Looking to breed

ok hi i'm new here to the forum so quick intro...

name's shawn, 22 from ohio and slightly advanced in scorpion handleing on top of a few other toxic creatures.

I've decided to start breeding scorpions as both commercial pets and non commercial for medical science.

right now i've got my first pet scorpion, Pandinus Imperator (black emperor) i decided to give the ownership thing a shot after handleing a few other species with friends and acquaintances before. and i've found the thing of ownership to be quite exciting and addicting to an extent.

Well i want to start sort of a collection and breeding facility environment for these creatures for the reasons mentioned above.

What I want to do is breed species like
Black Emperor
Red Claw (Red Emperor)
and Indian Forest

as a commercial pet sales thing for a little bonus income.

The real hobby is the ones i want to breed for medical science purposes. such as
Deathstalkers (the Leiurus quinquestriatus species)
Yellow and Black Fat Tails
Brazillian Yellows
Desert Hairy (i throw him on the toxic list because i have seen bad allergic reactions, worse than Imperator allergies. I found out i'm allergic to scorpion venom in general but not as bad as some people are, i'm not deathly allergic, just swell up badly and hurt like hell allergic)
and possibly a few other spieces as well.

I plan to start this slow gaining one or 2 species at a time over the course of a year or so. this way i can adapt to the costs of them all and their feeding habits.

I know scorpions are very low maintenence pets in feeding and very cheap, but my worry is with the handleing.

I know and acknowledge the great deal of respect required for these creatures. You can't give them any sign of fear or disreguard your own safety for theirs.

I know all of the aspects for the care taking of each of the species I plan to obtain, and I have almost all the safety precautions and legalities sorted out for this project. When everything is finished i'll make my move to obtain them. Which brings me to the matter at hand.

I need help obtaining them or finding places to obtain them.

If any of the breeder's here would send me to a recommended place or are in a local town or surrounding state it would be very much appreciated. I realize pet shows nearby would have some of what i'm looking for, but i don't trust some of the sellers at the shows here, they're not all really selling what they advertise. I could ask for a LQ and argue with them for an hour because it doesn't possess the blackened tail segment or caramel colored shell.

So if any breeders would like to sell, I would be more than happy to buy once I have everything set up and ready.

Right now I'm just breeding my Imperator. It's a very common pet down in the Columbus pet shows, and is capable of producing the very rare "Albino" Emperor. Now with arachnids I know it's impossible to get the Albino gene, but with Emperor's there's a rare genetic deficiency that causes the light reflection off the exoskeleton to show up a yellow-ish white. On top of that, even more odd, is that the eyes come out red like an albino's, but without skin pigments it can't be classified as a true albino and thus doesn't carry an Albino gene.

Also I might need some care tips on a few of the more toxic species. One in-particular, the Leiurus quinquestriatus. I'm not fully prepared for it so it won't be something I get right away. I've never handled one before in my life, but that's how we all start out and i would love to have one for personal keep and breeding (and not breeding very often. I don't want 20 tanks full of LQ's I can't get rid of).

First things first. I do like your enthusiasm so don't get me wrong on this!

Where do you live? Explore the local market, ask what people pay for exotic species if you are out for making an extra buck out of the animals. I might say that if you want to breed venomous ones for medical facilities you are not going to get that much out of it. They only want the venom. So "milking" your scorpions might benefit you more.

It is however very difficult to store and as you said, you don't have the experience to handle them all that well. It might prove challenging. In the end, I'm sure you will succeed though.

If you are allergic to their venom I'd stay the F (with a big F) away from the dangerous ones. That said, you cannot be 'allergic" to scorpion venom as is the case with for example Honey Bees..

You can buy these scorpions everywhere if you look out for it. Look in the sales section of this forum. I bet all species can be bought right there.

I hope you know what you are doing. I have 4 species of hotties and a few gravids will pop. They ALL have to be secured properly so I dont end up with a scorpion in my shoes. It is a lot of work to keep them, safely and imho more importantly that the scorpions like it where they are. If they get what they need from their perspective (food, water temperature) they will not try to escape and climb the walls 24/7. I rarely see mine doing it.

The desert species are entirely different from the forest species. In speed and attitude. However, they are basically easier to keep, if you dont try to handle them. If you do want to handle ur critters like LQs, Andros, Parabuthus, Hottentotta are not your cup of tea.

If you have questions, ask them one by one. If you want to commercially breed them.. you should know most to start out with.

pluto wrote:

First things first. I do like your enthusiasm so don't get me wrong on this!

Where do you live? Explore the local market, ask what people pay for exotic species if you are out for making an extra buck out of the animals. I might say that if you want to breed venomous ones for medical facilities you are not going to get that much out of it. They only want the venom. So "milking" your scorpions might benefit you more.

It is however very difficult to store and as you said, you don't have the experience to handle them all that well. It might prove challenging. In the end, I'm sure you will succeed though.

If you are allergic to their venom I'd stay the F (with a big F) away from the dangerous ones. That said, you cannot be 'allergic" to scorpion venom as is the case with for example Honey Bees..

You can buy these scorpions everywhere if you look out for it. Look in the sales section of this forum. I bet all species can be bought right there.

I hope you know what you are doing. I have 4 species of hotties and a few gravids will pop. They ALL have to be secured properly so I dont end up with a scorpion in my shoes. It is a lot of work to keep them, safely and imho more importantly that the scorpions like it where they are. If they get what they need from their perspective (food, water temperature) they will not try to escape and climb the walls 24/7. I rarely see mine doing it.

The desert species are entirely different from the forest species. In speed and attitude. However, they are basically easier to keep, if you dont try to handle them. If you do want to handle ur critters like LQs, Andros, Parabuthus, Hottentotta are not your cup of tea.

If you have questions, ask them one by one. If you want to commercially breed them.. you should know most to start out with.

I'm stuck out in ohio. lol. there's not a lot of options to buy unless i go down nto the columbus shows and they still don't have as many options, but i'm still determined to make a career on them.

I probably should have been more detailed in explaining it. the venomous ones i will be milking, but i'm going to be pulling an old friend with more experience in as a co-handler. This way we cut our chances of mistakes down to a smaller number than it would be.

I won't really be handling the highly toxic ones like Austrailis and LQ's unless it's for milking. Some enthusiasts look at all scorpions as a play thing and i believe none of them are, even the low poison species. Low venom just means bigger claws, and bigger claws usually mean a good chance of stitches. My Imperator (Kuzko) already pinched me once and about pulled some skin away.

I'm going to be taking extra precautions for the very venomous ones in the caging facilities. Like seal rings lining the cage lids, and adapting key and lock mechanisms to the lids as well (to keep idiots from opening up and putting their hands inside.)

I've found that the U.S. is outside of needing a DWA license, but our laws on Dangerous Exotic pets requires a lot of protocall and can limit me to how many of each species I can own if I don't meet expectations for owning these guys. Which is why i've set up to have things like extra thick gloves, sealing straps for peoples' pants and shirts, liability release wavers (to avoid lawsuits if anyone is stupid and doesn't do as i say around them), there will be a vial of antivenom for each species at all times, and taking extra measures to seal off a room. Farming scorpions is way more dangerous than owing just one or 2 as a hobby.

I've got somewhat of a setup for both forest and desert species, they will be put on separate sides of the room with different atmospheric control. Heaters and high watt bulbs for the desert to keep the inside and outside of the terrarium comfortable. And I have an old irrigation system design i built a while back i can rebuild that will mist in the forest terrariums (i'd say 2-4 times a day) with medium watt (60-75 watt) keeping it war and humid.

I'll only be commercially breeding the larger "non-toxic" species. I've got a local pet store and people at pet shows wanting to buy, and so far i'm only going to start out breeding black emperors. I've got about 50 people asking me to breed Kuzko so they can buy some slings.

As for the more potent species, I will only be breeding them for myself and other farmers who know what they're doing.

As with all big projects this will take time. I'm looking at about another year or year and a half to get everything i need, so it gives me enough time to get better with each species as they come. I know for sure I'll be looking at getting The brazillian yellow and the LQ's last since their venoms are both highly unique and dangerous on top of having a bad temper 75% of the time. As for things like A.Austrailis, i've found them easier to handle, not sure about their black cousins though.

But I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon right away with this like most overenthusiastic people would. I'd like more time than some of the dead people out there who didn't plan this kind of thing out thoroughly. I'd like a career with this, not a funeral.

One more thing. Is there a thread here in the forums open to buying and trading? Or are there legality issues against it?

There is a classified at the bottom of the list of forum sections.

Also there is quite a few scorpion breeders and sellers in the USA, check out Ken the Bug Guy, there's also a bunch of individual breeders that you can find on arachnoboards.com that usually only post their stuff there. (hope mods dont mind me redirecting for information purposes for an american)

I know of about 6-8 scorpion breeders other than businesses that could get you what you want. But if you plan on breeding each species make sure you know the protocol on doing it, like for a Pandinus cavimanus (red claw) you have to try to get a docile pair since they have a high chance of ripping eachother to shreds instead of doing the nasty.

Also might want to start learning the scientific names instead of common names and what traits make them different. I've seen a guy try to mate an A. mauritanicus with an A. bicolor with disastrous results not knowing what to look for to see if they were the same species.


For a newcomer to breeding I would go
pandinus type->low toxicity desert scorp->bark scorp-> any other venomous one

Currently breeding Rhopalurus junceus as we speak, two are doing the nasty right now, easy and awesome species to breed and I highly recommend trying it.

You might want to contact these folks. They seem to be in the same business you're looking to
get into. http://www.spiderpharm.com/index.html

cool. thanks guys.

my main issue when it comes to breeding, surprisingly, isn't being stung or killed, but the pair trying to kill each other (as mentioned with the red claws)

Right now i fear Kuzko mating. He's a highly aggressive Imperator, more so than i've seen in his species before. I've seriously made it a practice to handle him with gloves. He's possibly the most aggressive Imperator I've seen. And I am picking his mate up within the next 4 days and i don't want him killing and eating her. He's almost full size, about 7 inches now and she's only about 5 inches. and he's very powerful.

which brings me back to my main concern. as with all scorpions, there is cannibalism. mating can be difficult sometimes. and mating can cost you more money than you want. either the female kills the male before the ritual, or the male kills the female. and you have to buy a new one and try again.

You'll need a lot of scorpion if you wish to sale venom. Most "milking" is done by placing the aculeus with the vemon glands in a centrofuge. Their the venom is extracted by spinning it real fast. This process of removing the aculeus will usually kill the scorpion. I would never recomend that you handle hot scorpions, they are not emps, and behave in a very different way. They are much more aggressive and prone to sting. Am emp is more likely to pinch, their venom is weak and their claws are strong. Most hot species are the exact opposite. Hots sting first and much quicker. Lastly, breeding scorpions for resale is pretty low profit unless you get a real rare, high interest species. Emps and forest scorpions whole sale for around $8 as adults. Babies are hard to sale. Most people would rather spend $15 for an adult than $5 for a baby. Your best bat if you are looking to turn a profit is to get a nice rarer species that people really like. Rhopalurus junceus are a great species as mentioned above, I've never had a problem move babies for around $20-$25 each.

I have to agree on that.
As far as cannibalism goes, no.. wont happen that much.

Not concerning the hot species. Do you mean the Cavimanus as the one with the 'red claws'?

Some people also milk with electroshocks, this does not involve removing the telson, but as you said, it is very slow.. very demanding work. People buying scorpion venom need large quantities and you have to have scorpionfarms as really a few hunderd if not thousands of scorpions to be taken seriously.

Stick with the guys you got now. Mate them; If it works, go further..

yeah i'm meaning Cavimanus. lol. I've even seen them eat their own babies under stress (about once or twice this happened with a friend).

i intend to do scorpion farming in the near future. I'm going to be investing in a few more species on a much later date and breed them strait up for farming. It might be slower to get where I'm going, but i'd rather get them slowly and as their numbers increase, i'll learn how to deal with the more of them as they come instead of having the stress of buying a hundred of them at once.

the more toxic ones i'll be working on slowly at a time. haha. things like LQ's, A. Australis, and Tityus serrulatus are far from my "I WANT IT NOW!" list. I'm fully awair of LQ and A. Australis' toxicity.... but Tityus serrulatus I fear the most of them, since it's venom works very similar, but much faster to that of the Loxosceles reclusa (Brown Recluse Spider). I'd rather die numb than die rotting away.

For now I'll be sticking with my imperators, until i pull in enough profit to start lifting my toes off the ground with this. But this is gonna be a big and fun project none-the-less (i only say fun because this is something to enjoy)

Good luck with it and I REALLY hope it works out ok but I gotta say, I honestly dont think it's realistic to be thinking in terms of big profit margins.
You might make a few dollars out of it and that's great but I would imagine you need to put thousands into it before you get much back out.
I know in this country there is no-one making a living from scorps. There are a couple doing it from spiders and mantids but not just from scorps.
Anyway, as I said, good luck with it and remember...

... if you dont get near it, it cant sting you.

I'd just get the big hitters right away if you can give them the right conditions.
Might as well feed 300 scorps as 10. Saves wasting food.

I just want to briefly point out that scorpions do not sense fear.

I can point you in the necessary direction or help you obtain pretty much anything you're looking for. I do focus more on bark scorpions as I've never been big on desert species but I still know a lot of people after being in the hobby for so long. If you're still interested then get in touch with me, preferably by email as I check it several times a day.