Nope, the person that sends it pays for postage I believe!
Roman is correct. The sender pays for everything. The site is about sharing gifts. In return for sending an ovogram (originally intended to be a packet of moth ova, but now more types of organism are being shared) one receives credit within the system. Credit can be applied to offered insects, in order to let the offerer know that you are interested. There are more nuances to the trading system, but the "gist" of it is that you share what you have extra of, and (hopefully) someone will return the favor in the future.
It was originally set up to be for sending moth ova- a pair of moths might produce hundreds to thousands of ova, which basically no one would be able to rear! So, if a member did not have a buyer for the ova, s/he might find someone interested through this site to send them to as a gift (ova can be packaged and sent for as little as $.70 American within the USA, and within a couple of bucks for international).
Then the phasmid people showed up.
Then a trickle of roach folks (I was at the beginning of this). The issue with roaches is that it costs more to send them, and one does not have the need to get rid of ova quickly - one can raise 100 roaches MUCH easier than 100 caterpillars that are extremely selective in their diet and need fresh leaves every other day or more.
I suspect that comments like this on discussion boards may bring masses of people to the site, which is why I have refrained from posting about it, but since Inkie let the cat out of the bag, I thought I'd better chime in.
FYI- it's an international community, and the Admin is Swedish. Sometimes language is off due to multiple non-native-english-speaking members.
Basically, if you join the community, you make "brood diaries" about what you rear (make them private if you have a less-than-legal species... especially all you FL people) and when you have something to offer, you can advertise it to members (there is a classified section for this) or share it with whoever you like. You can also share in an anonymous manner.
"Good" behavior on the site gets you resources that allow you to have more functions on the site.
Logging in to the site regularly, as well as acknowledging the arrive of an "ovogram" get you iron. Iron has little value initially, but it is used for things once you have other resources and are established on the site.
Sending someone livestock (an ovogram) generally get you a bronze or a gold.
Bronze are awarded for sharing a species to someone who did not apply for it through the system (such as sharing it with a new member who has no resources to apply) and the bronze can be used 3x to apply for available ovograms on the classified page.
Gold are awarded for sharing a species to someone who DID apply through the system. Gold can be used an infinite number of times... but only once a year.
Nevermind about the other resources. They are for special situations or are upgrades of the two basic resources.
There is emphasis in the Lepidopteran (moth, mostly) people to attempt to rear and share new wild stock. I personally have collected and reared some moths and shared them with the community. Moths are MUCH tougher than roaches!!! They also have more issue with inbred stock than we roach people do, causing more need to share stock.
Joining with no intention of sharing will eventually get you labeled as a "leech" Also, many members WILL NOT share with people who don't have a history of sharing, or who seem to be abusing the system (2 people in the same town sending the same species back and forth, a person who sets up two accounts and sends things to themselves, etc)
And if you have nothing to send, go look for caterpillars! ID them, rear them, breed them, share their ova. It's tougher than breeding roaches at times... but it is NOT as difficult as it sounds!
If you choose to join the site, explore it, log on daily if possible, politely message members who have interests similar to yours, share your broods, and hope that someone might share with you in the future!
Oh... and if you generally sell stock for $... you probably don't want to give away your merchandise, so maybe the site is not for you. But, since everything is voluntary, you never have to send something you don't want to send, or to a person you don't want to send it to.
