“Power feeding” breeder female

So, I was going to sell my proven breeder female spider to someone. They’ve paid the entire amount besides shipping. Weather has been cold of course so I wouldn’t be able to ship for some time.

They wanted me to increase her feedings to 2 small rats a week since she looked too “lean” to them for her size and I guess they want to breed her this season. She’s a late breeder so makes sense.
I said okay, and they paid me like $20 extra to help cover feeding costs for the month.

They’re now asking that I bump her up to mediums after feeding 2 weeks in a row because they think the smalls are too small, and this is just throwing up a bunch of red flags in my head.

I’m not really all that comfortable with the idea of “power feeding” a female to put weight on her. Especially since this person seems to only be concerned about her having enough weight to breed.

For reference, I usually feed all of my breeding females small rats weekly, bump them up to 2 smalls a week during breeding season IF they are developing follicles.

I’m seriously considering refunding them and refusing the sale because of this. What do ya’ll think?

Here’s her and her weight as of several days ago

Another pic of her more stretched out

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Sounds like they just want her to be ready for breeding and aren’t worried about the health of the animal. If I were you I wouldn’t change your normal feeding routine and if they complain refund them (or just refund them now because it throws red flags for me too). Find someone that actually cares about giving them a good home and not keeping em only to make babies and make them fat so they produce more often.

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I went ahead and issued the full refund, including the bit for feeders even though I had already bought a couple extras.

Back to the 1 small a week for her. Might end up keeping her after all, I’m not sure at this point.

Should have known honestly, the first question the person had asked me was if she had really laid 10 eggs her last clutch. A red flag I hadn’t even realized was a red flag.

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Feeding requests are definitely excessive. You did the right thing. If a buyer wishes to treat an animal at their own extreme ideology, they can do that when they receive it. It’s a clear overkill to suggest a seller to treat their products extremely just because it’s been paid for.
I buy all year round, I trust in the seller to treat my/their animals accordingly while optimal shipping conditions become available.

Glad to hear you chose the path you did!

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This person really reported me to MorphMarket over it lmao
And the ASPCA… really? Yeesh.

Also they specifically offered to pay extra for the feeders :upside_down_face:

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I don’t see anything wrong with her weight. She looks good. I would give her a good home if I could get her right now. I recently had a power outage at my house and it opened my eyes about having a back up power source for my reptile babies. So I am looking into getting something to remedy that problem. Something I didn’t even think about until it happened. I want to get everything just right before I get another BP.

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Yeah, I honestly think he was just angry that I changed my mind about selling to him, and that I called him out on his questionable behavior. So he turned it around on me to try and make me feel bad :rofl:

She’s just a leaner girl, but she’s nowhere near what I would consider underweight. Some of my other females I would even say are a bit overweight! And they get the same feeding regime as her!

Seems like a lot of people are dealing with power outages due to the weather sadly. Luckily I only lost power for around an hour or so when the snow storm had first hit — but it was because someone hit a power line in our area.
I’m probably going to be looking into investing into a generator or two myself just in case the need to use it arises.

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Make sure you contact John over this so he can see the evidence that you have against them. It is kinda amazing to see an adult throw what is clearly a temper tantrum through texts though. Proves the point of what you suspected, so it is good you didn’t sell her to them. But yeah, she is honestly a perfect weight. No extra fat, but that isn’t a bad thing. Not sure if they are telling the truth about reporting you to the ASPCA but I wouldn’t worry too much as you have a good amount of evidence against them.

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Yep! I went ahead and contacted support and gave my side of the story as well as the screenshot evidence to support it.

Not entirely sure if they actually did submit any reports to anyone at all, but it doesn’t hurt to provide my side to MorphMarket just in case they did submit one to them.

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This animal game has always been a fun one…I knew someone whos racket was to set up a buy for baby sugar gliders from someone who wasn’t USDA probably a teenager, but she “had to be at the house to see temperament of parents” and when she got to the address shed have animal control on speed dial. “you can give me every sugar glider you have in this house or I’m calling the police to report a glider mill” she used to call them “rescue missions” meanwhile she had close to a thousand breeders (probably half she stole the way I described) in a construction trailer in her back yard. Any way might seem off topic but just want to share how tame this “buy/sale aspca threating thing” is compared to what ive witnessed in the almost 20 years ive been in the game

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Wow, that’s nuts!
What a way to scam people out of their animals for her own personal gain.

I’ll likely see if I can look into contacting the ASPCA to present my case as well, because I have come to find out that they actually did fabricate a story to MorphMarket support about how I was supposedly mis-treating Gwen. Wouldn’t put it past them to have not actually done the same with ASPCA.

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I’ve been trying to sell only 3 snakes for a month and I dont know how you big breeders deal with it. So far it’s been " wow that’s really expensive, discount?" “Its my birthday, discount?” “Do you NEED a thermo regulator?” “Do you need to feed every week?”

It’s been a trip, hopefully this guy is just bluffing to try and manipulate you into getting what he wants and isnt actually serious

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Wow, this is all really ridiculous. Glad to hear you were able to refund the jerk and find out he was lying about the reports.
I have a spider female just about 3000 grams and I feed a medium every 2 weeks. But she was on the same diet yours is on when she was that size and they dont look much different

I’m sorry you had to deal with this. Theres some ridiculous people out there. I have been very scared of selling my girl for this reason. Shes a 13 egg layer and I’m afraid that’s all people will care about.

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Just had a group of guys come visit in person since they were interested in purchasing a snake from me, and I ended up selling Gwen to them.

They all seemed like good people and I talked to them about this situation, and they said they’d be keeping her on the one small a week feeding schedule.
They might also be buying one of her babies at the local expo I’m vending this coming Saturday, so I’m happy.

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Often some of the best customers are the ones you do not sell to. I agree that many people have different feeding regimens and I try to not judge others. It’s obvious you dodged a bullet here and kudos for sticking to your core beliefs!

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Wow people are unreal. You made the right call

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I agree I think you made the right decision! Every reptile is different. I don’t think they had any right to ask you to up the feed or change anything. Hopefully that person will leave you alone now

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Thanks ya’ll!

So far I have not heard anything else from the person in question, so I think I’m good to go.

I normally do not care too much about how people feed their own snakes, since it’s their decision in the end, but if someone is clearly overfeeding/powerfeeding an animal for personal gain then they might as well go take a flying leap. People like that have no place in this hobby.

My animals’ health and well-being will always come first, no matter how much money you try and throw in my face.

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I think it just proves they are into breeding for the money and not giving a sh*t about the animals health. Id refund the money and not sell it to them. Wait for somebody else thats interested.

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I’m confused. Where they asking you to feed her one med a week?