Leopard Gecko Market

[TheCrimsonGhost]

I was wondering what the leopard gecko market is like? I bred leopard geckos a few years back and the market was hit or miss. I am thinking of getting back into it, and i'm just curious.

 

[prettyinpink]

As far as I've heard it's down right now, people aren't selling as much as they used to.

 

[Jordan]

only the very best of gecko's sell, and alot of people arent selling as much. There's a noticable decline, but i dunno it may pick up again sometime.
More and more breeders are entering so as always the supply massivley outweighs the demand.

 

[acpart]

On the one hand, this past year I sold 2-4 geckos at shows where I've sold 7-12 consistently during the past 4 years. On the other hand, the last show I went to I brought 21 geckos and sold 14. I have 8 more to sell and could probably have been sold out by the end of this month (as I have been every year except last year when I produced twice as many geckos as other years) but I'm trying to hold on to inventory for the Manchester show in April.

My recommendation for breeding is to either breed a pretty small number of high end geckos, or a moderate number of pretty but less expensive geckos that you can sell for not that much money.

Aliza

 

[T-ReXx]

The leo market is going down the crapper. It's severely flooded with mediocre animals and most breeders are lucky to sell out at all. Generally, it's not going anywhere. It could change with time, but it's gonna need some serious TLC in the form of some new genetics or a massive increase in demand to do so.

 

[goReptiles]

Not the place to be right now, and highly doubt it gets better any time soon. I decided to keep pets, and for the most part, leave leopard geckos alone.

What is sad, is the crested niche is getting that way, and probably wont take long to get there completely.

Be prepared to sell low priced or keep most for a while. What is really bad is that some online breeders will sell mediocre geckos for high prices, whereas small hobbyist generally have a hard time selling for much less.

Last year and the year before, I sold leos for much lower than other breeders whi had less quality, and I had to wait forever for those sells. Cresteds are reaching that point.

Like I said, I am to the point of more pets and what offspring I do get wont be too bad. The reptile market is falling fast bc if the ease if keeping and breeding

 

[fl_orchidslave]

We vend at an average of a show a month so I do not try to sell online. The competition is steep in both arenas, way more geckos available than buyers. I was lucky and sold everything offered in the past year, but I never had a large number at one time. We have snakes too so the tables are still filled. IMO the market is slowly picking back up after the financial crisis many folks have suffered, but I don't think the reptile market, as a whole, will ever be as good as it once was. If you are going to breed anything, study your market and make sure you indeed can sell, or you have to be prepared to feed and house a bunch of animals for longer than you intended.