monthly reptile keeping expenses?

[reptastic]

i was just wondering what your monthly expenses like keeping reptiles? i keep 8 lizards and my monthly expense can range from $400-1000. my most recent trip to the petstores for supplies ran me $500 in one day(the only pet i picked up was a tremper albino leopard gecko that ran me $30) i got some new enclosures, lamps, bedding, food ect. and some of the lights i got were the wrong ones so i gotta get new ones next week! im still in the process of moving and when i do i will be building permanent encosures for some of the lizards! but geesh i spend more on he care of my pets than i do myself lol but i really dont care as long as they are happy and get what they need, i tell you this can be an expensive hobby!

 

[chelvis]

I find the intial set up to be the most expensive part. Right now my monthly bill (excluding electric) is about $40-80 for my two tegus. I buy enough rodents in bulk so that the cost is about $1.50 for fats and only like .25 for mice. One top of that i buy fresh meat when my groceries so if they are going to have ground turkey then i make turkey burgers, fresh fruit i will eat as well, tilapia and other things as well. It also helps to have friends in the local meat deparenment. If they got food thats about to go bad (its not expired but its going to be in a day or two) then they will give that to me. So my food bill is really low.

Bedding i rotate and wash sometimes i also have half of it as growing grass so its not really that much of an expense.

Lighting, i get the MVB from UVReptiles. Ya they are expensive (about $75 a bulb) but i have a UV reader and the reading has only drop slightly in the year its been going, compared to the tube lights i was buying every two months or so.

Vet cost, another place where its nice to have friends. I dont have to pay for the visit just for the test, becuase Bosco (my tegu) is listed as a dog in my local vets computer (the vet knows better) his test are cheeper then if they were run as an exotic. Its the same freaken test only the vets charge more for things like x-rays, blood work and fecals on reptiles for some reason. Knock on wood, my last vet bill was last year and it was just a bone density check-up. for x-rays, blood, fecal, wieght and general exam total came to $65.

I find keeping reptiles that don't have to have inscets (my rescent baby tegu has added to the bill becuase she loves super worms and hasn't really enjoyed ground turkey or pinki mice... go figure) makes things a bit cheeper. This might sound mean but i also don't feed my adult tegu everyday. He gets one to two large meals a week. His currently 4 feet and a bit on the heefty side so he really doesnt miss having a meal everyday. My baby on the other hand does get fed as often as she wants.

Caging wasn't too bad. I got a 600 serices vision cage for $150 (got to love craigslist) and the 75 gallon the young ones in for $25 becuase it was cracked. I orignally had build a nice big encloure for my tegu but moving it was too much work so i sold it and bought the vision instead.

So thats my brake down on my reptiles. I only have two but use to keep a breeding group of leos and all sorts of exotic geckos and smaller lizards and ya my bill was about $300-400 a month but i was also selling about that much a month. The expsive pets in my opinion are the furry ones, my dogs upkeep is redicuiluos and the hedgehog and gliders, oh boy, lol.