Selective breeding.

This is a resonse to a comment someone else made in another thread:

People ask for the pics of the parents because they wanna know what nonmorph traits will be passed into the offspring and a better comparison to how the offspring will look when older. ur not gonna take a pic of one caucasin baby and compare to some unrelated caucasin guy and say thats how hes gonna look are u?

Or for a snake example if u have het clown balls, u would want to see the parent clown. I like the reduced pattern line of clowns, some like the extreme "alien head" clowns, where the "alien heads" look almost like hearts. Seeing pics of the parents will help u define what there offspring offspring may look like. It's called selective breeding.

Ive seen some really ugly pastels I wouldnt pay 10 dollars for, but if I see a average looking one and the parents were selectivly bred, good looking snakes (IMO), then someone already gave me a head start on making a BETTER looking pastel in my offspring. Hence why some of the same morphs can vary in prices by hundreds of dollars.

My view is, "Quality looking morphs are more important than just having a morph."

hmmm... thats my new signature!


Does anyone agree?

I think its important for the future of our industry, who wants to produce ugly animals? Who wants to buy ugly animals?

Granted, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there are some morphs ive seen that are just uglier than sin and I wouldnt wanna own even if they were given to me, but if it needed a home Id give it one. (If knew how to properly care for the species) And chances are I wouldnt breed it unless I wanted to start a long term project to "clean it up."

JMHO, lemme know what u all think.

Since I cant edit lemme rephrase;

"This is MY response to a comment someone else made in another thread."

And my original response ends at;

"hmmmm... thats my new signature!"

You definitely aren't alone - heck, when I was looking for an ivory, I was asking for pics of the parents...because I'm too picky about my animals to NOT know what is going into my projects.
Unfortunately, there has been a definite LACK of selective breeding in people's rush to produce morphs; and it is impacting the appearance of the animals. Brown pastels, spiders with so many spots that their base pattern is distorted...but people buy the damn things because they're cheap. Then they breed them & perpetuate the problem. Luckily, some people have better sense.

Actually Harald I think ive read before that u as well like reduced pattern balls. I had this one I bet u would have died for! I'll see if I can scrounge up some old pics to PM u.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

You definitely aren't alone - heck, when I was looking for an ivory, I was asking for pics of the parents...because I'm too picky about my animals to NOT know what is going into my projects.
Unfortunately, there has been a definite LACK of selective breeding in people's rush to produce morphs; and it is impacting the appearance of the animals. Brown pastels, spiders with so many spots that their base pattern is distorted...but people buy the damn things because they're cheap. Then they breed them & perpetuate the problem. Luckily, some people have better sense.

I agree...and the sad thing is, they are allowed to get away with it, instead of being TAUGHT.

I know what you mean about Spotty Spiders now. Before that's what I had been seeing, so of course, I thought that was what they were supposed to look like.

I recall asking you what the first morphs look like since these latter ones seem to be so far removed in color and pattern from the originals...and Oh yes! I had finally met my goal of producing Spiders with NO spots, soft, velvety patterns..definitely there is something to selective breeding.

I'm all in for selective breeding. All too often it seems to come down to people just looking for the cheapest example of a morph for their collection when in reality a perfect example may only be a little more. And let's face it, those brown right out of the egg pastel babies use just as much in resources until they are large enough to breed as a selectively bred bright yellow beauty.

My personal morph pet peeve lately has been ghosts. Seems they too are going the way of the brown pastel. I'm hoarding nice ones to focus my single gene project on. (And Deb, I want that whole clutch if you breed that smoking guy you have this year!) But, I guess just about every morph out there could be or has been uglied up in the rush to just breed.

My motto is this: Just because people CAN breed these animals, it doesn't mean they SHOULD. We should be working to refine and better these animals, not jostling for puppy mill status.

I also think that in the rush to create animals with as many genes as possible, super nice single gene animals will become harder to find.

Originally Posted by MagickalMorphs

I also think that in the rush to create animals with as many genes as possible, super nice single gene animals will become harder to find.

Not as long as im breeding!

I got some killer looking het clowns that have slightly reduced patterns Im expecting good things from!

And that Pastel OG Im getting from Ms. Wong looks amazing in the pic. Cant wait to see him when he gets here!

Originally Posted by MagickalMorphs

I'm all in for selective breeding. All too often it seems to come down to people just looking for the cheapest example of a morph for their collection when in reality a perfect example may only be a little more. And let's face it, those brown right out of the egg pastel babies use just as much in resources until they are large enough to breed as a selectively bred bright yellow beauty.

My personal morph pet peeve lately has been ghosts. Seems they too are going the way of the brown pastel. I'm hoarding nice ones to focus my single gene project on. (And Deb, I want that whole clutch if you breed that smoking guy you have this year!) But, I guess just about every morph out there could be or has been uglied up in the rush to just breed.

My motto is this: Just because people CAN breed these animals, it doesn't mean they SHOULD. We should be working to refine and better these animals, not jostling for puppy mill status.

I also think that in the rush to create animals with as many genes as possible, super nice single gene animals will become harder to find.

Then why are you the sable army?

Im definatly pro selective breeding. Off the top of my head, Rodney Boliach(sp)'s purples are proof of that. And if you're lucky, the selective bread animals are the same price of the "muddy" morphs. What I think it is, is people not looking/waiting long enough. They want to breed, and they want to breed NOW. So they do a quick sweep, (of the first few booths/ first few adds) and pick from there.

Because I love the sables. The rest of the hobby hates them, but I'm grabbing up all the nice ones I can get my hands on. In a few years, I'll be able to roll around in a big pile of them. Muahaha!

I go for quality all the time and Ive come out insanly good on a few deals! Problem is by the time I get some funds up to go for what I want, I see sumthin else I like and say "I gotta have it before Shadera sees this ad!"