Cat_72 said:
There are HOW many pages in this thread, and a couple of other threads, and you need more info? More evidence?
In case you missed it, here is a link to the IBD thread, with a copy of the proper necropsy results.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89963&highlight=Daddy
All of this BS that Allen is saying was long previously hashed out in these threads somewhere. I suppose he's hoping people will have forgotten all that was said then, or that folks will be too lazy to go back and read it all, which apparently is the case with some folks.
OK - I'm reading through that thread now.
What I am not willing to pass any judgement on is the condition of his animals.
I did look at those pics closer. The newspaper in all the cages with newspaper looks fairly fresh. One of them is from Playoffs season (well before Feb 1) but I stack old newspapers, so that doesn't proves it is old. When newspaper gets wet and dries, my experience is that it stains really badly - but I see no such staining or yellowing of the newspaper. The poops look fresh. The dragon pic is difficult to make out what I'm looking at.
Those pics IMHO could have been staged.
Not saying they were, just they could have been.
As far as his lack of defending himself in the IBD thread, he strikes me as someone who is not very technically savvy. That's not a crime, nor an indication that his snakes have IBD.
The vet report indicates that a snake died of IBD and I don't doubt that one did. An e-mail posted in that thread indicates that he had some testing done of his snakes and even if they were not the most conclusive type of test, apparently they came back negative. Maybe he is lying maybe he isn't.
What I did see though is that the only other possible case of IBD from his was a spider that was inconclusive. I agree he handled the Spyder situation poorly, but that doesn't mean he keeps snakes wallowing in regurgitated mouse guts.
However - there is a little bit of double standard. He is blasted for not halting sales because he may have IBD in his collection even though he allegedly had blood tests that said negative. But the Spyder owner went out and got two new spyders before her necropsy was in, before she could know she didn't have IBD in her collection now, and no one scolded her lack of patience for not making sure she was clean before she got two new animals that could potentially catch it.
I also saw some second hand verbal information. A local dealer called him, and reported to another person here that he said IBD carriers were not possible, and the conclusion drawn here was that he was spreading mis-information.
Seems shaky to me. The local dealer could have mis-heard or mis-represented what he was told, or mis-communicated it to the forum member who posted it here.
For example - AFAIK pythons can not be typhoid mary type carriers of IBD - they either express it and die or they don't have it. Maybe that is what was communicated to the pet store dealer, who mis-understood it.
Now - having possibly sold an IBD snake - should he have stopped selling until he was sure he didn't have it? I think yes. How does one make sure they don't have it? Apparently he had blood tests done. If he really did and they came up negative, sure it is possible they still have it - but before being too hard on him, I'd like to know how often false negatives happen *and* how many tests he had done.
As you are aware, IBD often spreads like wildfire. If say there is a 15% chance of false negative, and he tested 25 snakes - do the exponential math, if they all came up negative than there is a very slim chance they were all false negatives with how fast it spreads in a collection.
How is his customer service? I don't know, it does sound like it could use some help - one of the complaints in that thread though is that he wanted the spyder back before he would do anything. I think that is pretty standard, but he was railroaded for it.
I'm not saying I vouch for this guy, I've never met him - I'm just saying I do think there is a possibility the photos that started this thread were staged and if that is the case, he is certainly getting the short end of the stick.
Have there been any other cases of him selling IBD infected snakes? Is it possible the one he did sell picked up IBD at the show?
Geez - at Sacramento show last year, there was a person walking around with an Albino Burm around her neck. She was cute so I tried to make conversation, and asked "Doesn't your back hurt carrying him for so long?" She replied "Yeah, well, thank goodness he's been on a feeding strike for awhile" - I asked her why it wasn't eating, she said "I don't know, six months ago it just stopped" -
I lost interest in her. She's got a non feeding snake that could be sick and she's carrying it around a reptile show ?? Reptile shows are scary places. It's possible someone handled an IBD snake before handling that one or something.
I guess that would have been a really short incubation, but I've heard it can be very quick in Pythons. Yet that seems to be the only confirmed case of it possibly coming from him.
If I were him, I admit - I would have stopped selling any boids for at least 3 months. But it looks like whether or not he made the right decision, he didn't have IBD in his collection as no other snakes he sold have been reported to die from it, and I gather he gets around. Now that lady in Colorado (I think it was) - she had numerous reports and kept selling, and she wasn't that big of a dealer. But Big Daddy sells a lot, and the reports just aren't there.
I'm sorry for going on - don't take this as defense of the guy - just trying to look at things without bias. I probably should have avoided this thread. I only got involved because the pictures sickened me - and maybe I just don't want to think he can be that evil, but now I'm not so sure they were accurate.
