Welcome to Part 4: So you want one. Lets get straight to it.
This entry will be a little all over the place as its most of the costs of keeping these animals which covers a broad spectrum. As such I think it will be easier to write it out as a list rather then a proper report. Otherwise...it would have no cohesion. Also, there is a brief opinion of mine at the end. If you skip everything else, read that.
1. I based this first section on the costs to keep a Spectacled Caiman/Crocodile. You should be prepared to spend in the neighborhood of $500 x how many years old your animal is for the first 3 years or so annually to upgrade its housing. After that, its probably closer to $1000 per year until it reaches its adult size. This means if your animal is 3 years old you need to be ready to drop about $1500 come its 3rd birthday (about) on its new enclosure since the odds of the one it was in last year meeting the size formula are slim unless you cheaped out by just being amazing at doing it yourself and/or you own an acrylic company. Do the math on a 5 year old. $5000. This wont stop until you finally are forced to get rid of the animal or it reaches its adult size and you've finally dropped quite the handful and built it an outdoor pond etc. This is not how much your going to pay TOTAL in a year for this animal's upkeep. This is just how much keeping up with its housing and housing it PROPERLY is going to cost. [SIZE=-1]The size of the cage or enclosure depends on the size of the [SIZE=-1]animal[/SIZE]. German laws, for example, will state that the land area needs to be 3 x SVL by 4 x SVL, whilst the water part is 4 x SVL by 5 x SVL. SVL = Snout-vent length - ie. length from the tip of the snout to the vent (or 'bum hole' !). So, for an adult Dwarf Caiman that is about 4.5 feet long, you'd need a cage where the land was roughly 6ft by 8ft, and the water section was 8ft by 10 ft. That's pretty big, isn't it! How's the living room looking now ? Oh yeah, th[SIZE=-1]e above numbers are for 1 animal. [SIZE=-1]Each [SIZE=-1]goes up 50% [SIZE=-1]for each additional animal you have.[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]
2. Feeding them as babies is pretty cheap. In fact I spend less to feed them in their first year of life then many snakes as they will take scraps from the butcher and such and thrive on it. However, once your animal is passing 3.5 to 4 feet your feeding bills will go through the roof. Lets assume you acquire a Dwarf Caiman. At adult size it will be consuming about 2 whole adult rats every other day (assuming you keep with the feeding patterns of most major zoo's and don't go off thinking you know more then the real experts.) Now, depending on your source, lets use RodentPro's cost for their XXL's for example. $2.50 each. So, 365 days/2=181 feedings annually. 181 feedings x 2 rats @ $2.50 each = $995. Ouch. Add that on to the cost your paying in housing and well move on to the next part.
3. Insurance. Yup, you read it right. Now this cost will vary wildly depending on where you are however lets use the UK as an example. To LEGALLY keep a Dwarf Caiman you need to carry $1,000,000 in liability insurance JUST for the animal. Tack that onto the above two costs and lets keep going.
4. Vet bills. Oh yea, you will have them. It ate something it shouldn't have? Guess how much emergency surgery is going to cost on a 5 foot Caiman. Easily $1000. Lets add in the list of the most COMMON but not ALL of the medical emergencies the Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital runs into with these guys.
Hypothermia – Caused by inappropriately cold water or spatial temperature. This will cause your caiman to list to the side while swimming and can result in drowning. Decreased appetite, decreased or no fecal production and listlessness are all common signs. Correct the temperature and take your caiman to a veterinarian for evaluation of possible secondary disease processes.
Dernatophilosis – Caused by Dermarophilus sp (a bacteria). Brown to red lesions on the skin at the junction of the ventral abdominal scales and ulcers are common signs. Prevention is the key with a focus on intense hygiene.
Upper Respiratory Disease – This can be caused by many different fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Signs are typically lethargy, weakness, decreased appetite, nasal secretion, excessive basking, abnormal swim patterns, and white ocular (eye) discharge.
Neurological Issues – These are typically related to abnormal swim behaviors as well as lethargy, loss of coordination, head tilts, muscle tremors, and anorexia. This can be caused by hypoglycemia or increased ammonia in the enclosure (oxygen depletion).
Skin Issues – These usually result from poor water quality, inappropriate temperatures and stress. Secondary bacterial and fungal skin infections occur. When feeding meat, fat will create a slime layer on the walls and water surface and will adhere to the skin. Improve the overall hygiene of the enclosure, the water quality, and stabilize temperatures.
5. Your own medical bills. Accidents do happen and stitches are not cheap. Even a small Caiman if it gets you right can send you to the ER.
6. Electric bills. This will be trivial when they are babies cruising around in your little 20 gallon long, but when you have a 20+ square foot room/enclosure and it needs a few 1000W heat/UV lamps and a water heater, filters etc etc. Ill give you my number since this will radically vary depending on where you live, how cold it gets, is it indoor or outdoor etc. I spend about $2,000 a year on electricity for a large enclosure, and I'm 8 degrees north of the equator. Good luck in northern Idaho (Try $2,500 a month if its outdoors surrounded by 2 feet of snow minimum). Oh, and lets not forget the costs of that hardware. CHA CHING!
7. Incidentals. This is a tuff one because of how wildly this can vary but lets take a crack at an example, and remember, not all costs are financial. Your neighbor sues you because her precious Miss Fluffelkins wandered into your yard in the dead of night and cats being what they are made it into your outdoor enclosure and got hurt/eaten. Now, she wont win, however you still get the costs of going to court. Then, its all over the papers how your man eating monster killed this precious cat. Now you have concerned parents on the 10'oclock news freaking out this could happen to their obnoxious little kids, and before you know it because your public enemy number 1 of the moment, your boss is having second thoughts about having you associated with his company. You get the idea. Could this happen? Maybe. I would be a little surprised if someone lost their job because their Caiman nom'd on the neighbor's Chihuahua but hey, a man got shot with a .22 pistol, went on a crusade, and got assault rifles banned in the USA for a whole decade. Hysterical retards will be hysterical retards.
Warning: Aggro opinion below.
I'm positive by now there are some people reading this who have no ability to cover the above costs and worm holed their way through them figuring out how to cut corners and such to get the cost down because dammit, they REALLY want one. If you are one of those, well, your going to do what your going to do but don't let me catch you throwing up pics or YouTube vids of your woefully inadequate setup in your closet or I will turn you over. Once a week if I have to, until you loose your animals. They deserve the best and if you saw their natural environment you would realize even a 40x40 room fully decked out is pretty sad. Ok well if your still with me, and you've done the math and you feel your still good to go then great. On a personal note: These are NOT pets. I don't care how long you have owned it. Referring to it as a pet is misleading and is partially how these things wind up banned. They are herpatological specimens. Period. The INSTANT you start thinking of it as a pet, you need to turn in your permits and get rid of it, because you no longer respect what that animal can and will do to you, or anyone else. You have grown complacent of the danger, and that's when someone gets hurt, and then they get banned. Pets are domesticated through years and generations. A poodle is a pet. A crocodile? That is like calling a nuclear bomb a "firework".
This entry will be a little all over the place as its most of the costs of keeping these animals which covers a broad spectrum. As such I think it will be easier to write it out as a list rather then a proper report. Otherwise...it would have no cohesion. Also, there is a brief opinion of mine at the end. If you skip everything else, read that.
1. I based this first section on the costs to keep a Spectacled Caiman/Crocodile. You should be prepared to spend in the neighborhood of $500 x how many years old your animal is for the first 3 years or so annually to upgrade its housing. After that, its probably closer to $1000 per year until it reaches its adult size. This means if your animal is 3 years old you need to be ready to drop about $1500 come its 3rd birthday (about) on its new enclosure since the odds of the one it was in last year meeting the size formula are slim unless you cheaped out by just being amazing at doing it yourself and/or you own an acrylic company. Do the math on a 5 year old. $5000. This wont stop until you finally are forced to get rid of the animal or it reaches its adult size and you've finally dropped quite the handful and built it an outdoor pond etc. This is not how much your going to pay TOTAL in a year for this animal's upkeep. This is just how much keeping up with its housing and housing it PROPERLY is going to cost. [SIZE=-1]The size of the cage or enclosure depends on the size of the [SIZE=-1]animal[/SIZE]. German laws, for example, will state that the land area needs to be 3 x SVL by 4 x SVL, whilst the water part is 4 x SVL by 5 x SVL. SVL = Snout-vent length - ie. length from the tip of the snout to the vent (or 'bum hole' !). So, for an adult Dwarf Caiman that is about 4.5 feet long, you'd need a cage where the land was roughly 6ft by 8ft, and the water section was 8ft by 10 ft. That's pretty big, isn't it! How's the living room looking now ? Oh yeah, th[SIZE=-1]e above numbers are for 1 animal. [SIZE=-1]Each [SIZE=-1]goes up 50% [SIZE=-1]for each additional animal you have.[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]
2. Feeding them as babies is pretty cheap. In fact I spend less to feed them in their first year of life then many snakes as they will take scraps from the butcher and such and thrive on it. However, once your animal is passing 3.5 to 4 feet your feeding bills will go through the roof. Lets assume you acquire a Dwarf Caiman. At adult size it will be consuming about 2 whole adult rats every other day (assuming you keep with the feeding patterns of most major zoo's and don't go off thinking you know more then the real experts.) Now, depending on your source, lets use RodentPro's cost for their XXL's for example. $2.50 each. So, 365 days/2=181 feedings annually. 181 feedings x 2 rats @ $2.50 each = $995. Ouch. Add that on to the cost your paying in housing and well move on to the next part.
3. Insurance. Yup, you read it right. Now this cost will vary wildly depending on where you are however lets use the UK as an example. To LEGALLY keep a Dwarf Caiman you need to carry $1,000,000 in liability insurance JUST for the animal. Tack that onto the above two costs and lets keep going.
4. Vet bills. Oh yea, you will have them. It ate something it shouldn't have? Guess how much emergency surgery is going to cost on a 5 foot Caiman. Easily $1000. Lets add in the list of the most COMMON but not ALL of the medical emergencies the Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital runs into with these guys.
Hypothermia – Caused by inappropriately cold water or spatial temperature. This will cause your caiman to list to the side while swimming and can result in drowning. Decreased appetite, decreased or no fecal production and listlessness are all common signs. Correct the temperature and take your caiman to a veterinarian for evaluation of possible secondary disease processes.
Dernatophilosis – Caused by Dermarophilus sp (a bacteria). Brown to red lesions on the skin at the junction of the ventral abdominal scales and ulcers are common signs. Prevention is the key with a focus on intense hygiene.
Upper Respiratory Disease – This can be caused by many different fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Signs are typically lethargy, weakness, decreased appetite, nasal secretion, excessive basking, abnormal swim patterns, and white ocular (eye) discharge.
Neurological Issues – These are typically related to abnormal swim behaviors as well as lethargy, loss of coordination, head tilts, muscle tremors, and anorexia. This can be caused by hypoglycemia or increased ammonia in the enclosure (oxygen depletion).
Skin Issues – These usually result from poor water quality, inappropriate temperatures and stress. Secondary bacterial and fungal skin infections occur. When feeding meat, fat will create a slime layer on the walls and water surface and will adhere to the skin. Improve the overall hygiene of the enclosure, the water quality, and stabilize temperatures.
5. Your own medical bills. Accidents do happen and stitches are not cheap. Even a small Caiman if it gets you right can send you to the ER.
6. Electric bills. This will be trivial when they are babies cruising around in your little 20 gallon long, but when you have a 20+ square foot room/enclosure and it needs a few 1000W heat/UV lamps and a water heater, filters etc etc. Ill give you my number since this will radically vary depending on where you live, how cold it gets, is it indoor or outdoor etc. I spend about $2,000 a year on electricity for a large enclosure, and I'm 8 degrees north of the equator. Good luck in northern Idaho (Try $2,500 a month if its outdoors surrounded by 2 feet of snow minimum). Oh, and lets not forget the costs of that hardware. CHA CHING!
7. Incidentals. This is a tuff one because of how wildly this can vary but lets take a crack at an example, and remember, not all costs are financial. Your neighbor sues you because her precious Miss Fluffelkins wandered into your yard in the dead of night and cats being what they are made it into your outdoor enclosure and got hurt/eaten. Now, she wont win, however you still get the costs of going to court. Then, its all over the papers how your man eating monster killed this precious cat. Now you have concerned parents on the 10'oclock news freaking out this could happen to their obnoxious little kids, and before you know it because your public enemy number 1 of the moment, your boss is having second thoughts about having you associated with his company. You get the idea. Could this happen? Maybe. I would be a little surprised if someone lost their job because their Caiman nom'd on the neighbor's Chihuahua but hey, a man got shot with a .22 pistol, went on a crusade, and got assault rifles banned in the USA for a whole decade. Hysterical retards will be hysterical retards.
Warning: Aggro opinion below. I'm positive by now there are some people reading this who have no ability to cover the above costs and worm holed their way through them figuring out how to cut corners and such to get the cost down because dammit, they REALLY want one. If you are one of those, well, your going to do what your going to do but don't let me catch you throwing up pics or YouTube vids of your woefully inadequate setup in your closet or I will turn you over. Once a week if I have to, until you loose your animals. They deserve the best and if you saw their natural environment you would realize even a 40x40 room fully decked out is pretty sad. Ok well if your still with me, and you've done the math and you feel your still good to go then great. On a personal note: These are NOT pets. I don't care how long you have owned it. Referring to it as a pet is misleading and is partially how these things wind up banned. They are herpatological specimens. Period. The INSTANT you start thinking of it as a pet, you need to turn in your permits and get rid of it, because you no longer respect what that animal can and will do to you, or anyone else. You have grown complacent of the danger, and that's when someone gets hurt, and then they get banned. Pets are domesticated through years and generations. A poodle is a pet. A crocodile? That is like calling a nuclear bomb a "firework".
