Culling Healthy Animals

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Originally Posted by Colin Vestrand

couple points, one - i do not agree with shawn.
two, it is not at all appropriate to villify him just because you don't agree with him. a parallelism could easily be made between this and the pro-life/pro-choice debate. believe what you want, people, but don't pass judgement...

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No it's more like being anti-abortion and going ahead and getting pregnant intentionally then ending it in abortion while saying "It's ok the world is overpopulated anyway."

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Originally Posted by Colin Vestrand

couple points, one - i do not agree with shawn.
two, it is not at all appropriate to villify him just because you don't agree with him. a parallelism could easily be made between this and the pro-life/pro-choice debate. believe what you want, people, but don't pass judgement...

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I don't think judgement was passed based on what he's doing.

I think it was more the lies and bullcrap he piled up on his various theories why it's better to kill than keep.

And for that, yeah, he's not a hero. Not for feeding snakes to whatever, just his reasoning, more like excuses, to do so.

i guess i just disagree... there were insults, accusation, and insinuations from the start. i'm not saying everyone did it, a lot of people (especially the mods) did not. but... i guess i wasn't referring to everyone here.

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Originally Posted by Colin Vestrand

i guess i just disagree... there were insults, accusation, and insinuations from the start. i'm not saying everyone did it, a lot of people (especially the mods) did not. but... i guess i wasn't referring to everyone here.

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Nope, reckon not.

COLOR ME GUILTY!

Yup, I judged ... and will continue to do so. Not only do I disagree with someone that kills healthy snakes for the sake of creating a "sustainable model" for his/her business when there are perfectly good options for preserving those snakes lives, but I feel that they are morally bankrupt as well.

No different than when I watched a guy in a car the other day swerve into on coming traffic in order to run over a turtle in the road and I chased him down just to let him know what a scum bag I thought he was.

If it will save the life of even one healthy animal from dying for no other reason than the callousness of a human beings greed, I'll judge all day long and be good and loud and annoying about it.

And if the OP were to change his ways and stop advocating the killing of healthy animals for the sake of a sustainable business model ... then I'll judge him as a better person.

Blessings,

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

COLOR ME GUILTY!

No different than when I watched a guy in a car the other day swerve into on coming traffic in order to run over a turtle in the road and I chased him down just to let him know what a scum bag I thought he was.

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tangent time:

SOMEONE SERIOUSLY DID THIS?! what is WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE.

Kudos to you for going after him for this.

/end capslock and tangent time.

Ok, so I am gonna come at this from both a business and ethical sense, and I don't think ShawnC's decision meets the criteria of either.

So it is understood that despite the inherent beauty of all snakes, morph or normal, in the eyes of potential buyers there is a large difference (both aesthetically and monetarily). Now for the good of being able to cover the costs of one's hobby, one needs to sell the higher demand morphs and whatnot first. Once those bases are covered its on to the "ugly" (hate that term, they are just in less demand, they are certainly NOT ugly!) ones.

To make the assumption that selling the normals/less desired snakes at a lower cost means that the prospective owner will value it any less and thus provide a lower quality of life is a FAR stretch. If they are sold at wholesale to a chain, etc... than look at who will be buying them, people who want them as PETS. Though ShawnC doesn't seem to view them as pets, the majority of individuals who will be in the market for a normal snake doesn't care about morphs/doesn't know, so they are equally as valuable to them as your prized Lavender Albino, they love them the same. Sure there will be some bad owners or more common owners that simply do not know any better. So i think the argument that to use them as feeders is better for the SNAKE just doesn't fly

Now on to cost, i think that it is perfectly reasonable to use snakes as feeders IF it is natural for that animal to eat snakes AND the potential cost of the snakes by weight is lower than the cost of comparable food source by weight. for instance if they can/do eat mice and snakes and the potential market price of the 120 gram snake is $10 while 120 grams worth of mice is $12 assuming all other nutritional needs are met, I find it acceptable to use the snakes as feeders just as people use mice as feeders. However, I think that in most all cases either snakes are not the natural food source of the animal, snakes would not provide all the same nutritional value, and the cost of alternative food sources is cheaper.

I think that the OP's view towards his snakes as different from his dogs is upsetting, I would be equally upset if I lost Aldous or my dog Mischa. However, I do understand the financial decisions that have to be made, but since the discussion seems to have gravitated towards ethical reasons rather than financial reasons I don't think that the risk that the snake might have a lower quality of life justifies the killing of that animal especially when there are willing buyers for them!

5 days old .. this isn't "necroposting" is it?

I just wanted to say that my male normal I paid $70 for about a year and a half ago is my all time favorite snake. The dude was bought as a pet, treated as a pet, and loved as a pet. He is the jewel of my collection as far as I am concerned. I have several awesome snakes, some look killer and some are just normal, but they all have their own personalities .. and they are all cared for as if they were the only one in existence because .. well, they are.

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Originally Posted by cinderbird

tangent time:

SOMEONE SERIOUSLY DID THIS?! what is WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE.

Kudos to you for going after him for this.

/end capslock and tangent time.

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Unfortunately, people do it all the time. Theyre jerks.

I saw a MASSIVE snapping turtle out here, in the middle of the road, dead ( I turned around because i thought it was crossing, and i was going to help it get where it was going safely, but one look at its shell told me all i needed to know.) i know someone purposely hit that animal. there was no way NOT to avoid it, it was the biggest snapper ive ever personally seen around here wild.

my opinion (without reading the whole thread it to long :P) That killing perfectly healthy snakes because their not that valuable or ugly is WRONG if you don't want to sell them give them away and trust me people would love to have a normal as a nice pet. How would you fell if your mom killed you because you were ugly? Im not tying to insult at all but just think about this.