Breeding for morphs and other thoughts....your views please.

[Fixx]

I look around the forums and see a lot of threads concerning the breeding for specific morphs in Bearded Dragons, Corn Snakes, Royal Pythons etc. from both 'commercial' breeders and the 'hobbiest' and it got me to thinking. Now unless the probability of achieving the desired morph is 100% guaranteed then there is a chance that you could end up with anything from all "normals" from a clutch of eggs, to all 'desired morph'. Given that some of the more popular species (corns/royals/beardies etc.) being bred have large clutch sizes and the apparent large numbers of people breeding these species, will it be long before we see a huge amount of unwanted/unhomeable animals? How as responsible keepers prevent this happening. Is it a cascading cycle? Johhny buys a corn snake for £45 from a 'breeder' his friend knows, he's done his research and knows that corns are fairly easy to breed and for either the joy of breeding, the 'challenge' of breeding a specific morph, the desire to find out what genes his snake has or the 'potential' money he may make, decides he's going to breed corns. So he invests in a couple of adults/a mate for his and off he goes. He gets lucky and has a successful breeding season, his first clutch of eggs, all hatched and he is dead chuffed, either for the achievement/the cash/he got his desired morph (if he didn't get his desired morph, he's not that down-hearted he can try again next year) but he may buy some more corns now as he'd like to make more money/a different morph.
Along comes Jimmy, Johnny's mate, he decides he'd like one of Johnny's cornsnakes, gets bitten by the bug and the cycle cascades until there is a glut of 'normal' corns in that area all looking for homes as there are a) too many snakes, too few customers and b) not desired because those that want a corn snake now want a super duper hypoamelanistic, anertherystic super sunglow blizzard het for pied, dwarf, charlesfandango cornsnake**.

How environmentally friendly is the hobby? We all/most/some/none of us* claim to be concerned about the state of the worlds wildlife and the environment but we use a shitload of electricity (I know our electricity bills are huge) but even though we are on a green tariff I cannot help think sometimes that it's wrong to use so much. We ship animals around the globe, contributing to the CO2 emmissions, introduce new species into alien environments (some by design, others by mistake) where sometimes they can turn out to be a real problem, the Florida Everglades are full of Burmese Pythons and other non native wildlife). Then there is all the resources we use and the associated environmental costs of aquiring them from raw materials to getting the finished product home.

How do you dispose of your used UV tubes/lamps by the way? They should all be taken to an appropriate recycling/disposal centre as they do contain mercury in the phosphor (the white powdery stuff) where hopefully they should be dealt with responsibly.

Just a few thoughts that have been rattling around in my head as I mow the grass in work.



*delete as appropriate
**we have a limited number of these for sale

[wohic]

I guess I am lucky, as you know Fixx, herping is still up and comming in the south, and I never have problems selling, as there are not a huge ammount of breeders, would hate to think that it got to the stage where people bred and culled the ones that were not of use, like a lot of rat/mice/ rabbit breeders do.

[Fixx]

Originally Posted by wohic

I guess I am lucky, as you know Fixx, herping is still up and comming in the south, and I never have problems selling, as there are not a huge ammount of breeders, would hate to think that it got to the stage where people bred and culled the ones that were not of use, like a lot of rat/mice/ rabbit breeders do.

I fear this is what it may come down too.

I wonder how people would feel about them being culled as frozen wholefoods (not suggesting freezing as a euthanasia method btw) for Kings and other snake/reptile eaters.

[captaincaveman]

i think your missing one point, normal royals and corns etc are extremely popular and not everyone is after a certain morph and look on this forum and see how many re-home corns are being advertised, and corns have been bred by loads of amateurs for many many years, when i first started in this hobby in about 88-89 there were loads of morph breeders there too(but a smaller range of morphs lol)

I think the morph side is excellent for breeding new life into the hobby and i'd rather people go down this route than the old green iggy, nile monitor problems of the past

[Athravan]

I have never had a problem selling out of popular things in all my years and it seems the demand is only getting higher.

I think at the end of the day if people couldn't sell they wouldn't breed the next year, or would just throw eggs out instead of incubating them.

As for finding homes well we all know what would happen if someone offered "clutch of corn snakes - free to good homes!" there would be a terrible mass scramble of panic and mememememe

If it was economical and justifiable for someone to breed snakes and euthanise them as a feeder food for another reptile or animal, I would not do it myself, but I would not condemn those that did and would consider it as I do frozen rodents. I keep rats & mice as pets. I feed frozen to my animals. I keep that seperate in my head. The point really is though that a snake is not a staple diet, does not provide nutrition/vitamins/calcium the way mice do... and it would be very hard for someone to justify the need... or make a profit.. from snakes as feeder food.

[Fixx]

Originally Posted by captaincaveman

i think your missing one point, normal royals and corns etc are extremely popular and not everyone is after a certain morph and look on this forum and see how many re-home corns are being advertised, and corns have been bred by loads of amateurs for many many years, when i first started in this hobby in about 88-89 there were loads of morph breeders there too(but a smaller range of morphs lol)

I think the morph side is excellent for breeding new life into the hobby and i'd rather people go down this route than the old green iggy, nile monitor problems of the past

I quite agree about the Iggy side of things, and I'm sorry if it seems I was merely pointing the finger at corns, I just used those as a case in point, probably biased by my complete lack of interest in them.
Also back in 89-90 we didn't have the internet and the access to so many resources of information and availablity. It was more down to who you knew, but now it seems as if every Tom, Dick or Harriet is breeding animals and I'm merely wondering if there is a market/keeper base to keep all the resulting offspring. I also apologise if I seemed to be picking on 'breeding for morphs' when it was more breeding on such a scale by so many people that was my point. I think I may have focused on morphs as if you only get the desired morph in 1 out of 23 hatching then 22 of those hatchlings are 'unwanted' (though that is probably the wrong term perhaps surplus to requirements is better).
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-breeding just seeing what anyone else has to think on this matter.

[Fixx]

Originally Posted by Athravan

I have never had a problem selling out of popular things in all my years and it seems the demand is only getting higher.

Yes, at the moment but surely any market (except oil) has to have a plateau.

Originally Posted by Athravan

I think at the end of the day if people couldn't sell they wouldn't breed the next year, or would just throw eggs out instead of incubating them.

If you were only breeding for profit/pleasure maybe, but you wouldn't destroy a clutch of eggs if you were breeding for morphs.

Originally Posted by Athravan

As for finding homes well we all know what would happen if someone offered "clutch of corn snakes - free to good homes!" there would be a terrible mass scramble of panic and mememememe

At the moment, what happens when the market is saturated?

Originally Posted by Athravan

If it was economical and justifiable for someone to breed snakes and euthanise them as a feeder food for another reptile or animal, I would not do it myself, but I would not condemn those that did and would consider it as I do frozen rodents. I keep rats & mice as pets. I feed frozen to my animals. I keep that seperate in my head. The point really is though that a snake is not a staple diet, does not provide nutrition/vitamins/calcium the way mice do... and it would be very hard for someone to justify the need... or make a profit.. from snakes as feeder food.

Yes economics plays a big part in it, and agreed snake is not a staple diet but it may be a good variation to use. I don't just feed crickets to my reptiles, I feed a variety.

Like I said, not trying to me inflammatory just looking for opinions.

[captaincaveman]

Originally Posted by Fixx

I quite agree about the Iggy side of things, and I'm sorry if it seems I was merely pointing the finger at corns, I just used those as a case in point, probably biased by my complete lack of interest in them.
Also back in 89-90 we didn't have the internet and the access to so many resources of information and availablity. It was more down to who you knew, but now it seems as if every Tom, Dick or Harriet is breeding animals and I'm merely wondering if there is a market/keeper base to keep all the resulting offspring. I also apologise if I seemed to be picking on 'breeding for morphs' when it was more breeding on such a scale by so many people that was my point. I think I may have focused on morphs as if you only get the desired morph in 1 out of 23 hatching then 22 of those hatchlings are 'unwanted' (though that is probably the wrong term perhaps surplus to requirements is better).
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-breeding just seeing what anyone else has to think on this matter.

Yeah i se what your saying, on this forum, we have alot of morph fans compared to many others, i spend alot of time in our local shop and nothings realy changed on the morph side, yeah theres more choice but thats all, years ago when there were commons, amels and anerys, they probably stocked and sold a similar amount of corns but held more of a particular morph

there may be some keepers out there who just keep certain morphs, cause they are fashionable or whatever but i think the majority have just chosed a better colour to suit what they find attractive

I think the hobby is so much better now for them and i think if there was a glut of re-homes in the future cause of people buying them for the wrong reasons, it will be easier to find new homes than the larger or more aggressive species i mentioned before

Also as been said, if there was no market, many people wouldn't breed purely for the fact of not wanting to be left with a clutch of growing snakes, so will self regulate it somewhat


If you look in the majority of shops around the country, most new snake keepers(as always) would usually go down the corn route and while people continue to get into reptiles they've got an important role to play

so either it will reach a peak and the amount of new keepers coming into the hobby will slow and hobby breeders will stop/slow down or it will continue to grow for sometime yet

[Athravan]

I just can't see it being a problem for the things like corns, regardless of the morph..

At the moment, pretty much every tom dick and harry can get hold of a pair of corns and breed.. there are thousands of corns being bred, all of which are currently being found homes easily for.

However.. if the market dropped, and those tom dick and harry's were stuck with batches of corns they couldn't sell, or had to sell so cheap they didnt make any money.. I am saying they would stop. A lot of People breed because they know they can sell.. if they knew the market was dropping, they wouldn't breed.

This doesn't apply for high end people seeking to find a new morph or breeding morphs that would still be in high demand. And to be honest, i am not sure how much you know about corn snake genetics - but if you are breeding high end morphs, you don't usually end up with 1 opal motley and 23 normals.. you'd end up with 1 opal motley, some amel motleys, some lavender motleys, some plain amels/lavender/opal perhaps.. multi hets too... all of which have value on them above and beyond just your bog standard normal... even if only 1 in a clutch is the super one you wanted, the rest are still highly valued.

Perhaps one day the breeding will go so much as it does with dogs/cats that the rescues are full of them and they have to be euthanised to keep numbers down... but I personally can't see it happening.

[Fixx]

Originally Posted by Athravan

i am not sure how much you know about corn snake genetics

Originally Posted by Fixx

I'm sorry if it seems I was merely pointing the finger at corns, I just used those as a case in point, probably biased by my complete lack of interest in them.

So my knowledge of corn genetics is bugger all