More mud in the debate over WC Gravids

I think BHB said he bought a snake for around $100,000 or some ungodly high number and never proved out. Most expensive normal he owns.

There are obvious things you need to watch out for, being they are WC.

The stress thing I'm not to sure about. The only scientific way to measure stress is through Cortisol content in blood and I can't find anything about it causeing anomalies. If you have information I'd like to see it so I can better understand it, hopefully its not just speculation.

Maybe Heather can help she work in labs testing stuff.

There is an idea going around about melanistic ball pythons that dont prove genetic. The emphasis being stressed that the conditions of the eggs during incubation were not at the optimal levels and the animal that hatched out of it was super dark. Two different breeders, almost same conditions, and they both got some dark balls. This is just pure speculation though, but something to think about, and can't readily throw out environmental stress as a factor in color and development.

I was going to quote some posts but WOW. is all I have to say about somethings said here.

Ok I will state my opinion.

1) If these adults were not shipped here I bet they would have been kept by said importer and the babies sold and picked through as all the others have been. They have their groups that lay and hatch and that is our farmed babies. The ones that has been said in this thread to be batter to go through. Them babis come from WC adults.

2) The bigger breeders or breeders that have been in it a long time do get dibs on the odd balls. 99% of the time one of them take the odd ball. But still that does not mean that a WC gravid female can not throw a dinker. This is what all morphs are untill proven.

3) if you support morphs then importing is a must.

4) Unless you know for a fact how these ball pythons are treated you can not say they are abused. I have personally seen Ron Billingsly's place. He keeps these snakes in great condition. And when they lay they are still taken care of. He gets 99% of them eating and treated. When I have a WC animal not eating I ask him. I think he has a secret power over noneaters lol.

I am not trying to fight. Just stating that all moprhs came from dinker balls that are WC.

all that is happening is the some of the gravids are being shippid over here instead of them sitting at the "farm" and then them laying and the farmers hatching the babies and picking through them.

What happens to all the adults? I can tell you Rons are taken care of while he has them. The other people I can not comment on. I have a dinker project from a WC gravid last year. The Ball Pythons all have silver eyes well half the clutch did. I had 9 eggs 9 hatched and 5 have the silver eyes. The female ate small rats after she laid. She was treated for internal parasites and that was that.

How many proven morphs came from WC gravid females. Ron got Red Axanthics last year. I honestly could not believe it.

Also Ivories have been hatched from WC gravid Females.

Not saying that saying that too many or too little have been imported. But they would be collected no matter what. The famrers know that the farmed babies will sell. No matter what. And they do not have to feed the Gravid females. They just have to sit and wait for eggs. Now them females are in the US. Do some die I bet you they do. DO some get kept and breed again. I bet they do.

It's been interesting reading this thread considering we have two of those adult female WC's in our collection.

One is absolutely confirmed as being a gravid imported adult female who did lay her clutch in the States, was traded off to another owner, and then came to us as a non-eating rescue. By all reports Danu either never ate or ate VERY sparingly during her year in captivity prior to coming into our hands. She was only 800 grams and skinny when we received her. After a lot of work and months of careful care she is now finally eating multiple ASF's once per week and gaining back her weight.

The other is a suspected import, perhaps gravid, we'll never know that part. We did confirm that somehow this adult female BP ended up in a nasty pet store in Michigan, was taken from there by a caring vet tech, treated for her internal and external parasite load, and a large open wound tended to. That wound on examination by more than one vet was determined to have likely come from either a snake hook or capture stick used too roughly. She never ate. She went to another owner, she never ate. When she came to us as a rescue she was down to 600 grams. I hope to never hold an adult female BP in my hands again that weighs only 600 grams...it's heartbreaking. Months of work, worry, well we are now 2 years into her rehabilitation and Saoirse's pretty much okay now. We've never solved the riddle of her winter fasting, we likely never will with this one so her weight gain is slow but steady.

All the talk of numbers and maybe you'll get a morph. I just wanted to put a "face" on those numbers for some of you. This is about a living, breathing creature that does deserve some sort of decent existance. I have no problem with Ungo and his family making a living from a renewable resource, I have no problem with controlled importation under CITES. My problem will always be with what happens to some of these females after that clutch is laid and maybe they just aren't worth the work anymore. :(

The abused animals are not becuase they are imported. They happen to all animals and morphs.

I will give a story.

I had a very very nice pair of Ghosts boas a little over a year ago. These snakes were awesome but not breedable yet and I offered them up for sale. They were about 4 foot a piece. The male could have bred being 2 years old but you know. But I sold this pair of snakes a year ago for 2400 dollars.

We contacted the people we sold them to. I wanted the female back. I asked how much they would sell her for. I was thinking 8 months of feeding she could be over 5 foot maybe a bit more. But nothing. They would not sell. Then a few months later We get a call. They wanted to trade us the female ghost we wanted for some snakes I had. Cool

I had a 5 foot 100% het Kahl Albino, A Orange Tail Hypo and a normal female. They wanted them all. i wanted this female that bad I said yes.

I drive to meet the guy. What I see I was in shock. I mean I felt sick to my stomach.

I open the bag to see the ghost with over 5 sheds on her head and SHE LOOKED SMALLER! My 06 Orange tail was 4 foot and the ghost was the same size(length) but thinner. I have pics of the ghost before they got it. She was AWESOME. But they let this animal go down hill. BAD. He still wanted to trade and I thought to myself WHAT. But I kept my hypo and traded him the het and the normal and said I would contact him.

The ghost died 4 hours later. NO CRAP! 4 HOURS! I was a little upset. I do nto get upset with much. I wanted my snakes back. I did end up getting them back that night. and i seen the rest of his collection. All looked ok but he would not let me in the house lol.

But that was a very very expensive snake. He abused. He said she never ate. but that snake did not know what refused meant. I mean she slammed food.

I could not believe that. I kicked myself in the butt for even trading and the thought of my other two snakes being in his care. But emotions got the better of me at the time and i wanted to save that ghost.

So it is not the importation. It is not the animals. It is just wrong people keeping. That deal almost made me stop selling. Really

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Originally Posted by Tosha_Mc

We do know that stress can change a snakes color - we know that being gravid hormones, etc. can change a snakes color - we know that often times gravid females whether imported or cb change color to have an axanthic or ghostly appearance - but prior to or after laying their eggs return to normal - and this is not a genetic condition -

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How is it that you know this? What source do you refer to for surety?

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however we see the ads in the classifieds that these wc females are these morphs - most likely they are not anything other than normal girls and will return to their normal looking colors after laying their eggs.

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Again, where do you find this? How many have you seen that looked one way when imported and another after laying? 3, 6, 12, 100?

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We also know that stress (in various forms) on the mother during her "pregnancy" and/or stress on the egg can cause anomalies in what would otherwise be a normal hatchling.

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How do WE know this? I sure don't know this. I am curious as to what you are basing the fact that YOU know this on.

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That is to say - even tho these WC hatchlings, captive hatch hatchlings or even some oddball captive bred hatchlings look odd different etc. - they are really genetically just normals until proven otherwise.

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Finally, a fact.

I'm looking for the origins of your facts tasha? Did you just make this stuff up? Did someone tell you? Did you read it in a book or a website? Are you the victim of a cruel hoax?

Where did you get the facts you post?

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Originally Posted by Gary Orner

The abused animals are not becuase they are imported. They happen to all animals and morphs.

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I'm well aware of abuse, Gary, we've other female snakes here with the scars to attest to their previous owner's mistakes and poor care.

The fact is though with some of these imported gravid females, there are going to be a certain percentage of people that aren't looking out for the snakes, they are looking for a shortcut. Shortcuts might be fine if those type of people cared much for the creatures themselves but I think we all know a few in this hobby/industry who really don't care all that much. So these females, at least some of them, get dumped and as with the two we ended up with, they aren't in great shape and need careful management.

It's one thing to abuse an animal because you are stupid or didn't bother to educate yourself or are just plain mean natured - that's awful and very sad. For me though, it's a different category of mean when you know how to manage them correctly and make the decision that certain snakes are just not worth the hassle once you've gotten the clutch.

Holy spit. The thread ran away without me. Just got home from the lab so give me a little time to review.........


Cheers,
Kat

Brimstone:

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The only scientific way to measure stress is through Cortisol content in blood and I can't find anything about it causeing anomalies. If you have information I'd like to see it so I can better understand it, hopefully its not just speculation.

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Cortisol is primarily in mammals. In reptiles and amphibs the governing adrenal hormone is corticosterone.

wilomn: I'm leaving Ungo out of this. If you go down that road it leads to african politics and the resposibility of developed nations. A whole nother thread in and of itself.

Rather than play the whole "if it wasn't us importing them someone else would" game (which is a total cop-out defense common among teenagers). Lets focus on the mature issue, namely our decision as a community to consider our own impacts.

The idea that if you love morphs, you must support imports is no longer relevant. 5-10 years ago, yes absolutely. Again, take a good look at how many bp's are currently in the states and then stop and imagine how many independent alleles that is. I'm not talking about the million combinations still to be made from 'cookbook' morphs we already have discovered, I'm giving reference to the very real possibility that there are a great many 'normals' in captive collections that could probably yield some pretty interesting new phenotypes with a little time and patience.

The reality is, as long as people can justify it to themselves, WC gravid females will continue to be imported. I, personally, choose not to participate in that avenue. Do I want to see morphs dry up? Of course not, but I would like to see some focus on the resources we already possess.

For those who believe that imports drive the morphs that drive the industry, a question. Where does it stop? Think we are still going to be importing huge volumes of snakes in 10 years? in 25? 50? Would you consider the practice sustainable (again leaving out human rights and the economics of africa)?

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Kat

So are you only upset with Ball pythons being imported.

There are also morphs in the UK that are not in the states.

You do not want Gravids imported or all Ball Pythons?

Australia shut down their doors and their species in the states are hurting from it.

Is there enough here. Maybe but at the same time. there is always something new out there that is wanted.

The reason I brought up morphs and mports is. I see people say all the time we import Ball pythons that should stop but when you look at their collection it is full of morphs. And some fairly new morphs. Without the importing them morphs would not be here.