Put it down already

[m00kfu]

I agree. My only problem is I hate for things to go to waste. It SHOULD be a while before I run into that situation much if at all, but I've been tossing around the idea of getting a blackhead python or something similar to feed them off to.

[tbowman]

Doesn't ralph davis have some pretty badly kinked caramel albinos that are living perfectly healthy?

[MPenn]

Mike, I agree with you 110%. If the animal will not or can not survive on its own, then it should be culled. There is a reason that snakes are the way they are and have survived all these years; it's called natural selection. Not every baby is meant to survive. Some are meant to be the decoys so that the healthy may escape predators.

I agree. My only problem is I hate for things to go to waste. It SHOULD be a while before I run into that situation much if at all, but I've been tossing around the idea of getting a blackhead python or something similar to feed them off to.

Find someone with a cobra.

[mason]

Doesn't ralph davis have some pretty badly kinked caramel albinos that are living perfectly healthy?

Just because it's survived (with who knows how much help at first) does not give anyone the right to knowingly breed defective animals like that. Give it away as a pet to someone trusted, keep it around the place but NEVER breed from it.

Nor does mere survival mean it's healthy and happy. For all we know that animal could be in pain, some a little or lots, of every minute of every day. Remember ball pythons have no way of saying "my spine causes me a small amount of pain every time I move".

Now don't get me wrong, it could also be perfectly healthy in every way. I'm not saying "i'm right and you're wrong" but I am definately saying animals like that should never be bred from. And IKNOW that they have been and probably are still being bred form by a great many.


Ever wonder how many kinked caramels and super cinnies end up in the freezer? I wonder if it's higher than the number of them that are just kept back and bred from?

With certain projects you know you are buying into a problem (if you've researched). I mean things like caramels kinking, super cinnies kinking and duckbilling, spider wobbling and spinning/corkscrewing).A responsible breeder will do anyhting possible to outcross, strenghten and minimise the bad traits where possible. The responsible ones.

How many are less repsonsible and don't see an animal they shouldn't sell or breed from but merely see it as $1000/2000/5000/10000 in a tub in a snake rack.

Responsible breeders spend years outcrossing to try and alleviate these problems and all the while x% of breeders at the other end do the exact opposite because they couldn't possibly euthanise an $X000 animal but nor could they really sell an animal thats got a few bumps along it's back or a kink that "doesn't bother it" or a face thats not quite right so there it stays and it gets used in breeding.

[grim reaper in NY]

I'm of the mindset that if you decide to take on the responsibility of breeding ANY animal, you knowingly inherit the risks of dealing with underdeveloped and deformed babies.
Herp breeding is no different. It is up to each and every person who decides to breed these snakes to make a conscious decision to put down ANY snake that is not developed or has suffered deformities in order to preserve the integrity of the species. A failure to do so will only populate the python population with more and more deformed snakes and will eventually impact the overall breeding capability of pythons everywhere. We all must realize that, especially with new legislation forming almost daily now to try and rid pythons from captivity, we must ensure we breed the best possible specimens available for the sake of our hobby.
One thought to ponder here that hasn't been touched on. There are special interest groups worldwide who thrive on trying to shut down herp pet owning due to their own ignorance of the species. Imagine the fuel we would give these groups if they caught wind that there were breeders out there KNOWINGLY breeding deformed snakes all for the sake of turning a profit. They would have a field day with us and we could face even more legal battles trying to save our rights to own not only our beloved balls, but herps of all species.
I, personally, have contemplated breeding pythons in the future and have started doing alot of research about what morphs lend themselves to more successful breeding practices and so forth. Anyone who decides to get itno this side of python ownership really needs to take their time, ensure they have the room and ability to properly breed these snakes, and be prepared to have to euthanize any snakes that don't develop properly. I also don't understand the cutting open of the eggs as I thought these snakes are fully capable of entering the world on their own. So, if I'm to understand what's been said here previously, we have people that, all for the sake of curiosity, they are taking it upon themselves to cut open eggs just to see what is inside? If that is indeed the case, then you are tampering with the natural process of reproduction and you are only mulitplying the chances of producing babies that are unable to survive on their own.
Bottom line is this. If you want to breed these awesome animals, then breed them, but let nature take it's course and that includes letting these babies come into the world ON THEIR OWN.
Sorry if I stepped on any toes here, but you can't reasonably expect to produce fully healthy babies by interfering with the natural order of things.

[jglass38]

Listen, I fully agree with the practice of culling sick or underdeveloped/deformed babies. I also agree that we should not breed kinked or deformed animals. But I am not quite sure how cutting eggs even enters into this discussion. Tampering with the natural process of reproduction? Hardly. A baby is either going to make it or it isn't. Unless you are cutting eggs and popping the babies out to see what you have or moving the baby around in the egg, then how exactly are you multiplying the chances of producing non viable babies?

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Hi, talking about putting down, which are your methods? Which do you think is the most humain?

Thank you and sorry for hijack ur post

Freezing. Most believe it is the most humane way to put a reptile down. This too has been its own subject of threads many times over. There is a few ways to do it but the most commonly practiced by both breeders and veterinarians is freezing.

100% agree.

I also this the practice (that's getting more widespread) of egg cutting isn't right.

Getting out of the egg is part of the animals natural development process, it helps provide them with strength they will need further down the line.

Now even newbie breeders think egg cutting, purely to find out whats in there, is perfectly normal. Sometimes I think people completely lose sight of the fact that breeding animals is you being allowed to participate and observe a natural process. They really do just see their animals as egg machines

I remember seeing pictures of a very, very well respected US breeders collection some years back (probably circa '99-00). one of his spiders was a corkscrewing trainwreck

Now his is where it gets a little complicated.

Egg cutting. I don't see any problems with it. It has no negative effect on the babies as long as it is done correctly and at the right time. In my opinion the right time is once the first eggs pip, any that still haven't piped the next day get cut. If the baby is deformed when the cut is done then back to my origional point.

Spiders. Wobbling is a trait of the morph period. There has been MANY threads on this so lets try not to get too hung up on it in this post. A wobbbling spider eats, drinks, reproduces, and lives just fine all by itself. Its strange behavior is simply what a spider does. Bottom line is, if you have a spider it wobbles, corkscrews, whatever you want to call it. If your spider does not have the wobbles then either you haven't had it long enough, or you don't know what to look for. IMHO the spider morph should not be considered a deformity for the purposes of this discussion.

[Dalishar]

Hard as it would be to shove a new baby in a freezer, I think if quality of life came into question I would try and make the right decision. Of course, I'm only a year into the hobby with three to go before I even have a chance of facing such a dilemma.

Heh, to be honest it reminds me of a puppy my mom produced last year. I understand that it's not a reptile, but I do believe the story is relevant to the topic. My mother used to breed Australian Shepherds, and all the litters were 100% healthy until this last one. We had one puppy, a real runt, that took a little bit extra to get started (She wasn't breathing when she was born, but a lot of rubbing and other things got her going). She also looked a bit off, but we completely disregarded that - she was alive, she ate, she poo'd, and she crawled just like the rest of the litter. A month passed and everyone's eyes were open, and this little pup (now called Tiny) was still very obviously the runt of the litter. She'd grown a teensy bit, but nothing compared to her siblings. Shortly after her eyes opened, however, she started going down hill. She wouldn't eat, but we assumed it was due to the bigger pups pushing her out of the way so decided to hand feed her instead. After about a week of that, she didn't show much improvement - but she did eat, she did poo, and she did still walk around just like the others. Then one day she just started letting out these absolutely horrible, agonized screams. Within an hour of the first scream she was euthanized, and the only explanation the vet could give us was her liver had likely never developed correctly.

Faced with a potentially similar situation in my snakes - an under developed baby - I would hope that at the first sign of difficulty (never eating, obvious defects, etc) I could get myself to cull the hatchling. I regret very much having not just let that puppy be "born dead", since she obviously died in a lot of pain. That was a creature that could tell me it was in pain too - how would I ever know if a snake was in that much agony until it finally just died?

[grim reaper in NY]

Listen, Tampering with the natural process of reproduction? Hardly.

Do we do practice this technique with other animals or even humans? No. We do have ways of ensuring the maturity of babies in humans through modern medicine, hence allowing us to induce labor and so forth.
But, just because one snake egg pips doesn't mean all are ready to pip at the exact same time. Some may need an extra day or two to ensure or enhance their chance of survival before they attempt to enter the world.
You can say that cutting eggs doesn't harm the newborn snakes, and you might be right. But how can you say beyond a shadow of a doubt it doesn't?

[mason]

my apologies, the egg cutting thing was just a side-rant. not related to the topic at hand. I just disagree when I see amateur routinely cutting eggs at day X. Wait for the damn things to pip

Ditto with the spider, not using that as an example of a problem that responsible breeding can fix, merely listing all the known issues that came to mind of the top of my head,Perhaps I should have stuck to the relevant ones such as kinked super blacks/super cinnies, kinking caramels, duckbilling in certain supers etc etc.

BUT on the spider issue if people had been less willing to accept thier behavious as "ok" OR breeders had been more open and honest about their problems from the off then perhaps there wouldn't be so many thousands of spiders bred and more people would have just said "no thanks". Other than that you're right, it's not really a relevant topic for discussion in this thread.

Please don't let the small off topic parts of my post become the focus here, most of it was relevant.

We have culled in the apst, fortunately it's rare, certain morphs and projects just increase the chances.Some to the point of an almost certainty.

I'll say this final thing about egg cutting.

It DOES interfere. a python in the wild that could not pip on it's own would perish. IT also can cause harm to the snake in the egg. if you just attack it without knowing what you are doing it's possible to sever some blood vesels that the snake is still finding quite useful. IT's just not something I think should be shown to people as a "normal" thing to do. It's a bit like probing, something people should learn, but something they should be shown properly by someone with experience of it but unlike probing it shouldn't be seen as essential or normal.

Sorry for taking this off topic, back to the issue in hand.