1. cats are not created equal, just as real life kitties... people can breed what ever they want for fun, the "Market" is about selling not fun, why else do we have prices?
Business is about marketing and profit, you might enjoy your work that does not mean it's not work and that should not be compensated.
2. Most people sell their cats to make some money. Most people seem to like or enjoy finding a bargain. This is not just in second life or kittycats, seems pretty true in what ever reality you reside.
3. Like it or not in life, in kittycats, in reality we all make judgments to suit our own needs, desires and ambitions.
My breeding mentors taught me many things, and the first thing I was asked by all of them was what is your plan? Why are you breeding this cat? What do you want to get from it? These are question we have to ask ourselves as a community and for those of us that breed for a business. Many of the cats I see being defended as the "cheapest" cats a term used by Rene for those of you feeling that your efforts are not appreciated or valued... you need to consider the terms used to describe your efforts and reality in this world and real world. You need to consider these questions.
If you breed for fun, yay a cat that costs 25L and has 3 traits makes you happy yay! go for it. If you breed for profit then a cat for 2000L with a full 9T and some of the new and most recessive traits is important to you. Just like in real life if you are happy with a beer can tab for an engagement ring yay! If you like a tattoo wedding band yay for you! If you want a solid yellow gold ring with real diamonds not crystals/CZ than you will pay more. Breeding kitties is the same thing, buyer beware/you get what you pay for. If you can't sell your cats except to others who want to breed low trailed cats, great you have your market, you've defined your business model set before you and if it does not pay your rent or for the kibble they consume, oh well you are doing it for fun.
I don't think there should be name calling here on either end of the spectrum, do what you want but don't complain when your results are that you don't make any money with kittycats... because if you charge menagerie prices for cats that other people will just menagerie, you did it for fun and if it cost you $20 a month or less well you would have spent that on entertainment elsewhere. On the other hand, take confettis for instance: not every one breeds them, not everyone wants to. For those who do the investment in the breeding time and how it works in the long term means the yield for resaleable breedable offspring is prohibitive and so the market value of the cats needs to reflect the cost of producing them as was stated in someone else's post. If a person breeds 2 cocoberry from the menagerie dollars, here is a quick and dirty breakdown, if you want the exact numbers feel free to contact me for the notecard.
MENAGERIE COCOBERRY CONFETTIS
COST TO ACQUIRE
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
L$20 (linden dollars) = K$50 (kitty dollars)
K$5,000 = 1 cocoberry Confetti
100 boxes must be sent to menagerie to get K$5,000
So a breeding pair is K$10,000 just to purchase; 200 boxes sent to menagerie
If we say each box is L$20 than that is L$4,000 (this does not include what you paid to feed the cats you bred to get the 200 boxes). If you pay more than L$20 per box the price goes up, often sell outs from catteries can be purchased from L$50-L$75 per box making the price substantially higher. (L$10,000 – L$15,000)
1 cat (Confetti or any kind) costs 1 bowl of food per month to feed so you can breed. You need two Confettis to breed Confettis so that is at least 2 bowls per month per breeding pair for breeding
KittyCats breed for 120 days that is 4 months so 4 bowls of food per cat per lifetime of breeding
If you do not wish to cuddle you will want to buy milk, so that means the same amount of milk
8 boxes of food = L$1,360 lifetime of Confetti breeding pair
8 boxes of milk = L$1,120 lifetime of Confetti breeding pair
So far, if you menageried your own boxes or if you paid only L$20 per box, that makes your Confetti breeding project investment a total of
L$5,360 without milk
L$6,480 with milk
[US dollar investment $23-$27 for a breeding pair and a life of breeding]
WHAT DO YOU GET FOR YOUR INVESTMENT? WHAT IS THE RETURN?
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
Since there are four fur traits possible per each Confetti KittyCat
normal dominant
normal recessive
confetti dominant
confetti recessive
When you put two Confetti together to breed you have a 25% chance of receiving a pretty little rainbow Confetti box kitten from the breedings. Each parent contributes one gene
normal + normal = normal
normal + Confetti = normal
Confetti + normal = normal
Confetti + Confetti = Confetti
This means each and every time you breed you have a 25% chance of a Confetti box; over the lifetime of that cat (120 days) that is approximately 16 breeding cycles (births/boxes)
If 25% or 1/4 of them are Confetti, you should theoretically have only 4 possible Confettis born and the rest will be genesis or normal other fur. If you get that many boxes you are lucky, it's probability and chance and not a guarantee – each breed is 25% chance – you could have no Confetti boxes from your investment, it does happen.
If your return is 4 boxes than each box is at least worth L$1,320 to L$1,620 just to recap your investment and selling all four boxes if you receive four, if you only get 2 boxes than double that as the value for sale price, but more than likely you will want to keep them and breed them back to make more Confetti, so selling one for L$5,000 to L$7,000 would recap your initial investment and allow you to continue breeding, if you are lucky enough to get at least three babies from your initial investment. Anything less than that and you are paying out of pocket.
This is only for Cocoberry fur, if you want to breed the colors the investment is higher. On the plus side your yield is higher, but that is still rather random as every breed can give you a useless cat for your breeding project goals (notice the value of a genisis cat is not useless, it is useless for your goal of breeding confettis since it is not a confetti).
Now apply this knowledge to a person who acquires a 2 traited cat with a new traits and spends three months breeding a line to 9 awesome very usable traits. It is a process, and an investment of money and time to create something like that from scratch. My vision, my investment, my creation at completion is worth more than that original 2 traited cat no matter what I paid for it, so if you want to know what makes me aggravated in all this, it's that new traits cost so much on poorly bred cats... and then after all the work and love you get less money for a finished and much more useful product. Whether I like it or not, the fact of the real world (SL or FL) and business world is that people pay more for the new shiny.
So bottom line is why are we only talking about pricing and cheapest cats? Rene you do yourself a disservice not mentioning all the other wonderful features you have included. Search by ear, tail, what ever! That is glorious, check this out
![[Image: CtkavcF.png]](http://i.imgur.com/CtkavcF.png)
Why are we as a community having a field day jumping on the pricing bandwagon and taking this so personal when it's about options and choices and the market has increased those; look at the drop down. Why are we only discussing prices? Why was this post just about the "cheapest" cats? Why do we gravitate towards the drama and miss all the facts?
I think that as a community the bigger problem is that we do not want new people to be treated unfairly or taken advantage off. Knowledge is power, this is true of kittycats and life.
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