Yes i was thinking that but couldn`t think of how to put it into words lol.
There is no point buying a lavender pair and "hoping" that they are both het blood etc. By the time you`ve wasted a few years testing for the hets it would be so much easier simply to buy from elsewhere.

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Exactly my point but, as Athravan pointed out, its doubtful that this will hurt his business. I'm pretty sure that we will also look elsewhere for fully labeled hets in future.

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It makes no difference... Thats what I was saying. I buy snakes for their physical appearance, not their hets. I save until I can afford the snake I truley want instead of futtering about with hets and 6 year projects to get the one snake I want to look at forever...

I understan why Rich has done this, but then hes not going to get many buyers after project snakes. I guess his attitude is If you are after hets specifically, then take your custom elsewhere...

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I'm not sure you can? If you mate two multi homozygous animals together, then you're going to get multi heterozygous offspring (or homozygous offspring if the parents are homozygous for the same genes). But certainly less varied than if you were mating hets together.

I'm sort of torn on this. I have lots of animals I like the look with hets that I bought in preference to animals I liked the look of without hets, because it will give me more variation in breeding. I'm not a great fan of just breeding like to like to produce more of the same, having variation and differences makes it more fun. So I do like knowing the hets my animals carry for that reason.

Of course, you could argue that not knowing makes it more fun, finding out what pips. But unless you know, how do you know to match up the other parent to get a nice varied clutch? My lavender being secretly het amel, hypo, lava, charcoal won't help me get a varied clutch if I mate it to a bloodred that's het anery, sunkissed, motley. But if I knew her hets, then I could more carefully choose to use a fire male with her so I'm producing normals and amels in the clutch ....

The other issue is people avoiding certain hets. If someone is selling aneries at one price, and aneries het charcoal at different prices, then I would choose the anery with no hets as I don't want charcoal in my aneries. It would annoy me to have that choice taken away from me, and for that gene to "accidentally" turn up where I don't want it. Of course, in some cases hidden hets might be a bonus, but in general I'd prefer to know and choose what I'm breeding with.

Difficult one. I can see why he's done it, and I do understand, but from a hobby breeder point of view I can see plus sides and minus sides.

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The huge downside is that corn snake hobbyists today are almost entirley focused on genetics and mutations etc. I think Rich knows he is going to lose business, but on the other hand he can charge more for multi homo visual animals, stay one up by not allowing other people to buy hets to produce morphs that rival his own sales and move babies on quicker...

I absolutly agree with you Toyah, it's a difficult one. Whats the chances of buying two het hypo anery amel cinder stripes for the price of two normal normals.

I guess this will motivate other people to produce their own hets or just buy from other sources.

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I'm the first to admit that I know next to nothing about corn snakes but maybe when it gets to the point where a breeder is producing so many animals that they find all the paperwork/labelling and admin side of things too much of a burden then they are producing too many animals and should scale down their operation a bit...or employ someone to give them a hand? I just don't see how the scaling back on information is a positive step. Whats next, not bothering with shedding and feeding records?

Stuart

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I keep Green Tree Pythons, Emerald Tree Boas, Black-Head Pythons, Woma Pythons, Irian Jaya Pythons, Royal Pythons, Leopard Geckos and dart frogs.

Thats an excellent point Stuart. Rich makes no secret of the fact he somtimes finds his numbers too much... Perhaps this is his way of coping? I guess if people think it's unacceptable they won't buy from him...

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What an interesting thread.

This is my first year of breeding and I went to enormous lengths (miles & ££s over the last couple of years trying to find particular hets in my cornsnakes in order to breed a variety of morphs.

I understand completely what he's saying - especially cos my clutch from amber het aner & hypo het caramel/aner/motley has produced NO ambers(!), but I will be selling mine labelled with the hets so that those people who are interested and/or want specifics will know what's what

I certainly wouldn't want to pay good money only to find out that their hets produced loads of 'normals'!

I've found it very frustrating at shows to ask someone what the hets are of their hatchlings only to be looked at as if I've 3 heads and a shrug of their shoulders!!!!

Similarly, anyone who's just interested in the visuals doesn't lose out by having them labeled with more info.

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www.hissnhers.co.uk

Great point aswell! How many "just" base morphs do you see (without hets). I want a lavender stripe, thats all. But unfortunatley most of them are het amel or hypo or both and command a higher price. I don't want my lavender stripe to be het anything, especially not amel. But I can deal with that if Serpenco sells them for $100 less LOL.

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Therre will be no more 6 year projects if others follow this.

New morphs will be produced only by luck

You will get people producing morphs that they dont know what they are, you can get hatchlings that look identical and you would not know what to sell them as.

I mean the majority you can tell apart, but there will be a few.

If he does this, personally i would not buy from him.

This is because i want to produce certain morphs, which i would not be able to.

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