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Chinese Crocodile Lizard Price: Factors Influencing Cost and Value

Chinese crocodile lizard price, on average, how much are they cost to buy and maintain?

Are you looking forward to having a Chinese crocodile lizard as a pet? Are you also wondering how much it’ll cost you to buy and care for one? You are at the right place to getting all the information you need regarding its cost.

As a first-time shinisaurus keeper, it’s interesting that you take out time to find out how much it would cost you to buy and care for a Chinese crocodile lizard as a pet.

Ensuring that you know the cost involved and getting prepared for it is important so that you wouldn’t have to feel drained out of pocket.

As you would find out from this article, to own a Chinese crocodile lizard isn’t as expensive as with ball pythons and at the same time not too cheap an adventure.

We’ve done extensive research on what setup you’ll need for your new shinisaurus lizard, how much it’ll cost you and where to buy it. On average, you’ll spend about 805 USD to buy a healthy shinisaurus and about 2,000 USD to maintain it.

After your one-time purchasing cost; feeding, substrates, and occasionally health checkup are recurring expenses.

Read on to find out more about these costs in detail.

Chinese Crocodile Lizard price At Pet Stores

Chinese Crocodile Lizard Price, How are they Cost at pet stores
How much Do Chinese Crocodile Lizards Cost at pet stores?

With different vendors selling the Chinese crocodile lizards, you’ll find it challenging knowing the best place to buy healthy lizards from. This section makes it easy to decide where to buy your choice species of Chinese crocodile lizards and at the best prices.

Although most of the vendors discussed in this article are Europe and United States-based, their services extend to other parts of the world. This implies that regardless of your location, you can place your order and have your lizards delivered to you in good health.

Below is a list of thoroughly researched vendors that sell healthy Chinese crocodile lizards.

Reptilesncritters.com

At reptiles and critters, you’ll get healthy Chinese crocodile lizards together with useful information about the lizard. This usually includes its care requirements, feeding habits, health status, weight, size, and age.

As part of delivering quality service, they have a professional customer service center that offers assistance/support to customers during working days.

Here, the Chinese crocodile lizard is sold for 1,199.95 USD and you can rest assured that you’re buying a healthy lizard.

Preloved.co.uk

A Chinese crocodile lizard at Preloved.co.uk is sold for 402.6 USD.

Other vendors where you can buy healthy shinisaurus lizards from include:

Exotic-pets.co.uk

Morphmarket.com, and

Undergroundreptiles.com.

Cost For Chinese Crocodile Lizards Habitat Setup And Accessories

Chinese Crocodile Lizards Habitat Setup
Chinese Crocodile Lizards Habitat Setup (source: Terrarium Channel)

The Chinese crocodile lizards are semi-aquatic lizards. This means that their habitat in captivity is set up to reflect this natural environment. Almost half of the enclosure is filled up with water with lots of branches for climbing and resting.

Besides the cage, water, and branches; other accessories needed to set up their habitat include hides, substrates, plants, and lighting/heating bulbs.

In a nutshell, setting up a standard aqua-terrarium that simulates the wild usually costs between 700 to 1000 USD. As noted earlier, setting up an enclosure for shinisaurus isn’t similar to that of terrestrial lizards.

Thus, for a detailed step-by-step guide, you need to read up our article on how to set up an aqua-terrarium for a Chinese crocodile lizard. 

Cost For Daily Food And Supplements

Chinese crocodile lizards have a wide range of food which include insects, crickets, all types of worms, snails, larvae, tadpoles, ants, and many others. Hence, feeding them in captivity isn’t a difficult task.

Besides, these foods are readily available at pet stores and at reasonable prices. Like it is with reptiles generally, Chinese crocodile lizards will eat less as they get older. While still babies and juveniles, you’re to feed them every day or at least 4-5 days a week.

In each meal, a few crickets or worms will suffice. That said, 500 counts of large worms and unshelled snails which are sold for 18.99 USD and 5.75 USD respectively can take them for about 3-months.

Last update on 2022-12-30 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

For a sufficient amount of vitamin D3 which will aid the assimilation of calcium, you’ll need to supplement their diet calcium and vitamin D3 supplements. Whichever brand of calcium supplement you go for will cost you between 3 USD – 20 USD.

In a nutshell, it’ll cost you a total of 45 USD to feed at most two Chinese crocodile lizards for 3-months. This in a year will amount to 540 USD.

Cost For Chinese Crocodile Lizards Healthcare

Shinisaurus lizards are hardy lizards that wouldn’t get sick if all care requirements are optimal. This means you should always keep tabs on the temperature, humidity, feeding habits, sleeping habits, activity level, and shedding or body color.

An error in any of these factors will lead to some health issues that you may end up spending fortunes. Should you have any reason to visit the vet, you’re likely to spend between 500 – 1000 USD on vet bills.

Any Other Cost: Cost Of Cohabitation

One other cost you may incur as a breeder is keeping more than one shinisaurus lizards as pets.

Although it isn’t ideal to house two or more shinisaurus lizards together in an enclosure, it is still achievable. This will only mean getting a bigger size enclosure to ensure ample space for the cohabiting lizards.

However, if you decide to give each lizard some privacy by making them separate enclosures, that’ll translate to a lot of money to set up the habitat to standard.

With your understanding of what it takes to set up an aqua-terrarium habitat, you should be sure you’re ready for the responsibilities before you embark on it.

Cost Of Breeding

If you don’t intend to breed your lizards, you may not need to incur this cost. But breeding them can be an exciting adventure. For one reason, to increase your number of pets and also for profit.

If you’re looking at the business part of selling the babies when they’re born, then you need to ensure you spend both time and money in setting up a perfect environment for breeding and also for the babies when they’re born. Read this article for more information on how to properly breed your shinisaurus lizard.

Conclusion

Finding out the cost of keeping a pet animal is usually one of the first things to do before you buy the pet. This should also be followed by the pet’s lifespan, possible diseases, and care needs.

The reason is that a better understanding of these factors in relation to the animal’s longevity is important if you want to be a successful keeper. This prior knowledge will also help you to get prepared financially for the responsibilities that come with being a pet owner.

As stated earlier, this article is thoroughly researched and every piece of information in it is worth adhering to. However, two places you should never buy your lizards from are Facebook groups and classified ads.

These places have a history of selling lizards that are far from what you saw online before making the purchase.

In many cases, the lizards may turn out to be diseased. Although there are some exceptions, you can only buy from classified ads and Facebook groups of reputable brands or persons you know. This way, you stand less chance of being deceived.

In sum, when it comes to the purchasing cost and maintenance cost of Chinese crocodile lizards, what you’ll spend will differ. You’re likely to spend between 2,450 USD to 3,750 USD.

But on average, everything should cost you about 3,000 USD for the start. Afterward, you’ll only be spending a minimum of 550 USD yearly on feeding, cage accessories, and healthcare.

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