Future pet store hopes...

JuiceBox52

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Long post alert!
Okay so for the longest time I have been wanting to open a pet store, I am sick of big chain pet stores and would like to run my own one.
I want to partner with shelter and the humane society to adopt out some of the animals that they are given.

If possible I would like to breed my own stock. I know that this adds a whole other dimension of work and costs. I would buy my starting stock from reputable breeders, not big box stores.

I was thinking fish wise:
Zebra danios
Cherry shrimp
Blue velvet shrimp?
Guppies
Platies
Mollies
Angelfish
White cloud minnows
Some type of cory
1-2 types of cichlid
And maybe betta?
Goldfish?
If any one has ideas to add/remove that would be great. Also some live aquarium plants if you guys have suggestions on that. How much of each to start with and what size tanks/how many?

I was also thinking parakeets (budgies)
I was thinking of 2 breeding pairs to start with. Would this be good?

I will breed crickets for feeding lizards etc.

I might consider breeding bearded dragons, I have experience with that. It depends on the demand.

I will not do kittens or puppies, rather focus on rehoming from shelters. Rabbits and hamsters are also commonly left at the pound so will try to do that rather than selling my own

Any ideas, suggestions, rebukes, rebuttals? Would all be helpful. Thanks for reading my looooonnnngg post :)
 
I would rather work at a pet shop and let other people take care of the bills. If you're a good worker you will probably be promoted to store manager and can implement things as you like. However, you can open your own shop if you like. But before you do, you should do a small business course and try breeding a few fish and birds to see what is involved in producing lots of fish to sell.

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Budgies, canaries and zebra finches are all easy to breed and sell readily. Budgies and zebra finches are social birds that naturally occur in huge colonies consisting of hundreds or even thousands of individuals. Canaries live in family groups but can be colony bred.

For breeding budgies, canaries or zebra finches, have an aviary at least 2 meters square and put 4 or 5 pairs in it. Have at least 1 nest/ next box per pair and have the nest boxes at the same height, but spread around the aviary to give the birds their own space. The top of the aviary should be covered to stop rain getting on the birds and the nest boxes.

Feed the birds a good seed mix consisting of a budge mix and a blue ribbon canary mix (50/50 mix). The budgie mix doesn't have much oil seed in and the blue ribbon canary mix has too much oil seed. Mixing them in equal parts gives you a good mix for budgies and canaries. The oil seeds are the dark seeds and are usually black or dark brown. The cream or white seeds are carbohydrate seeds.

The finches can have a finch mix and blue ribbon canary mix, about 50/50 or a bit more finch mix.

Australian parrots and finches breed when there is lots of green grass seeds. Our finches are commonly called grass finches because of this. You can grow your own grass seeds and harvest them before they are ripe. You add green grass seeds to the aviary every day and the birds will breed continuously. The green grass seeds are fed in addition to the normal dry seed diet. All the birds should have mineral grit, cuttle bone, clean water and bits of fruit and dark green leafy vegetables.

The following link has information on growing green grass seeds for finches and small parrots.

let me know if the link doesn't let you in to read it and I will copy the info and paste it here..

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Lizards need more than just crickets to eat. You should culture mealworms and various beetles to feed them.

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A lot of pet shops in Australia have pages of animals from rescue shelters on their walls. If people come in looking for puppies or kittens, they show them the lists and give them details of where they can view the animals.

It's a good idea and something every pet shop around the world should do.
 
re: breeding your own fish. Most shops don't breed common fish because it is cheaper to buy them from Asia than it is to breed them in most other countries. If you have cheap or free water and lots of land, and a warm environment, then the costs can be reduced. However, if you live in a cold climate or pay a lot for water, then it will cost you more to breed and rear fish than what they sell for.

This doesn't mean you can't breed your own fish to sell. I used to breed and sell uncommon fish. I had about 60 varieties of rainbowfish and bred 3 or 4 species all the time, and a few other species/ varieties each month. The 3 or 4 common species were good sellers and the shops always wanted them. The other varieties didn't sell as well but because I only bred them once or twice a year, they were always wanted.

I sold the fish for a low price that was enough to cover the cost of producing them. I didn't do it for the money but I did cover costs and made a bit extra.

If you have a couple of nice colour forms of guppy, platy and molly, you can breed those and sell the young. However, unless you have lots of them in huge ponds, you will probably have to buy in stock to supplement the ones you sell. Also people want different colours so you need to have a range of colours to breed from.

Angel fish are the same as the livebearers.

White clouds can be easily bred in ponds or tanks and can be brought into the shop whenever you need them.

Most barbs are easy to breed as well, and you can get hundreds in each batch.


Don't bother breeding goldfish unless you find some really nice fish to breed. Half the baby goldfish produced end up remaining bronze in colour and get used as feeder fish. Out of the remaining coloured fry, you end up with all sorts of good and bad fish.

Shrimp and unusual Catfish and Bettas (not Betta splendens) are all worth breeding.

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The following link has information on breeding fish and preparing food for the fry. Start with culturing foods like green water and infusoria and move onto daphnia and rotifers. When you are good at culturing foods then start breeding fish.
 
Some good plants to try include Ambulia, Hygrophila costata, H. corymbosa, H. polysperma, H. ruba/ rubra, Elodia (during summer, but don't buy it in winter because it falls apart), Hydrilla, all species of Amazon sword plants, narrow and twisted Vallis, Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta).
The Water Sprite normally floats on the surface but can also be planted in the substrate. The other plants should be planted in the gravel.

We use to grow plants in 1 or 2 litre plastic icecream containers and kitty litter trays. You put an inch of gravel in the bottom of the container, then spread a thin layer of granulated garden fertiliser over the gravel. Put a 1/4inch (6mm) thick layer of red/ orange clay over the fertiliser. Dry the clay first and crush it into a powder. Then cover that with more gravel.

You put the plants in the gravel and as they grow, their roots hit the clay and fertiliser and they take off and go nuts. The clay stops the fertiliser leaching into the water.
You can smear silicon on the outside of the buckets and stick gravel or sand to them so it is less conspicuous. Or you can let algae grow on them and the containers turn green.

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We did plants in pots for a couple of reasons.
1) I was working in an aquaculture facility and we grew and sold live plants to shops. Some of the shops wanted advanced plants in pots so we did that.

2) Plants like sword plants love nutrients and have big root systems so they needed more gravel and big pots. When given ideal conditions these plants would produce lots of runners with new plants on and we got more plants to sell.

3) Most of the tanks only had a thin layer of substrate that was nowhere near thick enough for plants to grow in so having them in pots allowed us to grow plants in tanks with minimal gravel in the tank.

4) You can pick the pots/ trays up and move them to different tanks or ponds and the plants don't get uprooted or disturbed and keep growing well.
 

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