The Ethics of the Scaleless Morph

[Armiyana]

The downside to the scaleless ball python issue I think is that while detrimental to the animal's health, it hasn't been proven to be a fatal issue like the tumors in lemon frosts.

There are still listings for Desert BPs on MM, even though that has proven to cause fertility issues and eggbinding.
Leatherback beardies are also still there and very popular.... The super form is problematic. From what I understand most breeders try not to breed for it because the dragons will tear each other apart during breeding because of the thin skin. Along with being more prone to dehydration. I have seen one once that came through a big box as a leatherback, and he did have some scratches and roughed up skin even as a baby. Needed a lot of soaks for his skin.

And everyone thinks Manx cats are super cute.... manx to manx is a fatal gene and leads to stillborns like breeding spider or champagne BPs
Scottish folds? If you breed them together your cat can have bone and cartilage disorders that can't be cured.

I think in the end it's just being open to the issues on a public forum like this that helps most. I don't think there's enough public knowledge and keeping for people to really know how difficult the scaleless BP is to keep. That is most likely why it will continue to be listed. As far as I've seen (though honestly I haven't looked too far down the rabbithole) Kinova had a pretty sweet looking adult scaleless. I think NERD had some good looking juvies and brought up the dehydration and shedding issues, particularly the constant shed cycles that can be hard to break. I think a lot of the more catious breeders are still waiting to see pics of a scaleless females on eggs. But again, a lot of this was older info and nothing really current. The most current that I know.... BHB just hatched a scaleless last month and they said this was their last breeding attempt for scaleless. They're a lot of work and they want to "See if they could keep this one alive" Which sounds like what I needed to hear to deter me from the project for a long time.

[Snagrio]

I've decided upon a personal rule of thumb when it comes to the morphs and ethics debacle:

I ask myself, could a given morph survive competently if it was a wild specimen? Could it feed itself, maintain good health within reasonable parameters, and potentially mate without creating offspring destined to have a worse off start automatically due to known genetic anomalies within said morph? If no to any of these, that's where I question the ethics of propagating a given morph.

The only exception to these questions is "Would it get eaten due to different coloration ruining its camouflage?" since that doesn't affect how the animal would be able to live otherwise in terms of a self-sustaining existence and doesn't translate to a domestic setting like the other examples do for obvious reasons.