Breeding Standards

[ladywhipple02]

Because my direct from Ralph Davis phantom is the smallest and in my opinion ugliest phantom in my collection.

Yep. But maybe not mine.

[Unknown Subscriber]

Yes, maybe if the seller is nice they will warn you about the risks if you attempt to breed or any quirks the animal may have. In reality I have bought a few spiders in my day, even from people with stellar reputations. The people selling me the animals had no way of knowing how experienced I am and not once was I warned about what I was buying even when the animals were train wrecks. The only animal I have ever seen a warning on anywhere are desert females. I do not deal with any of the known kinkers so I cannot comment specifically on that defect.

Not to be off topic but I just purchased a caramel het hypo and a hypo het caramel to breed. Got both from the same person ready to breed. They never told me anything about caramel kinks. So my first breeding project will be more advanced than anticipated.

[JodanOrNoDan]

Not to be off topic but I just purchased a caramel het hypo and a hypo het caramel to breed. Got both from the same person ready to breed. They never told me anything about caramel kinks. So my first breeding project will be more advanced than anticipated.

This was the example that was actually in my head but I did not want to use you as an example unwillingly. When I heard what you bought I was wondering if you actually knew what you got into.

[Eric Alan]

Is it the breeder's responsibility to assume their buyers aren't aware of the known issues with these morphs? It's not like anyone is trying to hide Spider wobble or Caramel kinking (that is variable from animal to animal anyway). When does it become the buyer's responsibility to make sure that they are reasonably informed about their purchase - before or after making that purchase?

[Unknown Subscriber]

This was the example that was actually in my head but I did not want to use you as an example unwillingly. When I heard what you bought I was wondering if you actually knew what you got into.

No I didn't. But I know now and am prepared to deal with it. Glad I learned about it now I probably would have been rather worried when the eggs hatched and I had kinks thinking I did something wrong

[AntTheDestroyer]

Correct, however how about if the animal is not kinked and you don't know that the line has a kinking problem? I don't want to derail my own thread, but in this case an animal that is flawed at the foundation is being covered up by some pretty paint.

I fire people for this type of stuff in my business.

First are there lines that are prone to kinking? Assuming there are, if the seller wants to mislead you, no amount of standards are going to stop that. An outwardly perfect animal could come from one of these said lines. Yes I agree there should be standards about breeding some things that negatively effect the snake, but that is pretty common sense. When you start talking about "standards" I think most people go to color and pattern place, especially when you bring up morphs. Are you talking about a standard for all ball pythons like head/body shape, size, disposition, and feeding response? If so this is probably a standard for all ball pythons not by morph.

[kxr]

I'm really not sure how you can objectively evaluate the appearance of an animal. Everyone has their own preferences and I feel like whoever puts together this council (I'm assuming there would be more then one person judging the "quality" of each morph) will want to test the other member's ability to judge quality. This would be flawed in its own right because that would mean they would all have the same tastes or similar tastes to begin with.

Let's assume that instead of considering a specific set of traits as desirable we consider both ends of a spectrum as desirable, for example instead of considering minimal spots on a banana as the only standard we consider both high amounts of spotting and low amounts of spotting as different lines/breeds/characteristics. At the end of the day after considering every variable trait of every base morph (disregarding combos because that would be sooo much worse) you'd have so many different lines it'd be almost redundant.

I think it really is best to leave it up to the customer to consider what they think is a quality animal. Let them do the do-diligence to think ahead of time about what they want in their breeding projects (if that is why they are buying the animal) and evaluate whether the animal they're buying will help them reach their intended goal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JodanOrNoDan]

Is it the breeder's responsibility to assume their buyers aren't aware of the known issues with these morphs? It's not like anyone is trying to hide Spider wobble or Caramel kinking (that is variable from animal to animal anyway). When does it become the buyer's responsibility to make sure that they are reasonably informed about their purchase - before or after making that purchase?

I will admit there is a level of absurdity with this example, but there are warnings labels. I have seen people sold things, where it was glaringly obvious that they had no idea what they were getting into. There is both buyer and seller responsibility for things. I have real katana that are hundreds of years old. For those not in the know these blades are also considered living works of art. There are ratings and there are the equivalent of morphs (different smiths with different techniques). Flaws in any blade are annotated and made known even though the buyer is expected to be very knowledgeable about what they are buying.

[JodanOrNoDan]

I'm really not sure how you can objectively evaluate the appearance of an animal. Everyone has their own preferences and I feel like whoever puts together this council (I'm assuming there would be more then one person judging the "quality" of each morph) will want to test the other member's ability to judge quality. This would be flawed in its own right because that would mean they would all have the same tastes or similar tastes to begin with.

Let's assume that instead of considering a specific set of traits as desirable we consider both ends of a spectrum as desirable, for example instead of considering minimal spots on a banana as the only standard we consider both high amounts of spotting and low amounts of spotting as different lines/breeds/characteristics. At the end of the day after considering every variable trait of every base morph (disregarding combos because that would be sooo much worse) you'd have so many different lines it'd be almost redundant.

I think it really is best to leave it up to the customer to consider what they think is a quality animal. Let them do the do-diligence to think ahead of time about what they want in their breeding projects (if that is why they are buying the animal) and evaluate whether the animal they're buying will help them reach their intended goal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If wine can be rated and priced accordingly a ball python can. I hate all wine, but ironically, i have learned if I really think it tastes like crap it is probably a higher rated wine. Mad Dog, works fine for me. LOL

[Unknown Subscriber]

Just want to be clear. I should have done my research b4 purchasing and do not blame the seller. But would have been nice had they mentioned it to me.