Culling Healthy Animals

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Originally Posted by wilomn

Maybe his "pea" is bigger?

No doubt I shamed him in the past and he's got issues.

Not the first, doubtful he's the last.

Your logic is flawed shawnc. You base much on assumptions that others have proven are wrong. You ignore facts that point out you are in error.

There's no debate. You wanted to argue, you got an argument.

Now you just look like a sore loser as well as a bit of an ass.

And no, I haven't changed. I'm still calling them like I see them. My integrity is still intact. I'm still glad I'm not you.

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Look. Debate me, or go away. Please, I encourage anyone to go back and read my exchanges with this person and let me know if I am being unreasonable. I asked, several times, to point something out that we could discuss. Rather than do that, he uses phrases like "you are wrong, therefor, your arguement is invalid...." Um...what? Debate me, or go away. I already showed you to be not up to the task.

And no, you never did anything to me, so I have nothing against you. But, as I have said, I have been around for a long while, and I remember people like you. People who pontificate a position with no substance to back it. You crack me up, and have built a reputation for yourself that stuck in my brain. Thats a goo dthing. 8-)

I a not the only person who has noticed this BTW. Would you like me to send you the PMs that I have gotten since the thread started thanking me for putting you in your place?

S~

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Originally Posted by Hulihzack

I happen to work in a store that gets our local breeders normal balls, normal corns etc. And guess what, they get more than adequate care and we educate our customers to ensure the snake lives a healthy life. I know we aren't the only ones who do this, and the fact that the breeder sold them to us for 15 bucks is irrelevent, they're still going to perfectly deserving keepers. Of course there are some bad stores out there, but to say ALL cheap snakes are better off dead is absurd. For someone who's been around as long as you, you should at least have seen some evidence of this.

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I have. But also having worked in similar stores...it's ussually not the store that is a problem. It's the customers. As I said...its' not abuse that happens right away...its the abuse that comes from apathy, after the whole "new pet snake" thing wears off. I used to see alot of that, and we used to take alot of animals back because of it. But for every one we got back, there were ten we dind't get back, and I bet more than have of those ended badly. Can I prove it? no, it's just a gut feeling. Like I said, maybe I just lost faith in humanity at some level?

S~

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Originally Posted by waltah!

I can see why you would want to "debate" this on a site where most don't have a clue who you are. I don't know anyone who would purchase anything from you after reading your comments in this thread.....luckily you're not in it for the money;) yeah, right.
When I have used the word "you" I mean YOU. Not the "collective" you. But just you.

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Actually I debated it on my own site, several times, over the last three years. I posted here because I like the forum, and I'd like some fresh perspectives because in person, I meet all sorts of people who agree with me, but from behind a keyboard, I am very often one of the few to admit to it. I was hoping I'd find it a little different here, but I didn't, and thats not a surprise.

I said I am not culling for money. Again...read what I write, not whatyou think you read. That doesn't make sense to cull for money in th eshort term. Of couse I make some cash from my snakes. Thats part of the fun of it. So do alot of you. Nothing wrong with that. Too bad they eat so much!

S~

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

Look. Debate me, or go away.

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Sorry but this is killing me, you don't debate someone, you debate with someone! And they don't debate you, they debate with you. So don't say "Debate me, or go away" say "Have a debate with me, or go away." Use the word properly or please don't use it at all! :colbert:

ok honestly i did not read every persons comments... i do however agree if i was a falconer and my falcon only ate ball pythons for whatever reason i dont see it being wrong to feed them ball pythons if it was what it wanted and also cost effective. and on that note .... when i post a youtube feeding vid, u know how many rat lovers post negitive stuff and rate my vid 1 star? i honestly cant be a hippocrate and say dont feed your animals ball pythons when i get the same damn thing from the rat lovers

What I don't understand is what the OP thinks he is saving the animal from when he throws it into an aquarium with a carnivorous fish and allows it to be torn to pieces in front of him. There's something genuinely creepy about that to me, especially when people normally own them because they love them. It's not really the same as feeders, because there was no personal attachment to those in the first place. Animals are not all just pieces of meat in my opinion, and I don't believe anybody in their right mind can say that with real conviction. From an objective point of view yes, but a person making that argument still wouldn't throw a puppy in with a burmese, and if not, then they couldn't really believe it to be true. What further confuses me is that the OP can then turn around, get on the computer, and pretend like his motives are not related to finances or business at all; try to pitch it as a morally responsible husbandry practice to a community who is fanatical about how beautiful and wonderful these animals are. What kind of reaction would you expect?

Anyway, one argument I think you've been making since the beginning that I haven't seen anybody bring up yet is that somehow, by destroying the ugly snakes early on, you're preventing inexperienced keepers from breeding them and polluting the gene pool. Is that what you mean by "it's for the good of the hobby"? With regard to that, I honestly believe that anybody who knows what they're doing pertaining to genetics and breeding would be able to spot a poor investment animal a mile away; they wouldn't allow their high-end breeding stock to be contaminated with something that had serious problems, and those are the kinds of people that deserve to be successful in this business in the first place. Only the get-rich quick types and irresponsible kids who don't care enough to do real research would buy into an 'ugly' snake with intent to breed, which in the end would make the high-end, selectively bred stuff coming from responsible people all the more valuable. A market saturated with "defective" stock might, in the end, be GOOD for the hobby, especially for those people who actually care about, and put effort into what they're producing. It would make beautiful, well-bred reptiles a rare and valuable thing, and make good keepers really stand out.

I also suspect that rather than really caring about the animal's well-being, you'd just rather kill a "ten foot, muddied up, ugly brown carpet python" than sell it to somebody, for the fear that if you did, they would only later realize what an unpleasant thing it is and then associate the negative experience with your good name. So, what I think you're doing is a business practice, driven by the profit-machine. Killing it means you don't have to clean it, feed it, advertise it, or ever think about it again. It also means you spend less money on real food for whatever you feed them off to. Are you sure things like that have nothing to do with your decision to kill your snakes?

But see, what a lot of people here are trying to say is that breeding snakes for the sole purpose of feeders is okay, but breeding snakes to sell and then using the unwanted/ugly ones as feeders is completely different and not okay. Chickens, pigs, cows--all those fall under the "bred for food" category, like feeder mice or feeder snakes. However, a lot of people here (myself included) feel that breeding snakes to sell and then culling the less desirable (but healthy!) ones is wrong.

The key here is purpose. If all the snakes are going to be feeders, then they all suffer the same fate. If some are feeders and some are not, then things get fuzzy. We start playing God: this snake lives because it's worth a decent amount of money (whatever we define "decent" to be), but this snake doesn't because it's not worth enough (again, whatever we define "enough" to be) or because it might suffer terribly depending on who gets it. To those of us who truly love snakes, killing one for either of these reasons is wrong. It's not the snake's fault it was born a normal--it was pure chance. A roll of the proverbial dice. Why should the snake not have a chance to live a long, healthy life just because it's a normal?

The point is not whether using a snake as a feeder is right or wrong; the point is the reason behind using the snake as a feeder.

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

I a not the only person who has noticed this BTW. Would you like me to send you the PMs that I have gotten since the thread started thanking me for putting you in your place?

S~

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Yes. Both of them if you could.

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Originally Posted by Ash

What I don't understand is what the OP thinks he is saving the animal from when he throws it into an aquarium with a carnivorous fish and allows it to be torn to pieces in front of him. There's something genuinely creepy about that to me, especially when people normally own them because they love them.

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I have a problem with this statement. Regardless of what the OP does with his animals this seems to imply that by feeding off an animal that is traditionally thought of as a pet there is something creepy about you. I used to keep gold fish as a child, in my teenage years I owned red ear sliders and part of their diet was, in fact, goldfish. And yes I admit I enjoyed watching them chase down and eat the fish, the turtles were my pet and the fish was their food.

That said I know people who keep large snakes, retic, burms, african rocks, etc. They also happen to breed guinea pigs and rabbits. Both of these animals are selectively bred and sold but sometimes those animals don't exhibit the traits that people are looking for when buying those animals. Most of those guinea pigs and rabbits are fed off to their large snakes, and the remaining "feeder" animals are frozen and sold to local pet shops. Does that put them in the wrong?

I personally keep a pet guinea pig, his name is Toby, and I love him to death. But in the future if I acquired a large snake that needed guinea pigs for food, I have no qualms acquiring the food that animal needs to thrive. Does that mean I will feed off Toby? No but I have no issues with feeding off animals that are traditionally kept as pets (Within legal limits...you can't exactly buy a guinea pig from Petco and legally feed it to a snake...you actually sign a form that says you WON'T do that).

I'm not defending what the OP does with his animals, frankly they're his and I have no control over what he does with them. But in the same breathe I don't want people to demonize those who feed off animals traditionally thought of as pets.


Besides...no one would feed a puppy to a burm.....a Burm wouldn't touch a puppy!


Okay that was in poor taste, but seriously it's illegal anyway, I'm pretty sure that's considered animal cruelty.

Too many pages...eyes hurt....

My opinion for what little it's worth...

Feeding off your hybrids/unwanteds to save the hobby is a load of crap.
Feeding them off because they double as feeders is fair.
Feeding them off because they're not morphs or the result you wanted is jacked up.
Killing them and taking lives for no purpose other than saving yourself operating costs...wrong on all accounts and borderline cruel.

See, my whole thing with this is that he actually has animals that eat snakes, and he doesn't just kill his "unwanteds", he feeds them off.
Breeding for morphs in his business, he creates snakes he can sell and snakes he needs to put more effort into selling. "Fortunately" for him, he has animals that are snake eaters and he can save money on buying food for these animals by feeding his snakes that he feels arent worth his effort. Now, that may be wrong, but it makes sense. I think Id have an issue with this if he just took up all his normals/hybrids and stuck them in the freezer and then disposed of them because they require too much effort to house and feed.

So, short version....he breeds snakes, creates snakes to sell and some to breed, and feeds off the rest. Love of the hobby is BS, love of the animals is BS, the intention behind the breeding is blatanly obvious...$.

And to put it in the perspective I see it through:
In terms of ASF rats that I breed:
Undesirables (males, females of a color I already have) are sentenced to death by snake.
Desirables(females of varying colors from what I already have) are kept and found new housing away from general population.
I relate to the OP based off of that.

And for the record, I could never feed a snake to anything.

KUDOS to all for not taking this and getting it sentenced to QT btw.

Ok, I had a very good point here, but it was apparently lost in the noise. I'll try again.

Ball pythons are BEING IMPORTED INTO THE US IN HUGE NUMBERS. Every year. Most of them are captive-hatched babies, but you get some wild caught animals coming in as well.

The above WILL NOT change if breeders produce fewer normals. In fact, imports will naturally increase, as the value of those imports will increase, because the current demand is more than enough to account for the supply.

People like ball pythons. People routinely pay between 60 to 80 bucks for a normal male ball python, to a pet store. That ball python is usually an imported CH snake. Perhaps from where you are standing, 60 bucks is a disposable amount of money, but I think it's actually a fair chunk of pocket change, and the average person will not deliberately allow harm to come to an animal with a price tag that high. The fact these animals sell for $8 apiece wholesale doesn't mean that's what they retail for!

An increase in the production of captive bred snakes in the US MAY mean a reduction in the number of imports, as it becomes less financially sound to import them. The only way to reduce the number of imports is to make ball pythons plentifully available in the US for those who want them. Captive bred animals are generally healthier and fare better than CH babies do. By increasing the supply of CBB babies, we may be leaving more ball pythons in the wild--one can hope. If you decrease that supply, more balls will most certainly be yanked from the wild, because this entire business follows the law of supply and demand. It doesn't matter if YOU think there are too many low-priced balls on the market--the market clearly disagrees!

Yes, I do sell my normal males to the pet trade. I'll probably even wind up selling some normal females to the pet trade, eventually. I consider doing so to be beneficial to the hobby (as more people who want pets get healthy snakes rather than parasitized wild caught ones), and beneficial to ball pythons in general (while wild populations are stable, they certainly won't stay that way if they pull more of them from the wild to meet an increasing demand).

Do some people mistreat animals? Yes. Should people be prevented from having animals because some of them MIGHT mistreat them? That's exactly the mentality our hobby is battling at the moment! The right to NOT be lumped in with people who commit crimes. The solution is education, not banning, not restricting supply/access.

Those who are just starting out should have a good experience, buying an animal that is already healthy and doesn't require more than a routine checkup rather than meds and intensive care. Sick parasite-ridden animals in pet stores hurt our hobby. They make the entire industry look cruel. We should do all we can to make imports obsolete.

So, please address THIS argument--I have explained why NOT selling normal males is BAD for ball pythons, and BAD for the hobby.

I can see valid points in both opinions.

If you had a dreamsicle and a normal and you had to choose which one you'd rather keep and the other one dies, you'd keep the dreamsicle.

Killing an animal because you're making assumptions about what will happen to it is just plain stupid. You don't know for sure where it will go, and if it will get taken care of.

Shawn, a big part of the problem with this "debate" is we're coming at it with two completely different paradigms about life.

I believe life has value beyond whatever random $$$ might be associated with it. I believe part of that value, for some lives, is to be food for others....even IF some of those animals are snakes.

You believe that because it's OK to allow an animal to die for the purpose of becoming food, then it is therefore OK to kill an animal for whatever purpose or convenience suits your fancy.

The difference might seem subtle, but it's worlds apart, and the two cannot be reconciled. You simply can't comprehend my point of view...and frankly, I can't yours, either. I can follow your arguments...sure...but I don't believe your "logic" can justify the lack of value that you place on life in general.

And that value, or lack of it, is entirely your call to make...as I've already mentioned much earlier in this thread. They're your animals, and you'll do with them as you see fit. And I never said no one else does it. I've no doubt that many do. The "industry" is rife with people who are in it for the money and care little for the lives they choose to bring into the world. And I might even be surprised (sadly so) by the discovery of the truth about what some "big breeders" do behind closed doors. BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT, NO MATTER WHO IS DOING IT.

YOU are the one being hypocritical, by your own words. YOU decide that for some animals, simply being born is a fate worse than death...and yet YOU willingly make the choice to continue to bring as many of these "unwanted" animals into the world as is necessary to meet your own hobby goals.

You can dismiss all the opposing arguments you wish as "too emotional" or "misinterpreting your words"...but that doesn't change the fact that many, many people are morally opposed to the way you choose to run your business. No amount of justification or "debate" is going to change that.

I'll also state this--I don't necessarily think there is something wrong with feeding baby carpet or ball pythons to other animals, if that is what those other animals eat. Rats, mice, rabbits, cows, sheep, whatever--they can all be part of the food chain.

My argument is with the idea that this is somehow better for the animal being fed off than going to a pet home would be. I think that's an absurd idea. I also think that a baby male normal ball python is an expensive meal for an arowana, when compared with feeder fish. He dined well on a meal worth at LEAST $8. (Probably $20 if you actually put a few local ads up). And somewhere out there, a newbie herper bought a CH snake instead, and it died, and turned them off from keeping any more reptiles.

Is it unethical to feed them off? No. Is it ethical? Nope. Is it the right thing to do for the hobby? Absolutely not--if the general public caught wind of such practices they would tar us all with the same brush and call the whole reptile nation cruel. It doesn't matter that mice are used as feeders all the time, there are some animals that people find it acceptable to feed/eat, and some that they don't. Pets are in the 'don't' category. Even with rodents, people would be upset with the idea of feeding off a tame pet rat, instead of a feeder that was never handled. Logical or not, that's the way it is.

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Originally Posted by Ash

pitch it as a morally responsible husbandry practice to a community who is fanatical about how beautiful and wonderful these animals are. What kind of reaction would you expect?

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I bring it here because this is the place that it matters themost. IfO go to any other forum and talk about what we do, I'll get alot of people who agree with me, but thats only because they think any good snake is a dead snake. Here, we all like snakes, but we also agree that our hobby in under serious threat, I am am pointing out that we could be hurting ourselves by what we are doing, and offered what I do (and what others have done or do, and don't like to talk about) as a solution.

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Originally Posted by Ash

A market saturated with "defective" stock might, in the end, be GOOD for the hobby, especially for those people who actually care about, and put effort into what they're producing. It would make beautiful, well-bred reptiles a rare and valuable thing, and make good keepers really stand out.

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In the case of carpet pythons this isn't true. The reason is, unlike ball Pythons, we can't just go get more from the wild. We have to work with what we have. The more we muddy up the gene pool, the harder we make it to keep any line of carpet pure. There are guys who make a good living selling well documented animals, but they will be the first to tell you that it's everyone else indiscriminately selling hybrid offspring for cheap that are ulitmately sold as a "jungle" or a "coastal" that in fact causes the problem. As a by product...when there are ALOT of these animals out they...they have to end up someplace...and thats usually not a happy ending for the snake once people realize what they have is not what they thought.

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Originally Posted by Ash

I also suspect that rather than really caring about the animal's well-being, you'd just rather kill a "ten foot, muddied up, ugly brown carpet python" than sell it to somebody, for the fear that if you did, they would only later realize what an unpleasant thing it is and then associate the negative experience with your good name. So, what I think you're doing is a business practice, driven by the profit-machine. Killing it means you don't have to clean it, feed it, advertise it, or ever think about it again. Are you sure things like that have nothing to do with your decision to kill your snakes?

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Not at all. By the time that happens, most people have no idea who produced it. When I wholesale a bunch of mutt babies...they get sold again, and again. My name is never a part of the discussion, and is part of the problem. I am just a supplier at that point, not a breeder. I also don't feed off larger snakes because I can't stomach it. It would require me whacking them on the head r some other such thing, and I can't stomach that. Besides, it a useless death, which I don't feel really good about.

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Originally Posted by Ash

So, what I think you're doing is a business practice, driven by the profit-machine. Killing it means you don't have to clean it, feed it, advertise it, or ever think about it again. Are you sure things like that have nothing to do with your decision to kill your snakes?

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So is selling 100 of them at once on the cheap to get rid of them. It does exactly the same thing, and I actually make more money, not less.

S~

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Originally Posted by Eventide

But see, what a lot of people here are trying to say is that breeding snakes for the sole purpose of feeders is okay, but breeding snakes to sell and then using the unwanted/ugly ones as feeders is completely different and not okay. Chickens, pigs, cows--all those fall under the "bred for food" category, like feeder mice or feeder snakes. However, a lot of people here (myself included) feel that breeding snakes to sell and then culling the less desirable (but healthy!) ones is wrong.

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I totally get that. But the "why" it is wrong is an emotional response that's illogical. Thats my point. It feels wrong because we all like snakes, but, it's not. I am not saying you have to do this. I am saying you not should be stigmatized, or feel like an asshat if you are doing it. Thats who those who do, never talk about it.

S~

Yes I would give the burm a home for the rest of its natural life. Should I pm you my address?

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

So is selling 100 of them at once on the cheap to get rid of them. It does exactly the same thing, and I actually make more money, not less.

S~

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Wrong!!! Killing them guarantee's their life will never be anything more than a few quick breaths, bright lights, funny sounds and then man it's cold, Oh I hurt..and then darkness..

Selling them at least gives them the chance to make some child happy, educate some no-snake person, spark the passion that causes a life long career in herpticulture.

Cull them all you want, tell your self what ever helps you sleep at night..But when the dust settles and all bets are off your killing healthy animals for the simple reason that you didn't like the way they turned out.

And that is a down right BS reason to end a life.

Last note if you don't want to try and sell it.." DON'T BREED FOR IT"

[QUOTE=pavlovk1025;1163490]

So, short version....he breeds snakes, creates snakes to sell and some to breed, and feeds off the rest. Love of the hobby is BS, love of the animals is BS, the intention behind the breeding is blatanly obvious...$.
[/QOUTE]

Not what I said. Its Blantantly obvious that you have not read what I have said, over and over. I feed of a very small percentage of my animals that I feel have little to no chance of leading quality lives in captivity (this actually costs me money). I produce normals that I opt to keep much more often than I produce animals that I choose to cull. I bet I cull less than 10% of what we produce in normal hybrid offspring. Please read what I say...not say what you think I mean.

S~

:snake::mad::confused::snake:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

I a not the only person who has noticed this BTW. Would you like me to send you the PMs that I have gotten since the thread started thanking me for putting you in your place?

S~

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I'm still waiting.....

So, either your offer was full of crap, something you seem to have great familiarity with, you're a liar and don't have any, or you're a coward on top of being morally bankrupt.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Ok, I had a very good point here, but it was apparently lost in the noise. I'll try again.

Ball pythons are BEING IMPORTED INTO THE US IN HUGE NUMBERS. Every year. Most of them are captive-hatched babies, but you get some wild caught animals coming in as well.

The above WILL NOT change if breeders produce fewer normals. In fact, imports will naturally increase, as the value of those imports will increase, because the current demand is more than enough to account for the supply.

People like ball pythons. People routinely pay between 60 to 80 bucks for a normal male ball python, to a pet store. That ball python is usually an imported CH snake. Perhaps from where you are standing, 60 bucks is a disposable amount of money, but I think it's actually a fair chunk of pocket change, and the average person will not deliberately allow harm to come to an animal with a price tag that high. The fact these animals sell for $8 apiece wholesale doesn't mean that's what they retail for!

An increase in the production of captive bred snakes in the US MAY mean a reduction in the number of imports, as it becomes less financially sound to import them. The only way to reduce the number of imports is to make ball pythons plentifully available in the US for those who want them. Captive bred animals are generally healthier and fare better than CH babies do. By increasing the supply of CBB babies, we may be leaving more ball pythons in the wild--one can hope. If you decrease that supply, more balls will most certainly be yanked from the wild, because this entire business follows the law of supply and demand. It doesn't matter if YOU think there are too many low-priced balls on the market--the market clearly disagrees!

Yes, I do sell my normal males to the pet trade. I'll probably even wind up selling some normal females to the pet trade, eventually. I consider doing so to be beneficial to the hobby (as more people who want pets get healthy snakes rather than parasitized wild caught ones), and beneficial to ball pythons in general (while wild populations are stable, they certainly won't stay that way if they pull more of them from the wild to meet an increasing demand).

Do some people mistreat animals? Yes. Should people be prevented from having animals because some of them MIGHT mistreat them? That's exactly the mentality our hobby is battling at the moment! The right to NOT be lumped in with people who commit crimes. The solution is education, not banning, not restricting supply/access.

Those who are just starting out should have a good experience, buying an animal that is already healthy and doesn't require more than a routine checkup rather than meds and intensive care. Sick parasite-ridden animals in pet stores hurt our hobby. They make the entire industry look cruel. We should do all we can to make imports obsolete.

So, please address THIS argument--I have explained why NOT selling normal males is BAD for ball pythons, and BAD for the hobby.

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This is an excellent point. I would like to see us not import at all, and the value of captive bred normals be at a higher point, to prevent them from becoming impulse buys. Right now, we are doing BOTH. You can't stop the importation until you get buyers to be willing to pay more for a captive hatched animal, which is next to impossible to do when you are competeing with imports. Thats where some changes can be made as well. I completely agree with you. Education would be our only option at this point. What would probably work best is limiting the supply of normals, but raising the price on them, and teaching people why they are more expensive than an imports. Right now we are trying to beat import pricing...which is sort of counter productive I think.

S~

I am going to duck out for a while. maybe a day or so, and see how things evolve. I am at work now, and I am tryingt to respond to people and get things done at the same time, and it's not working well:oops: So, I am going to take a break until tonight or this weekend.

I really do appreciate those of you who are going over this with me. Like I said, it's an interesting topic becuase people get so wound up, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Thank you Admin for allowing this thread to happen, and continue, and thanks for noone gettinsg warnings when they got a little worked up, and managed to keep it from exploding is a foolish post. I am going to get some work done. :please:

S~

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Originally Posted by JLC

Shawn, a big part of the problem with this "debate" is we're coming at it with two completely different paradigms about life.

I believe life has value beyond whatever random $$$ might be associated with it. I believe part of that value, for some lives, is to be food for others....even IF some of those animals are snakes.

You believe that because it's OK to allow an animal to die for the purpose of becoming food, then it is therefore OK to kill an animal for whatever purpose or convenience suits your fancy.

The difference might seem subtle, but it's worlds apart, and the two cannot be reconciled. You simply can't comprehend my point of view...and frankly, I can't yours, either. I can follow your arguments...sure...but I don't believe your "logic" can justify the lack of value that you place on life in general.

And that value, or lack of it, is entirely your call to make...as I've already mentioned much earlier in this thread. They're your animals, and you'll do with them as you see fit. And I never said no one else does it. I've no doubt that many do. The "industry" is rife with people who are in it for the money and care little for the lives they choose to bring into the world. And I might even be surprised (sadly so) by the discovery of the truth about what some "big breeders" do behind closed doors. BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT, NO MATTER WHO IS DOING IT.

YOU are the one being hypocritical, by your own words. YOU decide that for some animals, simply being born is a fate worse than death...and yet YOU willingly make the choice to continue to bring as many of these "unwanted" animals into the world as is necessary to meet your own hobby goals.

You can dismiss all the opposing arguments you wish as "too emotional" or "misinterpreting your words"...but that doesn't change the fact that many, many people are morally opposed to the way you choose to run your business. No amount of justification or "debate" is going to change that.

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I appreciate the frankness of this post Judy. Thanks for being honest with me. There will always be disagreement on this topic, but just the fact that you see my point for what it is, means alot.

S~

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

I am going to duck out for a while. maybe a day or so, and see how things evolve. I am at work now, and I am tryingt to respond to people and get things done at the same time, and it's not working well:oops: So, I am going to take a break until tonight or this weekend.

I really do appreciate those of you who are going over this with me. Like I said, it's an interesting topic becuase people get so wound up, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Thank you Admin for allowing this thread to happen, and continue, and thanks for noone gettinsg warnings when they got a little worked up, and managed to keep it from exploding is a foolish post. I am going to get some work done. :please:

S~

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translation:
I don't have the PMs I told you about, you caught me in a lie. I don't want you "schooling" me any more. I already look like a fool and you'll just make it worse.
end translation.

I can live with that. As I mentioned before, you're not the first to tuck tail and run run run away and doubtless you won't be the last.

Way to go there bucko.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

I bring it here because this is the place that it matters themost.

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Or maybe because 6 months ago when you "brought it" to your own forum, so many people were disgusted by your ideas that you wanted to try and find acceptance somewhere else?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

I am am pointing out that we could be hurting ourselves by what we are doing, and offered what I do (and what others have done or do, and don't like to talk about) as a solution.

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I'd like to point out something else that could be hurting ourselves ... indifference. Lack of compassion for life. Valuation over compassion. I'd like to offer this as a solution ... the faster we get rid of breeders that treat these precious animals as mere widgets, the better off we, this hobby, and this business will be. My suggestion is about as equally practical as your and with mine, no animals have to die.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

In the case of carpet pythons this isn't true. The reason is, unlike ball Pythons ...

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But you said this in your first post ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

but this arguement can be made for Normal Balls as well

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You're flailing again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

they have to end up someplace

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And I would suggest that if you are not willing to find them good, responsible homes ... then you shouldn't be breeding.

You want to justify killing of snakes by claiming that you're saving them from a miserable life, but you are the reason they have a life in the first place ... so if you're seriously that concerned about it, don't breed. (I think this sentiment was expressed time and time again on the thread in your forum that you keep talking about ... did you expect a different result elsewhere?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

Besides, it a useless death, which I don't feel really good about.

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All death is useless. In the case of farm product or animal feeders, some death is necessary, but I'd hope most would never consider it "meaningful". One of the huge problems that I see here is that you acquired animals to feed your "cull" to in order to justify killing snakes. That's more than a little disturbing when you really think about it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

So is selling 100 of them at once on the cheap to get rid of them.

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Why do you keep assuming that that is how most animals are sold? Maybe in your jaded world of living creatures being on par with hand held electronics, but there is a gigantic segment of the herp community that actually cares about each and every animal that they produce. I'm sorry that you've been around for such a "LONG TIME" that you've lost touch with that and only see the herp community through the ugly glasses of volume and profit. That may be the way for some, but certainly not all, and I believe not most.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnC

It does exactly the same thing, and I actually make more money, not less.

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Right. Money. Yup.

Blessings,

-adam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Or maybe because 6 months ago when you "brought it" to your own forum, so many people were disgusted by your ideas that you wanted to try and find acceptance somewhere else?

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Just to clarify this point (I'm NOT on ShawnC's side), I tend to lurk his forum, as I have an interest in getting a carpet in the future, but don't have one yet, and there is lots of good discussion there. The most recent time he brought this topic up over there was actually yesterday.

(Hopefully I'm not violating the rules by linking to it, and if I am, admins, please edit my post to delete the link - I just wanted to provide a timestamped reference.)

My stance is that I take issue with your position that your "culled" animals are somehow better off than the pet homes that I find for my normal males. Not the fact that you feed them off, but that you are so rigid in your belief that they are better served being fed off.

You have provided no evidence that they would be better off dead than adopted out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olstyn

(Hopefully I'm not violating the rules by linking to it, and if I am, admins, please edit my post to delete the link - I just wanted to provide a timestamped reference.)

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Hey...just to clarify something for folks unfamiliar with our site...and for Shawn...

Links to outside sites are FINE so long as they are given to further a specific discussion or show something that is not available here at BP.net. We're pretty generous with allowing links to other sites and not real picky.

So, Shawn...if you say, "I could prove that, but I'd have to link to something and I'm not sure I'm allowed".....so long as it's not an adult-oriented site...link away. Also, the site you own is no mystery and linking to it would not be against our TOS, so long as it's not done for the purpose of recruiting or allowing a forum-war to erupt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olstyn

Just to clarify this point (I'm NOT on ShawnC's side), I tend to lurk his forum, as I have an interest in getting a carpet in the future, but don't have one yet, and there is lots of good discussion there. The most recent time he brought this topic up over there was actually yesterday.

(Hopefully I'm not violating the rules by linking to it, and if I am, admins, please edit my post to delete the link - I just wanted to provide a timestamped reference.)

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I'm aware and I'm sure that there are probably many threads over there that might talk about killing healthy animals in order to "save them from a fate worse than death" or "save the hobby by reducing out footprint" or whatever the line of the day is ... I think my point was more that this isn't a fresh discussion that the OP just decided to "bring to the place that matters" as he claims ... he's been weaving this web for a long time and after 6 months of trying to sell it on his own forum (and failing miserably) he's decided to try and validate his actions by attempting to martyr himself in front a whole new group of people.

Blessings,

-adam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

I'm aware and I'm sure that there are probably many threads over there that might talk about killing healthy animals in order to "save them from a fate worse than death" or "save the hobby by reducing out footprint" or whatever the line of the day is ... I think my point was more that this isn't a fresh discussion that the OP just decided to "bring to the place that matters" as he claims ... he's been weaving this web for a long time and after 6 months of trying to sell it on his own forum (and failing miserably) he's decided to try and validate his actions by attempting to martyr himself in front a whole new group of people.

Blessings,

-adam

---

Fair enough; it just wasn't 100% clear from your post that you knew about the exact situation regarding that discussion over there, so I thought I'd be sure we were all on the same page, so to speak.

Okay, you work with carpets, so let's talk carpets. If you're so concerned about keeping lines pure, why do you create mutts? If you have to feed the mutts off to other creatures (for whatever reason), why do you create them in the first place? It sounds to me like you're as much a part of the "purity" problem as anyone else who creates hybrids.

Then again, I don't really quite understand the difference between "mutts" and hybrids. If everyone is so concerned about the purity of the lines, why do they cross different species of carpets?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eventide

If everyone is so concerned about the purity of the lines, why do they cross different species of carpets?

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There is demand for morphs, and combo morphs. If someone wants an albino jaguar carpet python, it has to be a cross of subspecies.

In addition, aussie carpet pythons can no longer be exported, so except for illegal exportation there is no source for new morphs. This means that designer breeding is limited to a few base morphs, selective breeding, and crossing subspecies.

The problem is that if someone is trying to create an albino jaguar carpet python, they will create "unwanted" crosses that don't even carry the morph genes. These animals are a threat to purists where crosses like albino jags are not. No one will mistake an albino jaguar for anything except what it is, they know it has to be a cross, and it will not be represented as anything except that.

The issue with carpet pythons is that there is a pretty big demand and interest in combo morphs, especially since base morphs are so limited. However, the interest in normal looking "mutts" is worse than the interest in normal male ball pythons, it is considered by a number of people into carpet pythons to be detrimental to their hobby.

In short, breeders interested in selective breeding for looks are at odds with those interested in creating combo morphs, because the selective breeders generally prefer animals that are as pure as possible, to best represent their subspecies. People who are interested in both combo morphs and selective breeding can be at odds with their own desires in the animals they produce.

I hope this answered your question..

A note: I am not a purist, I thoroughly enjoy some of the crosses that have been made and think they are quite interesting animals. However, I do very much dislike animals being sold as anything other than what they are, and it gets hard to keep track of all crossings across many generations as animals pass from one person to another.

Woah. 19 pages.

Uhh, I think both sides have their own beliefs and it should be up to their own personal choices to do what they'd like with their animals. This discussion is going reach a dead end--both sides are passionate with opposing views and beating eachother's posts to death isn't going to do anything.

Can't we just say we know where each side's coming from and leave it at that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by p3titexburial

Can't we just say we know where each side's coming from and leave it at that?

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Are you kidding? This is the internet; arguments don't die until someone mentions Hitler, if even then! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by p3titexburial

Can't we just say we know where each side's coming from and leave it at that?

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I'm sorry, but I cannot. I am morally opposed to the idea of the wholesale killing of healthy animals for no other reason than they're not worthy of investing the time needed to place them into a good, responsible home.

There are literally hundreds of husbandry practices and ideologies in this hobby/business that I don't agree with, but I accept ... but advocating the killing of "lesser" animals is wrong and something I will never accept.

These are not iPods, they're not "widgets", they're not some disposable product that can just be thrown away on a whim ... they are a life and they deserve better.

Everyone else might be willing to shut up and just pretend that it's OK to kill healthy animals because they're "cheap", or hard to find a good home for, or a "mutt", or whatever excuse you want to make for it, but I am not. In my opinon, the mere idea is a reflection of everything that's wrong with this hobby/business.

Blessings,

-adam

So you create these hybrids to cross supspecies, thereby coming up with your morphs. So when you have a non-morph or ugly hybrid you kill it. How long is it then until you or someone else needs that same hybrid to breed? Have you even tried marketing them to other breeders? Think of the years they'd save by not having to create that hybrid.

You compare normal and hybrid "undesireables" to the dogs and cats in shelters. Saying there's too many and they are culled for much the same reason. The big difference here is those dogs & cats were adoptable in the shelter, on display with people coming daily to look at them. While the arguement over animal shelters and euthanasia is a whole different one this situation and yours, where you don't even try to home the snakes, arent't similar in the least. Those dogs & cats had a chance, your snakes never did.

You're not offering any proof, any concrete facts, about how this is "bettering the hobby." Where's the proof? Speculation is just that and I could sit here all day arguing the moon is made out of cheese and it must be true because you can't prove it's not cheese up there. You're speculating that the way a person would treat one thing versus another is the same for an animal. I disagree. People who keep pets, as would be the situation with a normal male, do form attachments to them. I'm sure there are situations of neglect and abuse with "low value" animals but can you prove to me there isn't any, or there is significantly less for more valuable ones? To the point that would justify never even giving the animal, or its possible happy owner, a chance?

The fact you feed snakes you breed is not what is being argued here. While a lot of readers and respondents wouldn't do so or perhaps disagree with it the arguement is over how you are handling your "undesireables."

Your contradictions and speculations aren't gaining you any credibility. I sincerely hope that your full name or business name comes out here so that I can avoid your business like a plague.

adam, jlc, rabernet, and wilomn are on FIRE :gj:

i admire shawnc for debating for what he believes in and wont give up, but i'd hafta agree with wilomn and adam, that u r just giving the WRONG thing a fancy name. as adam said "call it what you want", its still wrong :oops:

good topic.
this is the debate about the fine line between breeding for the love of the animals, and farming for the profit. very very VERY fine line.

saving all the points being made lol. :D

Thanks for the explanation, Mainbutter!

It's a mistake to think that lowering the supply of CBB animals will somehow reduce the number of imports. People in the US pay attention to the bottom line. If we have a problem educating people NOW, why on earth would you think they will listen when you tell them they should pay more for a CBB baby instead of a CH baby from a chain pet store?

The only way you're going to reduce importation is by reducing the demand for imports. The demand will ONLY go down when CBB animals are so plentiful that they are CHEAPER than imports. When it is no longer economically wise for people to import ball pythons instead of buying them from US breeders, they will stop importing them. It's not exactly free to send a crateload of snakes from Africa to the US. The wholesalers do not care where they came from, as long as they can supply all the retailers who purchase in bulk from them. So, ball pythons are worth 8 bucks apiece? You can get a kitten for free. That's not the point.

If you want to improve things for ball pythons in captivity, you must educate people. You have to approach it on two fronts. If you make the animals inaccessible to them, they won't care, and they won't pay attention. The only way they will care is if they can have one themselves. Reducing the supply and raising the prices accomplishes NOTHING. The animals are not considered 'disposable' because they are cheap. They're NOT actually cheap--I already made that point. Have you checked the price in your local chain store for an ordinary ball python? I'd be happy to get that price for a male pastel. :P

Peoples' attitude towards reptiles in general has to be changed--they need to see them as living, feeling beings that deserve care as much as a cat or a dog does. Right now, people care very little more for them than they do for goldfish (fish are treated most cruelly, especially when you consider they are vertebrates with full capability for feeling pain, and the same emotional range as reptiles). An expensive koi may be looked after well, but it is still 'just a fish'.
THAT is the attitude that has to be worked against. By assuming that people will get veterinary care for an animal regularly, and making that assumption part of your speech, part of all your care sheets, part of your advice--by making sure they have proper care information available plentifully. By publicly condemning retailers that have inadequate conditions for their animals. By taking YOUR animals down to the public library and giving a talk on reptile care. There are SO many ways you can help. Of course, they all require more work than tossing a snake into a monitor cage and patting yourself on the back for saving it from being purchased by a newbie.

Now, on the other hand, the folks saying there is something inherently wrong about ending the lives of animals in a breeding program because you think they are imperfect--that's completely hypocritical coming from anyone who has a rat or mouse feeder colony, and culls any animal that shows signs of a problem, temperament issue, or just doesn't make the cut as a future breeder. Which most of us who raise feeder colonies do routinely. I completely deny there is any difference between this and raising an animal for any other purpose. It certainly does not matter to the animals why you are raising them. I don't think you get brownie points from the universe for valuing one animal higher than another, or treating it differently because you do. I like rats. I think they're cool animals. I still raise them to feed my snakes, and I cull any of them that bite me immediately. I cull the ones I don't like the colors of, that act too nervous, or that seem less healthy or less vigorous. They all wind up as snake food.

I'm not disagreeing with culling normal ball pythons because I think they're more important than rats in the grand scheme of things. I disagree with it because A) public perception would value them higher (whether it's right or wrong--of course, rat fanciers would disagree!), B) it's a waste of income, and inefficiency just bugs me C) it's bad for the hobby and detracts from efforts to end importation by increasing the supply of normal cbb balls available to pet stores (which used to be a very deliberate goal set forth by the reptile nation, and HAS worked with some species already), and D) the animals you're feeding them off to don't require snakes as food, and snakes are difficult to produce in comparison with readily available feeders that those animals can eat.

If you were feeding them to stubborn king cobras, I honestly wouldn't have any problem with it. There are a number of ophiphagus species out there, and some individuals can be quite stubborn about refusing to accept rodent prey. Ball pythons are fairly large at hatching, and thus would make more substantial prey items for such species--being cbb, they would be parasite-free, and thus safer than feeding WC garters or other wild caught species. But that isn't the case here.
Heck. You could contact people who keep ophiphagus species, and offer them your unwanted snakes at a discount, and I bet they would be glad for the offer. That would still be a better choice than the one you're making.

This is a justification of wasting perfectly good ball pythons as food for animals that don't actually need to eat them, due to the mistaken idea that their lives have no other value.

Hmm...I am not real sure where to start on this one. I think that the biggest part of this thread that was missing, was the part where the OP waited for so long to mention that hybridization was a factor of the culling.
I have been an aquarium hobbyist for about 8 years now and I am still not sure where I stand on hybridization. I am sure many of you are wondering what that has to do with hybridization at all. Well.....just type in the words "flowerhorn" on any purist cichlid forum or mention the word hybrid and prepare to be flamed.
It has gotten so bad in the hobby that there are very few sources of some species of fish that are pure. Amphilophus trimaculatus, Amphilophus citrinellus, Amphilophus labiatus, and Amphilophus festae are just a few species that have been so muddied, that in order to get a pure strain you have to find someone who has wild caughts or f1 available. The day when you can walk into ANY pet store and find them has gone. Sure, petsmart and other places sell what they "call" a midas or a red devil, but it is simply a mislabled animal.
People have been creating these gorgeous, high selling hybrid fish, but at what cost to the hobby? I personally do not have an issue with hybridization as long as the animal is sold as it is, not as something it "looks like".
I can see where the OP is coming from on this point of view. It would be very detrimental to his hobby (carpet pythons specifically not bps) if he did not cull some of his animals. IME with fish, I have sold a hybrid fish (I didn't breed) to the pet store and told them exactly what it was only to have it mislabeled and sold as something else. It can be very disappointing to buy an animal while thinking it is one thing then to have it identified as another.
However, the question has to be asked....Why even bother hybridizing these animals if it could pose such a huge threat on the purity of these animals? What happens when pure strains of them are gone due to hybridizing? Why hybridize them at all if the end result is having to cull the ones that aren't the "what you wanted"?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by accidental777

However, the question has to be asked....Why even bother hybridizing these animals if it could pose such a huge threat on the purity of these animals? What happens when pure strains of them are gone due to hybridizing? Why hybridize them at all if the end result is having to cull the ones that aren't the "what you wanted"?

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There are 3 answers to this question.

Number one: Money

Number two: More Money

Number three: Greed

That's it. There is NO other reason for these snakes to exist than to be sold. I don't know of a single person who cross breeds snakes and keeps all the offsrping. I don't know anyone who does this that gives away all their babies. I know more than a few, including the op here, who sell them which leads us directly to answers One, Two and finally, Three.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wilomn

There are 3 answers to this question.

Number one: Money

Number two: More Money

Number three: Greed

That's it. There is NO other reason for these snakes to exist than to be sold. I don't know of a single person who cross breeds snakes and keeps all the offsrping. I don't know anyone who does this that gives away all their babies. I know more than a few, including the op here, who sell them which leads us directly to answers One, Two and finally, Three.

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Of course they couldn't be doing it because they want to see the results...?

Obviously money is a big factor, but to characterize it as the only factor is myopic at best. There are far better (and quicker) ways to get rich than breeding snakes, as you well know. There must be at least some interest in snakes from the breeders or they wouldn't bother.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olstyn

Of course they couldn't be doing it because they want to see the results...?

Obviously money is a big factor, but to characterize it as the only factor is myopic at best. There are far better (and quicker) ways to get rich than breeding snakes, as you well know. There must be at least some interest in snakes from the breeders or they wouldn't bother.

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Nope. I said what I meant. In this instance, since there is no one I know of giving away his offspring, there may be but I don't know of anyone, every single breeder is selling excess offspring.

This isn't about getting rich, it's about making something, sometimes anything, back off and investment and hobby.

If any money at all changes hands, the snakes are a commodity, bought and sold for profit and loss.

IF you were in it to see what happens and that were the only reason, selling your babies, or culling the ugly ones, would not be a concern at all.

I can see where you could think I was referring to all carpet breeders, and in a round about way I am but in that I am referring to all of us who breed and make money off snakes but this guy in particular whose sole motivation is profit.

I didn't claim that you didn't mean what you said, nor did I claim that money was not a motivating factor, nor do I think people should give away their offspring for free (in the general case, at least), but I stand by what I said before. The idea that an enterprise of this sort is entered into solely for monetary reasons is just silly.

Also, the idea that the OP's sole motivation is profit is provably false. If that were true, he'd sell every snake he produces; I don't know what a baby "mutt" carpet goes for wholesale, but it's gotta be more than a single feeder rat/fish/whatever he normally feeds his arrowanna and/or his monitor lizard. Therefore, he *loses* some amount of money every time he culls a healthy snake. If his sole motivation was profit, that would be unacceptable for him.

Note, however, that I do not support his actions - I'm just trying to get you to see that your apparently black and white view of the world may need a little bit of adjustment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olstyn

I'm just trying to get you to see that your apparently black and white view of the world may need a little bit of adjustment.

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When you distill everything down to "Why" it really is that simple. The sole purpose of a business is to make money, no matter how you look at it that is the end goal of that company. The means in which they choose to make that money is a whole other ball game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olstyn

I didn't claim that you didn't mean what you said, nor did I claim that money was not a motivating factor, nor do I think people should give away their offspring for free (in the general case, at least), but I stand by what I said before. The idea that an enterprise of this sort is entered into solely for monetary reasons is just silly.

Also, the idea that the OP's sole motivation is profit is provably false. If that were true, he'd sell every snake he produces; I don't know what a baby "mutt" carpet goes for wholesale, but it's gotta be more than a single feeder rat/fish/whatever he normally feeds his arrowanna and/or his monitor lizard. Therefore, he *loses* some amount of money every time he culls a healthy snake. If his sole motivation was profit, that would be unacceptable for him.

Note, however, that I do not support his actions - I'm just trying to get you to see that your apparently black and white view of the world may need a little bit of adjustment.

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I still disagree.

He's feeding them off because that is easier, cheaper, less hassle, all of which are factors in any business, than finding them good homes.

I think he feels guilty about that and so threads like this one are started.

He's accepted responsibility for his own creations, well and good, but his reasoning is false.

In this instance in particular and to a large, perhaps exclusive degree, I think he's motivated by profit, or if not profit per se, what he can get for his snakes.

It's easier for him to feed an 8 dollar baby to his fish than it is to sell it, pack it, and ship it. That's business and I completely understand that.

Saying how brave and humble he is by doing that and having the nerve to talk about when mysterious others do the same yet remain silent is balderdash.

I see shades of grey. Not here, but I do see them.

It might be "fun" to hybridize things to find out what you end up with, but it is not "fun" anymore when pure species start disappearing because of it. Like I said, look at the cichlid hobby, you will see what I mean.
Like Wes posted, if it was a "project" to see what hybrid pairings produce and if he kept all of his offspring from such as, it would be different.
For one, he is producing them to make a profit. Secondly, they are being sold to people who may breed them later on and sell them as a pure species. Third, he is using hybridization as an excuse to cull healthy animals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wilomn

I still disagree.

He's feeding them off because that is easier, cheaper, less hassle, all of which are factors in any business, than finding them good homes.

I think he feels guilty about that and so threads like this one are started.

He's accepted responsibility for his own creations, well and good, but his reasoning is false.

In this instance in particular and to a large, perhaps exclusive degree, I think he's motivated by profit, or if not profit per se, what he can get for his snakes.

It's easier for him to feed an 8 dollar baby to his fish than it is to sell it, pack it, and ship it. That's business and I completely understand that.

Saying how brave and humble he is by doing that and having the nerve to talk about when mysterious others do the same yet remain silent is balderdash.

I see shades of grey. Not here, but I do see them.

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Well, I can actually agree with you on most of that. I only take exception to the "cheaper," and *possibly* the "guilty," but that second one is very difficult to objectively evaluate, so I'll just let it go. You're definitely right that what he's doing is easier than what rabernet does with her excess low-value babies. (IMO her method is awesome, BTW; all baby snakes should be so lucky as to be born at her house.)

I also agree that it's not brave or humble or impressive to talk about what he's doing.

All that said, I still don't think he'd breed snakes at all if he didn't personally enjoy them at least somewhat. I'm just not willing to believe that someone would willingly deal with the daily maintenance of a collection of snakes solely for money. He must like them at least a little bit.

I'm not saying it's not the darkest shade of gray that you can differentiate from black, but it just can't be pure black and white. Just about nothing in this world is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olstyn

I'm not saying it's not the darkest shade of gray that you can differentiate from black, but it just can't be pure black and white. Just about nothing in this world is.

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Again I must, respectfully, disagree.

Right is right, wrong is wrong. Truth is truth and what isn't, isn't.

That's plain and simple and black and white.

There is nothing wrong with what he's doing.

The excuses he offers have been proven fallacious more than once. That either makes him terribly stupid, which you seem to think he is not, or a liar, which I am certain he is.

Whether or not he is a terribly stupid liar or just terribly stupid is no doubt the subject of many conversations in the last 2 days.