Growing vs buying proven females

[chrisv]

Interested in thoughts of pros/cons of growing your own female breeder versus buying a proven one already "at size".

Pros:
* Potentially less expensive to buy a proven, since growing any female to size is going to cost at least something like: initial cost + 2 years x $15/month = ~$350 (plus or minus depending on how much you value the food, electricity, your time, space). It seems like this case is easily made for normal females, which can be purchased for $100 or so. Perhaps the more genes, the more expensive buying a proven is, and at some point it's cheaper to grow her yourself?
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With bulk feeders, you can get this closer to $8/ month.

The real reason to raise your own females is that you may have a hard time even finding adult or near adult size females of the more interesting morphs. Multi-gene animals can be expensive even as hatchlings. Ig you are only talking about buying normals, then I would say go for adults if you can find a breeder that you trust is selling you young captive bred females.