Culling Healthy Animals

[JLC]

They are the OP's animals...and he can do with them as he chooses, so long as it is legal. I respect his frankness with regards to his practice. I'm sure there are other breeders out there who do things with their animals that we would find distasteful or even abhorrent, but they wouldn't dare admit it so openly.

But the OP DID bring it up...and challenged folks to debate and discuss...and therefore, I feel perfectly free to make my feelings known about what I think of his practices.

The world is filled with back yard breeders and puppy mills and and greedy snake breeders....most of whom operate within the bounds of the law...even if just barely. That doesn't make what they do right. And just because some people do that doesn't mean the rest of us should throw up our hands and say, "Oh well...world sucks, so why bother trying to do the right thing with my own animals?"

So yeah...the guy can do whatever he wants with his animals. But you can be darned sure that he won't ever make a sale to me, or to just about anyone I know. All I can do is be responsible for my own animals....AND I can make responsible, educated choices about who I choose to give my money to.

[Muze]

As I am reading the latest responses in this thread, I am cuddling my 'ugly' dog, Molly. She is not a beauty. Legs too long for her body, ears that are too short for her head. She is a mixed breed dog that most would not find pretty. And the thought that someone could have decided that she was too ugly to live and fed them to their pet retic or gator is horrible. Yet Molly has lived a pretty good life with me for over 11 years now...hmmm...I know that is not the case for every dog like her, but it's a good enough reason for me to believe that culling healthy animals is ridiculous.

[catawhat75]

And for most of us as breeders, the work part comes when we take all of our undesirable animals and wholesale them in a lot to jobber for a tidy profit correct? That's what most...not all..but most of us do with them.

Doesn't that make us alot like a puppy mill? We are the guys who are providing tons of new animals each year, when there are already more out there than their needs to be. Thats kinda my point.

You are making it sound like we are all this noble group who makes sure our less than valuable animals find great homes...but thats not what we do. We blow them out the door, and it's no longer our problem. I think thats the part we needs to work on. We either stop breeding...which we probably wont' do because we love it, or we find other ways to deal with those offspring. I feed mine off, and I think thats a perfectly natural, ethical way to deal with it.

S~

Speak for yourself and please don't speak for me (or likely, the VAST majority of members). I do not see normals or the "not pretty ones" as undesirable. I do not sell to jobbers, I do not cull healthy animals. If an animal doesn't sell, I keep it and care for it as I do for all others. What bothers me is the attitude, not the actions.

I think the majority of breeders on this site DO make sure a knowledgeable home is provided, or offer to help. I know I do. There is a reason I frequent this board and the breeders here- their actions speak volumes to me.

Judy, I couldn't have said it better, I know who I won't even think about buying from!

Adam, you know I adore you and agree on many points you made about shelters but I think that is one subject I will shy away from discussing with you!

[Hulihzack]

Thanks Judy and Adam, couldn't agree more.

[jglass38]

Speak for yourself and please don't speak for me (or likely, the VAST majority of members). I do not see normals or the "not pretty ones" as undesirable. I do not sell to jobbers, I do not cull healthy animals. If an animal doesn't sell, I keep it and care for it as I do for all others. What bothers me is the attitude, not the actions.

I think the majority of breeders on this site DO make sure a knowledgeable home is provided, or offer to help. I know I do. There is a reason I frequent this board and the breeders here- their actions speak volumes to me.

Judy, I couldn't have said it better, I know who I won't even think about buying from!

Adam, you know I adore you and agree on many points you made about shelters but I think that is one subject I will shy away from discussing with you!

Thanks for posting this. I couldn't agree more and definitely couldn't have articulated it as well.

[Raptor]

but it's a good enough reason for me to believe that culling healthy animals is ridiculous.

If you're trying to better a breed, culling healthy animals is needed. Not all of them are breeding quality. Three examples of culls that I have personally dealt with:

Chocolate: Had trouble standing up at birth and required a lot of help. Once he got over this, he was fine, was always a bit slow, but otherwise, decently healthy. He's still the same size that he was at about five months old. He was castrated due to being a low percentage and the issues that he had as a kid. The qualities he had at birth plus his extremely slow growth rate makes him a poor choice for breeding stock since he's a meat breed.

Fort: Always great, no issues whatsoever. Very independent, never sick. Castrated due to us not know his sire, and his small size. Also not good breeding stock, mainly due to his unknown pedigree (we unknowingly bought his dam pregnant).

Freezer: Never sick, very active. Aggressive and pushy. Castrated due to his low percentage, but mainly due to his aggressiveness. An aggressive male is not a good thing especially when they get massive horns and up to 200+ pounds.

The three above could have easily been kept intact and sold off as commercial sires. Would they have produced good offspring? Very unlikely. I'd also like to say that I don't show or anything.

As I said before. I'm neutral on the subject. I have no issue with owning animals and using them for food (goats, chickens), nor with raising animals that will eventually be fed to something else (mice). With breeding a large amount of animals, you're going to get undesirables/ones that just won't sell.

[ShawnC]

Speak for yourself and please don't speak for me (or likely, the VAST majority of members). I do not see normals or the "not pretty ones" as undesirable. I do not sell to jobbers, If an animal doesn't sell, I keep it and care for it as I do for all others. What bothers me is the attitude, not the actions.

Then you would be a minority. Mostlarge scale breeders..people who produce more than 100 animals per year, can not make these claims. I have been around a very long time. There are no absolutes of course.

I think the majority of breeders on this site DO make sure a knowledgeable home is provided, or offer to help. I know I do. There is a reason I frequent this board and the breeders here- their actions speak volumes to me.

Not if they produce a large number of animals they don't. It's impossible, or next to impossible to do. This is your opinion, but has no basis in fact in my opinion. This is also why they do not comment on this thread...they have an image to uphold or it hurts sales. Thats the facts. I am one of those guys, I am just not afraid to tell the truth.

For years I kept my mouth shut, but I think it's time we be honest with ourselves. It's patently foolish for us to act like a bunch of saints while the Govt. is trying to take our rights away as keepers and breeders when we won't be honest about whats going on, and how we don't deal with it. Oh we can write letters, and complain, and call congressmen, but when it comes to taking real responsibility, we stop short. I am not talking about all the folks that have a few clutches per year (although together you add up) I am talking about the guys who create hundreds or thousands of animals that their just isn't a market for. They dont' do this on purpose...it's an unfortunate side effect of producing the animals we are trying to make...morph crosses etc. You cannot send that many animals out into the world without there being an impact on the animals well being, and the well being of the hobby. Dislike my points all you want, but they have merit, and warrant discussion. Turning some of them into feeder animals is an extremely useful, ethical, and sound way to help your own hobby out.

And I hear you that some ugly ducklings become beloved pets. I have owned my fair share of them over the years. But now I think that, how many animals have suffered, and for how long, for that one that had a good life? I suspect it's a scary high number. With reptiles even more so. Reptiles are much more disposable than a dog or a cat. And there are far few too reptile rescues.

It's very easy to say you love yoru pets and you would never do such a terrible thing. Thats also the easiest thing to do. Sometimes the best, or right thing to do, isn't always the easiest. Keep in mind, I know I came to a reptile forum to discuss this, but it's because I want their to be a voice out there for something other than mass production under the guise of "we love our snakes". The two don't mix well, especially right now when we are under fire from all sides.

S~

[jglass38]

Shawn,

Who are you? You seem to want to speak for the large breeders. How many animals do you produce per year? Has anyone heard of you? Do you even know any of the big breeders? Just curious as I think it is relevant to this thread.

[rabernet]

I don't believe for one minute that just because something has little to no monetary value that it won't be well taken care of. I'm giving two normal males to a local couple that just spent a nice tidy sum of money with Reptile Basics to get two heat mats, two thermostats, have called me every step of the way of setting up their enclosures, have come to my home to pick out their new babies, who are still here while they make sure that the enclosures have the proper temps and humidity dialed, who asked me if I would be willing to come to their home to check out their enclosures BEFORE they bring their babies home, are already considering breeding their own feeders on a small scale to ensure that they can control their prey quality.

They first asked to come to my home to see the snakes to make SURE that they were ready to make the commitment to providing a forever home to a single snake and fell so in love with them are adopting two of them.

Every single normal male I have produced, I have placed in free pet homes, and I screened each home as best that I could. I asked very pointed questions about housing, experience, and if they had no experience, pointed them to sites and caresheets to help them get started BEFORE they took their new pets home.

Last year, one family adopted four normal males, one for each of their children, write to me to this day about how much they love their males, how devoted the entire family is to each one of them. They still send me pictures.

Another normal male just went to a young gal who has been researching and looking for a YEAR for the right normal male ball python, had already purchased all the necessary equipment and is completely in love with her little guy.

Yeah, I think my average normal males have it pretty good, at least better than in the belly of another animal because they weren't "pretty" enough or were "just" normal males.

[ShawnC]

Not sure what to say here. I am nearly 40, and have had reptiles my entire life since I was a kid in Florida. In the past several years, my life has gotten so that I can afford more reptiles, and in that time, I have built one of the most comprehensive collections of Carpet Pythons(my favorite pythons) and their mutations in the world. I also have been building a very nice collection of represetative animals of every python type in Austalia, with the exception of Oenpelli, Roughscale, and Darwin Carpets. I produce upwards of 300 carpet pythons babies per year, and have this year, expanded into ball pythons. I also happen to own (but I didn't found) a fairly wel known carpet python website which I will not link here, as it's not my place. I am not bragging...I wasn't going to bring any of this up, but you asked.

I should point out to those who are not familiar with carpets that it's a difficult species to work with because many of the morphs are in different subspieces, so in order to cross them, you make hybrid "normal" offspring. In essence...Mutts. Rather than just send them into the world, muddying up the gene pool further and creating animals that are nothing other than pet quality snakes...I tend to take the ones I don't think will be very nice looking, and I feed them to a Lizard so they don't go out and become giant ugly brown snakes that noone wants, which is where this discussion comes from. I got a very similar reaction on my own forum, and I though it might be fun to discuss it on a larger venue, and see what everyone else thinks. Thank you all again BTW for making this a positive experience.

S~