Culling Healthy Animals

[ShawnC]

Let me first explain that I am not trying to start any fights, but I am trying to get some open, and honest debate going on a topic that I feel is long overdue in our Hobby. It is my position, and it has been for a long time, that culling of perfectly healthy animals is a good thing when apposed to just dumping massive numbers of them into the public marketplace.

Below is a post that I made in another forum where we are debating this very thing. I am begging you all PLEASE do not fight, and keep this in the tone that it is intended, which is a fair, and reasonable debate on the pro's and con's of what we, as serious hobbiest's do to our own hobby by breeding enourmous amounts of these animals every year.

I should preface this by saying that I do cull a small percentage of animals that I feel are better served by being used as feeders for my Monitor Lizard, and my Arrowanna fish, rather than sent out into the marketplace as junk snakes. I should also point out that I work with Carpet pythons alot, so I am talking alot about hybridized, ugly brown carpets, but this arguement can be made for Normal Balls as well. So here goes..please read below, and post what you think is right or wrong?

"I love this debate, because it's all about feelings. These are ANIMALS that we work with as a hobby. They are not my pet like my dog. I probably should have said I love my hobby, as that is much more accurate than I love my snakes. I don't cry and get all upset if I loose a snake...but I bawl when I loose a dog. They are two different things to me. A dog is a part of my family, my pet. My snakes are my hobby. This is a hobby that I enjoy, and I won't jeapordize my hobby to make you guys feel better about killing off unwanted animals (which is good for the hobby). There is ethically, absoutely, no difference, between breeding rats and feeding them off, and breeding snakes and feeding them off. Its done with hundreds if not thousand of species of animals all over the world, every day. Snakes are no different. You like snakes...so it doens't feel right, but ethically, it absolutely is.

I would take it one further and argue that, I am doing ugly snakes a service by ending their lives quickly rather than letting them changes hands from owner to owner dozens of times, until eventually they die from abuse or worse, they escape or are let loose (both hurt our hobby enormously). This is what happens to the majority of ugly, unwanted animals, including snakes. So under the guise of you loving your animals, you send tens of thousands of them (unwanted) off each year, to die much more prolonged deaths, than merely being eaten by a natural predator. This decision is about your feelings, not logical thinking and/or the betterment of the hobby. It's about your heart, whch I totally get, but is the reason the hobby is in the state that it's in.

Now that all said. I think you guys think that I just kill off everything that I produce thats not a morph. Thats not what I said. I said if I have really ugly, unsellable stock, (which is a pretty small percentage) that has no chance of being purchased by someone that I know will care for the animal properly, I see no reason to not feed it to my lizard or my giant fish. Snakes are prey for both animals in the wild. Especialy baby snakes. It's completely normal. No different than deciding one day to throw them one of my mice or rats.

BTW, before you call me money hungry only wanting to keep the best, easiest selling snakes, keep in mind that thats counterproductive. I can always find a jobber to buy my left overs each season for $40 per animals. 10 snakes times $40 each is still $400. Thats alot of cash. It's not about the money. It's about weather or not I think it's a good thing for the hobby to be sending out animals that I know are undesirable and, in most cases, destined to have not so great lives anyway.

You guys want to see all of the designer stuff ,and you want to work on all the projects for double, triple, even quadruple mutations...then you have to deal with the truth which is that in order to make those, you produce lots of normal snakes (in every species, not just carpets). If you think dumping them into the marketplace is good for the animals, and good for the hobby, you'd be dead wrong."

S~

[Adam_Wysocki]

I morally cannot get past the idea of killing a healthy animal that many many responsible people would gladly provide a forever home for.

I feel that if you are producing these animals, then you have taken on the responsibility of either keeping or finding responsible forever homes for every life that you produce.

To me, your analogy that feeding off these "less than acceptable" animals is no different than breeding rodents as feeders doesn't cut the mustard. If you were specifically breeding snakes for food (like rodent breeders do with rodents) or if your pets would not eat any other prey item than snakes I might be able to understand. But this is not the case, you are making a choice to end a life that doesn't have to be ended. You also are not feeding off ALL of your offspring, just the ones that you personally don't like.

Blaming the "irresponsible public" for the willful killing of a perfectly healthy animal has always been a perverted sense of logic that I've never been able to understand. Pointing a finger and saying that if I don't kill these animals someone else will or someone will let it go or someone will let it suffer is complete crap ... the exact same thing could happen with the animals that you put a high value on and decide not to kill. Maybe the solution is to screen your customers more thoroughly, maybe you shouldn't produce as many offspring, maybe you shouldn't breed at all. But I can say with absolute certainty that justifying the killing of a perfectly healthy animal by blaming the public at large is pathetic.

The bottom line is that I value life ... all life ... I despise the idea of ending a healthy life for any reason, even if that reason is feeding my animals ... but there is a cycle of life that I have respect for and until an alternative solution presents itself, I must follow. But playing god by picking and choosing which lives have value and which lives are acceptable to destroy is something that I personally don't believe that any person has the right to do.

Blessings,

-adam

[Spaniard]

Adam thank you for saving me a lot of typing I whole heartedly agree...

[2moores]

[ShawnC]

I feel that if you are producing these animals, then you have taken on the responsibility of either keeping or finding responsible forever homes for every life that you produce.

So when you produce 100 (i don't know if you do or not, its a rhetorical question) normal Ball pythons, and you wholsale them for $10 each to a jobber, does that qualify as taking responsibility, or is that just making a quick buck? Be honest with yourself I emplore you.

To me, your analogy that feeding off these "less than acceptable" animals is no different than breeding rodents as feeders doesn't cut the mustard.

Why not? I am nto freezing them or chopping their heads off. I am choosing to use them as feeders to care for my other animals.

Blaming the "irresponsible public" for the willful killing of a perfectly healthy animal has always been a perverted sense of logic that I've never been able to understand. Pointing a finger and saying that if I don't kill these animals someone else will or someone will let it go or someone will let it suffer is complete crap ... the exact same thing could happen with the animals that you put a high value on and decide not to kill. Maybe the solution is to screen your customers more thoroughly, maybe you shouldn't produce as many offspring, maybe you shouldn't breed at all. But I can say with absolute certainty that justifying the killing of a perfectly healthy animal by blaming the public at large is pathetic.

In your opinion. My opinion is, it's more ethical of me to take the responsibility and make the choice to feed them off. Why would I want to sell them off cheap, with no sayso on where they go and who cares for them, when they are, based on market value, not likely to have a high quality of life? I would argue you are not taking responsibility when you do that. It's much easier to just sell them. (Again, you being the guy who may, or may not produce a bunch of unwanted snakes) Expensive animals are much more likely to be cared for properly. Thats just basic common sense. There are exceptions to every rule...but you have to look at this from the majority point of view.

The bottom line is that I value life ... all life ... I despise the idea of ending a healthy life for any reason, even if that reason is feeding my animals ... but there is a cycle of life that I have respect for and until an alternative solution presents itself, I must follow. But playing god by picking and choosing which lives have value and which lives are acceptable to destroy is something that I personally don't believe that any person has the right to do.

You are already playing god by deciding to breed reptiles in captivity. These animals do not need you to do that for them I assure you. you do it for personal pleasure. When you make that decision, you also make the decision to feed and care for them. Why then are you not willing to take the next responsbile step, both for the animals and the hobby, and figure out a reasonalble way to deal with the offspring...both desirable, and undesirable? Is ti really a good idea, good for the animals, and good for our hobby to send out tens if not hundreds of thousands of cheap, ugly snakes into a marketplace full of impulse buyers?


S~

[mainbutter]

So when you cull snakes, they become feeders?

As long as you're not being wasteful in ending the animals life, I'm ok with your actions.

The attitude towards the hobby and your animals however is a little unfortunate. My reptiles are both my hobby and my pets. I care for them every bit as much as I have cared for social, cuddly, fuzzy, warm pets I have had in the past. They are not simply living art to me.

[MsPrada]

Why would I want to sell them off cheap, with no sayso on where they go and who cares for them, when they are, based on market value, not likely to have a high quality of life?
S~

I'd like to know why you would have no say so when its your animals to give, and where is your proof that low market value=low quality of life.

[ShawnC]

I, like most of you, do not LIKE to kill things. Even feeder rodents. Thats why I feed/cull to other critters. Somehow it feels more natural than just killing them for no purpose, and I don't feel so bad. I just see this is as a cradle to grave reponsibility as a breeder. If you want to breed snakes, you are going to have to deal responsibly with ALL of the offspring...not just the ones that sell well. Dumping them into the marketplace I think is bad from every angle. It just sucks to cull them, so we don't do it...but I think we should.

S~

[JLC]

It sounds like you're expecting everyone to share your philosophy on "responsible" breeding. You don't want an open debate...you want to convince everyone that what you're doing is "responsible." Sorry, though...MOST of the folks who participate here (and on sites like this one) have a lot more respect for life than that.

You accuse them of being irresponsible because they don't choose the cheap and easy way out of raising, feeding, and marketing the "undesirables" in their clutches? Seriously???

[WingedWolfPsion]

My 2 cents, as I just spotted this thread:

Normal ball pythons are in high demand in the pet trade. Morphs are in virtually 0 demand in the pet trade. By providing quality (by which I mean healthy) normal ball pythons to the pet trade, we may potentially be reducing the demand for CH or wild caught ball pythons, which is desirable.

I have no sympathy for the notion that ugly snakes should be culled...in part because I think they are NOT ugly. Normal ball pythons, for example, are beautiful animals. I sell my normal males to a local pet store for a fair price--it's above wholesale. The rest I sell to individuals locally as pets. I have no problem selling my normal ball pythons. Once I am producing very large numbers of them, of course I will have to sell them wholesale, instead, but they'll wind up in the hands of individuals who want them for pets.

Ball pythons don't breed like rats. There is no good purpose served in culling them, it's just a waste of life.