Smoothies

If you want to sell positives and make a potential problem worse. Its your choice as a breeder to continue to do so. As is it was my personal choice not to breed. To me it shows lack of wanting to see the species thrive in captivity.
But as for the subject of the Smoothies. I think that the genetics that it took to create that dragon, and the most likely major inbreeding cant be healthy. Also to me they look like a burn victim not a dragon. Its kind of sad.

Okay. So I really thought these looked cool...until I thought what it had to take to create them, and how their care must not be the same as a regular bearded dragon, simply because they have nothing to protect them.

I have a couple of questions that I really hope someone can answer. Weren't we all just told that one of the things that makes a dragons more susceptible to Adenovirus is inbreeding? And, no, I am NOT asking if anyone thinks that Adenovirus is important. I already live the answer to that question.

My other question would be do these dragons have different health standards than regular beardies? The reason I ask is that some of the things we have been taught to look for to show health of regular bearded dragons (such as good fat pads, wide tail bases and padded tailbones) is clearly not present with the silkbacks pictured.

I was just on the phone with Bobby Hill, and he had an excellent point.

Since the skin of these silkbacks is like that of a pinkie mouse or an eyelid, how is breeding going to affect them? When regular bearded dragons breed, the male will bite the back of the neck of the female, and can be quite aggressive. If a silkback female is bred and the male bites the back of her neck, is the back of her neck going to rip open?

By the way, this topic is being discussed on another forum, as well.

http://www.beardeddragon.org/bjive/v...ic.php?t=55052

Originally Posted by shadi11

If you want to sell positives and make a potential problem worse. Its your choice as a breeder to continue to do so. As is it was my personal choice not to breed. To me it shows lack of wanting to see the species thrive in captivity.
But as for the subject of the Smoothies. I think that the genetics that it took to create that dragon, and the most likely major inbreeding cant be healthy. Also to me they look like a burn victim not a dragon. Its kind of sad.

Just to clear things up - I am not selling known positive dragons. I am breeding large, healthy dragons. I just had my first clutch this year hatch. Every single one hatched out over 4" and they are now 5"+ long at 2 weeks old. They are thriving and growing like crazy. All of my dragons are perfectly fine and I see no reason in the world to stop breeding them. Funny thing is people seem to actually LIKE big, healthy, thriving dragons! If I were among the people who had mass die-offs for some reason, I would stop breeding as well until I got to the bottom of the problem and made the neccesary changes.

I think it is sad that I could not even post a link to something that I thought was interesting without getting my head bitten off. After looking more closely at those pictures, I notice that the animal appears to be a young juvenile. How many of you out there have young juvie dragons with massive fat pads on their heads? And I don't see protruding hip bones. And as far as a wide tail base - once again, give the animal some time to grow before you make that judgement. It just looks to me like a young juvie, possibly female.

I agree with what Bobby pointed out. Breeding one silkback to another silkback would present obvious problems. Perhaps little leather helmets could be made for them during the breeding season. I'm just kidding. No snippy responses please.

I am not saying that breeding this animal is right. I am not saying at this point that it is wrong. Is it not the nature of man to cultivate nature? Look at what we have done with dogs. Cats. Fish. Horses. We've taken what is normal and natural and bent it to fit our needs and desires. Do you think the people who bred hairless dogs and rats are evil? I don't. This is just a typical case of people over-reacting to something that they don't fully understand.
Perhaps disgust is the appropriate reaction in this situation - I don't know the answer to that yet. But for goodness sakes, stop being so hateful about it!

Jamie

Jamie, even if you don't agree with it, this is a good place to discuss it, right?

This was posted on another forum, and being that I thought it had such logic, I decided to ask the OP if I could post it here.

Edricks wrote:

I think they -are- ugly, and I'm pretty sure the dragon's feelings arne't going to be hurt if I tell it so. I also happen to think that hairless rats, dogs and cats are ugly. It doens't change the fact that I like other beardies, cats and dogs (no love for rats, sorry) but I can't look at the hairless/scaleless variety without cringing. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna campaign to have them destroyed just because I don't find them astheticaly pleasing, and I'm not going to be guilted into saying that they are beautiful creatures, sorry.

That said, comparisons to natural selection and domestic breeding are inaccurate. Even the domestic breeding of dogs and cats compared to the domestic breeding of dragons is a bit of a stretch. Why?

Natural selection takes place over hundreds, even thousands of years. It is a slow process whereby those mutations that don't cause the premature death of a creature are bred over and over again through generations in a large population. Does inbreeding happen? Certainly, but inbred animals tend to have abnormal, detrimental mutations, and are more prone to diseases such as cancer, therefore, they do not survive as long as their non-inbred counterparts.

And yes, the wild and domestic cheetah population is vastly inbred. That is why it is disappearing so rapidly. The inbred offspring aren't living as long as their parents, and the diversity of bloodlines is disappearing, causing more problems for the species. Even though it happens in nature, doesn't mean that it's 'right' or 'perfect'. Nature screws up a lot. When we domesticate animals, we are in charge of their well being and it's our job to make sure they have the best quality of life. It's just like using sand. Saying "they die of impation in the wild, it's ok, its natural" isn't a good excuse. It's irrisponsibility to the animals in our care.

The domestic breeding of dogs has also taken place over a long period of time (cats a shorter time) and yes, certain traits that were desireable for certain purposes were repeatedly bred, however, there was never a ban on the import of new bloodlines from other countries as there is with dragons.

That this 'silk back' trait is the result of breeding two leather backs, which are rare to begin with means that the potential for getting a silk back is VERY rare. In other words, there are very limited possibilities of breeding pairs that will produce a silk back. That the breeder had to breed outside of the country should tell that much. If you want that trait to continue, you either have to breed more leather backs, or breed the silk backs already produced. Assuming the cost involved in breeding outside of the country, not to mention the customs issues, the resulting offspring would have to be so expencive to cover those breeding costs as to not make them a desirable buy for most hobbiests. The economical thing to do in that case, would be to inbreed those already within the breeders stock. Given Daichu's (supposed) already questionable husbandry practises, you can draw your own conclusions.

The ethical thing to do would be not to sell them or breed them until much more is known about them, and a more diverse blood line can be produced with the specific gene. What worries me, though, is that, despite being scaleless, it -is- still a reptile, and going further than that, biologically, it -is- still a beardie. That its temperatures and basking time have to be cut back to preserve its skin suggests to me that to keep it from burning, it's quality of life, and the basic care we all know how to give to dragons will have to be cut back. If a normal dragon needs to bask at 110 for two hours after it eats just to digest properly, what is the rule for these guys that can't be in heat for long periods of time, and can't take temperatures higher than the 90s?

Originally Posted by whiskersmom

Jamie, even if you don't agree with it, this is a good place to discuss it, right?


The ethical thing to do would be not to sell them or breed them until much more is known about them, and a more diverse blood line can be produced with the specific gene. What worries me, though, is that, despite being scaleless, it -is- still a reptile, and going further than that, biologically, it -is- still a beardie. That its temperatures and basking time have to be cut back to preserve its skin suggests to me that to keep it from burning, it's quality of life, and the basic care we all know how to give to dragons will have to be cut back. If a normal dragon needs to bask at 110 for two hours after it eats just to digest properly, what is the rule for these guys that can't be in heat for long periods of time, and can't take temperatures higher than the 90s?

Yes, I do agree this a good place to discuss this. I agree 100% with the last bit of that post. We need to know more before we can decide if breeding this animal is ethical or not. As far as how normal husbandry will affect this animal, obviously if the animal has a poor quality of life due to being genetically a beardie - but being in a body that cannot function as a beardie, then this animal should defintely not be bred. Wow - that was a really long, run-on sentence, lol. But I think you get the point. But on the other hand, because of the lack of scales, the need for so much heat and UV may be dramatically reduced. The only people who can answer that question is the people who are working with these animals.

My understanding was that the people who bred these animals happened to be out of the country already. I guess I will have to go back and research that again. I was not under the impression that this was some kind of covert operation, lol.

Jamie

The only people who can answer that question is the people who are working with these animals.

I guess this is where we will probably have to disagree. I don't think there should be people working with these animals. If there is an anomoly, then yes take care of it the best you can, but to breed them for this trait is wrong.

And as for Bobby Hill's reasoning, I agree 100%. How can they be bred successfully without damaging the female? I've held pinkie's many, many times and I just can not imagine an energetic baby or juvie jumping off of branches and running into walls let alone the bites on the neck or the claws on the sides or even the rough scales of a male leather back against the female silk back during a mating session.

Okay. So I really thought these looked cool...until I thought what it had to take to create them, and how their care must not be the same as a regular bearded dragon, simply because they have nothing to protect them.

I clicked on submit too soon!

Originally Posted by whiskersmom

I guess this is where we will probably have to disagree. I don't think there should be people working with these animals. If there is an anomoly, then yes take care of it the best you can, but to breed them for this trait is wrong.

And as for Bobby Hill's reasoning, I agree 100%. How can they be bred successfully without damaging the female? I've held pinkie's many, many times and I just can not imagine an energetic baby or juvie jumping off of branches and running into walls let alone the bites on the neck or the claws on the sides or even the rough scales of a male leather back against the female silk back during a mating session.

I was mainly referring to the issue with UV and heat. The people that are raising these dragons will have to answer that.

Obviously unless that skin is tougher than it looks (which is possible, human skin is pretty soft to the touch, but fairly tough considering) then the dragon would have to live a very altered life. Sticks, logs, basking rocks, other dragons, crickets - these things could all have the potential to harm these dragons. I wonder if they have to live in a "padded" cage, so to speak. Now my dragon, Sydney, would think he was in heaven if he had a padded cage, but that is another story. That fruitcake dragon prefers a good cushy pillow to a basking log any day, lol. In all seriousness, I'd like to talk to someone who knows more details about the husbandry of these dragons.

Jamie

And you never know - this whole silk-back thing could open up a whole new market. Beardie clothes - to protect their skin. And sunscreen, lol. JK.

Jamie