Ameerega pepperi (not a cheap species but not large Oophaga price range) but when the frogs were ready to ship magically 3/4's of the list of people don't have space, had financial issues, or just never responded to emails, etc.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

There are certainly differences between species. See my comment above about some breeding projects financing the others.

Over the course of years people's desires change, though, so dropping a few thousand dollars into a high end breeding project might pay off, might not. The herp market is really off lately -- I used to sell out of leopard geckos by November each year and have a local shop asking when I'll have more hatchlings for them. But this year I even added four more expos to my schedule and still this spring I had to clear out to a national wholesaler (at less than what it cost to raise them). That's bread and butter stuff that should have a stable market, but I guess not.

Keeping track of expenses (supplies, equipment, utilities, mileage) is a real eye opener, too. I put over 3K miles on for driving to expos and FedEx and the vet last year. The amount of money that gets frittered away on little things (cork bark here, more media there, ran out of deli cups and shipping is $20 so I better get a bunch, and PayPal takes a cut of everything so if you charge actual shipping cost you're actually financing 3% of that yourself) adds up. 

There is income tax on all this now, too (in the US, if you take in more than $600 per annum you need to claim it as income starting this year) -- and you can't deduct expenses without filing business taxes, so there's an LLC fee and state business tax fee and the accountant's fee for the extra tax forms. There aren't any side gigs in the US anymore -- there are small businesses, and there is tax fraud, and nothing in between unless a person wants to pay income tax on something that cost them half or more of its selling price to produce.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Over the course of years people's desires change, though, so dropping a few thousand dollars into a high end breeding project might pay off, might not.


Yup. I've worked in retail (long time ago now, but still know people in the biz) and been a private breeder/seller, worked with high-end animals and entry-level herps. On the animal side of things it's highly speculative and subject to more variables than anyone in their right fiscal mind would like.



Socratic Monologue said:


> Keeping track of expenses (supplies, equipment, utilities, mileage) is a real eye opener, too.


Spreadsheets don't lie. If you're going to do things right and do right by the animals, it's going to cost you every step of the way.


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## ParrotAlex (Aug 7, 2021)

I'm gonna save this thread for future notice- every now and again I get people asking me if I might make a business out of breeding my animals one day, or if I had advice on how to do so themselves, and I think this is a more thorough answer than "how do you make a profit out of breeding animals? Don't."

Thanks for the insight- it's always nice to hear about detailed experiences regarding things like this. In addition to being useful to show others, it's good for whenever I begin to doubt my own decisions, haha.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

ParrotAlex said:


> I'm gonna save this thread for future notice -


Most frequently seen responses to an ad:

*How many have you got? *...when this is someone's opening question they're either tire kickers, about to low-ball you, or trying to figure out if they're going to grow rich breeding the same frogs.
*Sell me tadpoles instead *... when someone makes this request they're either woefully inexperienced, overconfident or looking to buy animals at one-fifth the asking price.
*I might be in the market for* ... when someone opens with this they're not in the market. Ever.
*Let's trade* ... literally all of my ads say *'no trades'*.
*Would you take* ... when the *first thing* someone does is ask you for a discount on reasonably priced animals, they're either not serious or don't respect the fact that it takes time, money and effort to raise healthy frogs. If I offer a price break for groups it will state it in the ad, otherwise it always says 'price firm'.
And those are just some of the common openers 🤣 ... if I had a dollar for every time someone offered to trade Yellow Anacondas ... because nothing says Yellow Anaconda Aficionado like 'dart frog breeder'. 😂
_
*Full disclosure: I quite like Yellow Anacondas but would never keep one in my home._


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## felljd13 (Feb 9, 2021)

In my opinion, the best situation would be to get to the point where your hobby can support itself. Once you rely on it for your sole source of income, it'll likely take the enjoyment out of keeping frogs. But hey, anything is possible.


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## AsylumDart (Sep 20, 2018)

Aphanius said:


> So here's a dirty little secret about the pet breeding industry: almost all of the "professional" breeders you see on Youtube, Instagram, at reptile shows etc. either have a day job to pay the bills or a spouse who is financially supporting them. I've seen videos from more than one Youtube breeder stating that the real source of income is the video revenue, and the breeding operation just provides content for their channel. The few people who have their sole source of income from animals are making their money from dry goods and retail markup animals they bought wholesale. Basically, if you are selling animals retail you don't have the time to produce enough animals to keep afloat (since you spend most of your time dealing with customers, shipping, etc.), while if you are producing enough animals to make a viable retail business you don't have the time to run the retail end. Thus the few guys who make a living only from breeding animals are selling wholesale, and the margins in that business are very slim. You basically follow the pig/poultry factory farm model, and produce only those species with constant high demand in minimalist sterile setups, which isn't the type of business that most people want to get into when saying they want to become an animal breeder.
> 
> I don't want to crush your dreams, but social media has generated this mythical image of a career "at home" breeder that doesn't actually exist.


No truer words have been said!


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Something else to consider, which I haven't seen mentioned yet, frogs get sick, frogs die. Sometimes an underlying infection that caused your source no issues with his/her animals, can suddenly result in serious disease after the stress of shipping and poor acclimation to a new environment. Do you have an exotics vet on speed dial who has specific experience in sensitive amphibians, or dart frogs in particular? Are you prepared to add $200 to an already expensive frog purchase for appropriate testing, not to mention the cost of required medication when (not if) a pathogen is detected? Are you ultimately prepared to take a loss on thousands of dollars in livestock if things go south?
I'm happy to tell the story (privately) of how I lost nearly $3k in animals that were received directly from arguably the most publicly supported and respected exporter of large obligates. The animals almost immediately presented symptoms of a novel, highly infectious, difficult to treat, and often fatal bacterial infection, and I can name half a dozen other froggers who dealt with the same situation. To date I have received no compensation.

If you want to burn yourself out on keeping frogs ASAP, follow the dollar signs. If you want a chance to truly enjoy the hobby, grow your collection at a sustainable rate, and get the most out of the animals you acquire, then only keep the frogs you like, and spend more time liking the frogs you keep.


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