For some reason, the narrative that breeders should not be making money from breeding animals has become more prevalent, and breeders are now playing into it by lying and claiming that you cannot breed animals ethically while making money and that good breeders barely break even, which is not necessarily true. Having all profits and nothing invested back into the animals while your animals are living in puppy mill type environments would be unethical, and a person doing that would be labeled an unethical breeder, but why are ethical breeders being labeled bad for profiting from something they spend so much time on?
Every business is unethical
In today's world, it appears that anything could be considered unethical. Doctors, hospitals, and every company within them may be considered unethical because they profit from the suffering, illness, and death of others. Taxes, having to pay for basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter. Is it unethical for all of those businesses to profit as well? I believe that it's not in a world where everything costs money.
Time is money, and people cannot support themselves if they spend so much time on one thing without earning money. Doctors are in operating rooms for 12+ hours; if they were not paid for performing surgery because it is "unethical," there would be no doctors. The people behind the businesses must make money in order to continue producing a product, or they will have to move on to something that will make them money in order to survive, whether you believe making money on it is ethical or not. Nothing can be done without money, and the same can be said for animal breeding. If breeders started donating animals instead of selling them they would soon go extinct because the majority would not be able to breed to a ethical breeding standard without having money come in.
"Please stop exploiting animals for profit"
This is a common comment I get on social media that was influenced by "adopt don't shop," and I'm not sure what people don't understand about it, but animals breed naturally and it is in their nature to do so. If breeders stopped "exploiting" (as they would say) then breeds would go instinct and thankfully there is not a person on the earth that gets to decide that. As I previously stated, you cannot do anything without money. Breeders are not a shelter that receives grants, donations, or significant tax breaks to operate.
the "price complainers"
For anyone complaining about the prices of Maine coons how about you do it yourself?
Spend years learning everything you'd need to know about breeding cats, buy one male and 3 females probably having to import from Europe, buy all the cat necessities times 3 (bowls, toys, cat trees, scratching posts, litter boxes, food, litter, grooming supplies), have a area where the cats are quarantined and a extra room that you'll have to renovate for your stud who will probably spray on the walls. Buy a domain for your website and pay a monthly fee for your website and business email. DNA tests for each cat, and then provide food, litter, vet care and grooming to the cats until they are a year old when you have to get hip x-rays and echocardiograms (remember the cats have to pass) then start a LLC. Now your ready for breeding but first you need another room where kittens will be raised, you have to buy a enclosure for the queen to give birth and all the supplies including gloves, towels, washable pads, disposable pads, bulb syringes, scissors, hemostats, iodine, heat pad, milk replacer, bottles, nipples, thermometer, colored collars, scale, dewormer, vaccines, syringes, microchips, pay for vet checks for 6+ kittens and spay/neuter.
what's left out: the amount of time it takes to build a business from websites to social media accounts and the time it takes to raise kittens so make sure you also sacrifice your family life and vacations.
When all of that is done you will finally have the Maine coon kitten you've always wanted...for 20 times the price of buying from a breeder.
the end goal
I understand how difficult it is for people to consider everything that goes into a product when they are only looking at the product itself. It would be impossible to pay a breeder for every hour of work they put into the kittens alone, but we deserve to be compensated for at least some of the time we put in to keep this breed continuing. If breeders disappeared tomorrow, all breeds would vanish with them.
If you are a Maine coon breeder breeding with the goal of producing a standard and healthy cat, raise your prices and stop falling prey to the false narrative that adopt don't shop was created to steal your customers and put an end to purebreds.
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