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Coloration Ethics

I

Intense Herpetoculture

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Ok, here is a touchy subject about coloration and supplimentation. Several suppliments for sale in the trade can greatly increase the yellow and orange coloration of a leo due mostly due to beat cartoene (spelling?). Do you think it is wrong for leopard gecko breeder to suppliement breeders using these products?

Also, is it wrong for breeders to sale "pale" animals because perhabs they were grown in stressful conditons such as overcrowding and this caused them to remain a "pale" coloration.

I'm interested in people thoughts. For years breeders of dogs, fish, and horses use vitamin suppliements to improve the ornage coloration and the coat of an animal. I'm not talking about man man products, but "natural" suppliments such as carrot's, shrimp, etc. Is it wrong for them to feed their animals these products?
 
Do you think it is wrong for leopard gecko breeder to suppliement breeders using these products?
Click to expand...
if all it does or is used to do is is increase the color, yes.... simply it's another form of misrepresentation... it's not genetics.
let's says i eat alot of carrots and shirmps... how my color begins to get pinker and oranger.... is it because this is my genetic make up??? no, it because the foods i am intaking. if i produce (mated to a milky pale) my offspring will be (chances are) pale milky white not pink orange. this one is simple... ethics ethics ethics

Also, is it wrong for breeders to sale "pale" animals because perhabs they were grown in stressful conditons such as overcrowding and this caused them to remain a "pale" coloration.
Click to expand...
yes
 
Ok, so would it be wrong of me to sell you a flamingo that was pink, and in your care it turned white because you did not feed it the proper diet to substain the pink coloration? I know this is not about flamingos, but think about it, and no, supplimentation would not be done to only increase the coloration to to increase the health of the animal. Oh, dart frog owners do it all the time (to keep yellows and reds), as do green baslisk owners (to keep the green, and not have the animal turn blue). Not saying I agree with any of this, but then again, I don't see why I can disagree.
 
Since this can be applied to more than just geckos...

The intrinstic ability for the animal to be the color it is, IS inherent in the genetics.

If the animal were not genetically capable of attaining the color, it simply wouldn't be that color... Diet plays a massive role in many aspects of a herp's being... from color to general health, growth rate, venom toxicity in species where that's an issue...

If the animal is continued on the same diet, it retains the color. If it's not, then the person who was advertising it as the color it was can't be held at fault unless... and this is a big unless, they are advertising the animal as being part of a high color bloodline.

I liken this to the discussion about incubation temperatures, it's not misrepresenting the animal, because that's what the animal IS. If the end buyer is unaware of how to incubate for color or what diet to use for a more appealing appearance, the producer can't be blamed for this. I feel the same way about people using hair driers in the shower, but somehow society has ignored my demands that elecrocuted idiots be laughed at.
 
Just in case it gets brought up...

There's a big difference between supplementing an animal's diet in a manner that will subtle alter the color while still maintaining a diet which keeps it in optimum health and changing a diet to alter the color in a manner which will leave it malnourished.

This is also entirely different from situations where dyes have been placed externally on animals, either intentionally or accidently (Gatorade soak) and the animals are then represented as being the color they appear in photographs, but will cease to be as of their first shed.
 
IF the breeder is using certain supplements for color enhancement ONLY, then it's wrong. However, if they have vitimans with something like beta carotene in it, well, ok, that's a side benefit.

ANY and ALL breeders should have a good caresheet though, and it would be nice if they mentioned the side effect of such supplements.

As for the pale ones being sold under stress, then no. Stressed animals are not healthy, and shouldn't be sold in the first place.

And if this makes no sense, it's early for me....
 
Haha Justyn, funny you posted on this subject, I was thinking of having a poll on it!

I don't really see a problem with this. Let's say for instance (just hypothetically speaking here) that I use a certain calcium/vitamin supplement for a long time, I have healthy animals but nothing spectacular colorwise. I then decide to switch to another supplement and notice within a couple of weeks that all my animals look brighter and their color looks more vibrant. Why wouldn't I use the supplement that makes the geckos look nicer? It would be silly not to! And of course I would recommend that particular supplement to others as well.

I feed my crickets, mealworms and superworms carrots, which contain beta carotine. I do this because it is good for the feeders which in turn is good for my geckos. But I also have heard that it makes the colors on your animals look brighter and more vibrant. I think this is just a result of feeding healthier bugs to the gecko, which in turn makes it look healthier on the outside.

In closing, I feel that there is nothing wrong with using a supplement that brings out the best color in your animals. Like Seamus said, it is totally different than soaking them in kool aid or food coloring (that is wrong!).
 
Oh yeah..

As far as breeders selling pale, dull animals as hypos, ghosts, whatever. You cannot fault a breeder if he or she did not realize that the animals pale color was not its natural coloration because it was kept under stressful conditions. Now if they knew this was not the true color of the animal that's another story.
 
There's a few things which have gotton me thinking about tropical fish this morning, this post was one of them.

I tend to liken a situation such as this to the nearly identical one that you get with many fish... They'll change color, sometimes drastically, if they are fed a better diet... other species go through seasonal diet changes, sometimes coinciding with breeding season... more color changes. These are, while forced a bit by human hands, natural things. A kribensis in breeding condition looks amazingly vibrant and bright, one that's perfectlt healthy but not inclined towards the more romantic aspects of being a fish... kinda dull, a lot more subdued. Would it be misrepresentation to sell the one that's in breeding condition, even though the breeding condition is purely the result of environment (including diet to a fair degree, not much breeds on flakes)?

The antithesis of this is, again to draw a parallel, the fish which have been injected with a dye that has negative impacts on their health, isn't permanent and isn't something your everyday owner would be capable of reproducing... Anyone remember the guy selling the "red" ball pythons awhile back, when they had been painted with a dye? It wasn't the snake which had the colors, there was nothing about the animal's metabolism which could reproduce the effect...

If a healthy animal on an appropriate color enhancing diet (again, feeding them easter egg tablets isn't appropriate) can't be sold pretty much as is... Then would a dealer be able to take pictures in better lighting? While the animal is basking and brighter? In a body position which displays it's best traits?

I think that honest dealers would always be ready to help a customer out... if Kelli sold an animal and the colors started to fade after a few months, I suspect she'd be more than happy to give her customer complete information to help them in getting those colors back... Dishonest dealers usually don't have the patience to work through the process of brightening an animal by keeping it healthy or feeding a diet which has color enhancing properties, they need quick scams to get money and get away.

One situation that's kinda related and a bit irritating that I have run into in the past was orange iguanas... They have, in my experience, the potential to turn a fairly vivid orange color if they're fed a LOT of carrots, but a LOT of carrots isn't a healthy diet for the species... If a color enhancing supplement has to be used in such an amount that the animal is becoming malnourished or if it's not an appropriate diet item, then it starts to border on fraud.
 
ok, the shrimp in flamingos diets is what turns them pink right justyn? in natual diets of leos do you think they eat alot of shrimp> or carrots, espeially given there geographic and environmental range> i mean i see the nutritional benifits of beta carotene and what not but using it ONLY to increase certain colors... pinks, oranges ect.
lets look at this differently.......
lets say a breeder csuppliments there geckos correctly and they are fed right but the breeder haas found a way by messing with their diet to become much paler... while still very healthy the color is dulled and drab and now because of this sells it as whatevernameyouwanttocallit....... claiming it genetic from a whateveryouwantotcallit bloodline or lets so the stressed geckos you refered to as stressed wernt in fact stressed but rather diet induced... you bring them home and feed them your normal diet and your dull gecko is now bright orange or bright yellow????
 
I think the point which would sperate honesty from dishonesty would be the representation of the color as genetic when there is no reasonable genetic cause.

Bloodline becomes a bit touchy, since a bloodline can be represented merely as animals coming from the breeding group of a certain dealer.

Stating that there is a direct recessive trait responsible for the condition would simply be false representation of the product.
 
another great topic

someone mentioned that beta caretone or other supplements enhance coloration etc. i know this may be the case for other species such as the flamingo (which get their pink coloration from the algae they eat in the wild)...but does anyone have ANY written or published literature/proof that this is the case in leopard geckos???

if so please cut/paste or supply the links. thanks
-jon
 
I do have probably the most dramatic proof.

colorchange.jpg


Only change was supplementation.

Note that the second image was photoshopped to bring out the gecko from a dark picture, the gecko isn't quite as solid a yellow (still has a faded pastel quality to it in real life), but the color is spot on.
 
betacarotene (sp?) is a dye. remember the Juice Tiger. it was a juicer (and probably still is). well from my parents owning one of these i learned that carrot juice will dye your skin (mainly your hands) and nails. thats right... dye. if you stop drinking carrot juice your hands will eventually go back to normal. now because this is internal it wont shed off like kool aid or gatorade or whatever. instead it needs time to fade away. the real question in my opinion is:
Is betacarotene beneficial to a leopard geckos diet and should it be part of thier diet?
if so than everyone should be using it. if not than you are dying your geckos internally.

if i bought a tangerine gecko with strong orange and it faded to a yellow withion a few months i would feel cheated.

p.s. i wonder what would happen if you implemented betacarotene into a flamingos diet. an orange flamingo?
 
Beta caretene

Beta carentene is turned in to Vitamin A inside the body. Vitamin A is a beneficial, if not essential. I think beta carentene is converted as needed into Vitamin A but I don't know this for a fact 100%. I would be very careful when supplementing leopard geckos to make sure they are not getting too much Vitamin A, as this can be toxic in high levels and cause problems.

I gut load my feeders with a variety of foods, including carrots, kale, apples, oranges, potatoes, as well as chick mash (for mealworms) and a high quality cricket chow for the crickets. I truly believe that is you gut load your feeders properly you really do not need to supplement with vitamins, but once or twice a month probably doesn't hurt.
 
good for your eyes?

in other words your saying betacarotene has the potential to be toxic in large amounts because it is metabolized into vitamin A, which in large amounts is toxic to leopard geckos?

im sure gutloading is fine. weather it be carrots or whatever. adding additional beta carotene would not be neccessary if you were doing that tho. although a little here and there (as included with a multivitamin supplement for reptiles) for good measure couldnt hurt.

pumping a gecko full of betacarotene is obviously more risk than reward tho. and it seems like cheating to me. betacarotene does not stimulate the body to produce higher ampunts of orange pigment, it dyes the skin from the inside. seems like cheating to me.
 
Yeah, I agree there is no reason to "pump" a leo full of beta caretene or Vitamin A to enhance coloration. It is not worth the health risks involved. Maybe someday some enthusiatic hobbiest will do an experiment involving leopard geckos and supplementation, diet etc. I wish I had the time and space to do it, I would! Oh well maybe someday.:)
 
hey emacpets

those pics u posted...was that one of the "ghost" hypos from knreptiles??? have u contacted them about it? what was their explanation?

very disconcerning to me (and should be to other hobbyist/buyers), since i've seen "ghost" or "faded" leopard geckos priced slightly higher...

-jon
 
Yes that is a ghost. But first understand that it remained a ghost while in my collection. It was not until I changed brands of supplements to TRex that the color changed, and it did so in under a week! My thoughts right now aren't so negative about the breeder as they are curious about the supplementation.
 
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