Quote Originally Posted by olstyn View Post

Especially because this discussion began with carpet pythons, I have to wonder what criteria the OP uses to determine which animals will be "ugly" in the first place. Carpets are variable and unpredictable in appearance; an ugly hatchling may be a beautiful adult and vice versa.

A further question for the OP: what percentage of your fish's meals are baby carpets? Your monitor's meals? (I assume that as a "large-scale" breeder, you keep feeding records for all of your animals.) If it's a high percentage, you might as well admit to yourself that part of your purpose in breeding carpets is to feed your other animals. I'm not necessarily condemning you for that if it's true, but it seems like it could be seen as a relevant point in the discussion by some.
Excellent Post. Carpets are not that hard. You can get a good idea when they are little what they have the potential to be once you work with them a bit. Still, I don't just cull stuff right out of the egg. Sometimes it's six months down the road before i can tell it's not a great example of the type.

I am not a big breeder. Maybe 300 babies per year...thats not that many.

I maybe cull 15 or 20 animals per year. I am not feeding babies by the plateful. I am just making educated guesses as to what the likelyhood is of how this animal will look as an adult, and how likely it will be to find a true, long term home. If I have a Coastal/IJ/Jungle Cross...it's truely a mutt, so it had better be a good looking animal, or it has little chance of finding a place where it will spend it's day in comfort.

S~