Inquiry: Dachiu

[JimD]

Wendy.
Im ok with it. You asked and I told you what I had heard.

Walker75.
Sorry. Ithought that was another hit at myself.

Jim.

 

[JimD]

And just so you know, ha ha, I open at 10 and close at 8.

Jim

 

[Denisebme]

Kevin,

All I am asking is for people to be honest about the status of their animals? When did that become asking too much or only "in a perfect world"?

I guess only when it is asked of big breeders....

EXACTLY Sammy. No one had any issues asking me what the status of my animals was, and when they didn't LIKE what I had to say, they had no issues questioning what vet I used, what lab I used, where the lab I used ended up sending my tests.
Isn't it strange that the people who test and report their results, like Tere and Wendy, end up being the "bad guys" or the "pack of lying idiots", but people who refuse to test, or test once and get positive results, are supposed to be the "good guys".
Let's not forget that there has been a very real effort behind the scenes to attack and discredit people who are coming forward with their test results. That's how this whole thing, 400+ posts on the "Calidragons" thread and 100 posts so far on this thread.

 

[shrap]

First off I'll say that all I know about this subject is from the posts here. But I don't think someone would advertise negative animals only that their breeder's/facility was negative. If they actually have tested the animals that are being sold then anyone can guaranty them I suppose. Even the ones with positive breeders.

Certainly if given a choice I would purchase from virus free breeders but I'm enough of a sceptic to believe there aren't any. So from an industry standpoint why put some breeders behind the eight ball and others a free ride. Seems to me they are all in this together. Maybe they need some kind of association to deal with this.

Sure Kevin, anyone can lie about being truly negative. But they are going to get exposed quick enough for lying dont you think? It all comes back to buying from honest reputable people.

People lie to complete deals every day. Most eventually get exposed. Why is this any different? Why is it that some of you seem to think that the consumer should not be told up front about this? Why do some of you seem to think it is ok to hide this from the consumer? That makes zero sense to me.

When did being honest and upfront become optional of supposed "Good Guys"? DId I wake up today in a parallel universe or something?

 

[Neverland Dragons]

One point I would like to make in regards to Dachiu saying they are not testing is: If you are producing roughly 4000 dragons a year, there are going to be a certain amount of deaths and failure to thrive hatchlings. It is possible that some of these issues are related to adenovirus, but are chalked up to "normal breeding issues." Vickie, what is your policy if you have a large portion of a clutch sickly and not thriving? Or have a 10-20% die off? These could be indications that adenovirus is impacting your colony, but unless you test you will never know.

 

[varnyard]

Bobby.
Can you show me where I say that Canada knows Im importing AV Pos dragons?
I doubt it seeing as all your info is a quote or made up.
Are you going to answer my question?
Jim.

So Canada does not know?

Did you know?

Are you going to import again this year?

As for your questions, it is not me that needs to answer your corny questions, ask your boss Vickie Dachiu , she seems to know a lot more than anyone else.

 

[puppytoes72]

dachiu is being very dishonest about what they are selling.this is the disclaimer on their website:
- Due to the recent volume of phone calls received, we have added another phone line. Please call 610 273 2873 with any questions or if you may be interested in any of the dragons listed. If this line is busy, please try 610 273 3913.

- Our available dragons have not been tested for coccidia, internal parasites, or viruses *including adenovirus. after vicky dachiu posted her test results on the bin she tested for adeno(found to be postive)i told her she should really change the disclaimer on her site because it is very misleading.her response was this QOUTE" puppytoes : "No I will not be changing the web site. This is more than many other breeders have done...
We have set up a seperate facility to house a small group of confirmed positive animals to do repeated testing on to see if and when they may stop shedding this virus. If they stop visibly shedding consistently through EM, we will then move on to PCR monitoring. This is what the test result was from."so then Wilomn asked"
Now I'm even more confused.

I thought you did NO testing on your animals, merely ASSumed that you had AV in your colony.

NOW you have a group who have confirmed positive tests that you continually retest?

Isn't saying that you do no testing in one post and then saying you do repeated testing in another sort of like not telling the truth? If you're not telling the truth here, well, you get the picture.

Still waiting on answers to my previous confuddlements. Please unfuddle me.

thanks" dachiu's answer was"Wes, months ago we obtained the animals from another (unknown) breeder who tested positive and placed them in a seperate facility to test/monitor.

After gaining more knowledge, we split a small group of fresh hatchlings and set them up also. They are positive tested now from our group. So to pick it apart, we have tested positive from 1 group of animals we produced and moved to the testing group.

We are not testing our breeders and/or babies we sell and that is posted on our web site. A can assure you that we are positive Wes. Everyone is looking for answers, but they wont be found in a single test.


Walker - Perhaps you need to make a call to Lou Ann. She stated that the number were from August to date and that she did not perform any tests in 2005." this is all on pages 80-85 on the Deniseb inquiry thread.dachiu is knowingly breedeing and selling adeno-positive beardies and is trying to hide behind the bogus disclaimer.

 

[Wilomn]

I think there may be some understating of number produced by dachiu as well.

Back in the long ago, when I was breeding dragons, a first year breeding female could produce 100 good eggs. A second or third could sometimes equal that but generally was just a tad less, perhaps 80 good eggs. After 4 or 5 years I stopped working with beardies so I don't have any first hand info on possible production by older females.

Then there are the German Giants, which I have not worked with personally, but are reputed to lay clutches of 50-60 good eggs regularly. dachiu works with these as well in two ways I believe. I "think" they are producing pure GGs and crossing the line to up the production numbers of other beardies.

Now, they state that they have about 150 breeders in an approximate ration of 1 male to 2 maybe 3 females. Let's be generous and say they have 1 male to every 2 females. Ok, we now have 100 females that can, concertively produce 2 clutches a year. We ALL know that 3 or 4 clutches is no problem for many females, so let's go with 3. An average clutch size for this supposition will be 25 good eggs.

So, we have 100 females producing 75 babies a year and yet dachiu cliams to only produce 4000 babies, not the SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED that any reasonably intelligent breeder could produce. AND, if one put some extra special attention on thier lizards and had some REALLY big GGs, that could easily climb another thousand or two in numbers.

I think there are a lot more dachiu av carrying dragons out there than some folks have realized.

 

[varnyard]

Originally Posted by JimD: I am not looking for anyones approval for saying sorry. It was something I said and no I'm not going to say that someone put me up to it like Bobby did.
I'm a grown man, make my own decisions. Unlike Bobby, I can accept that I MESSED UP ON MY OWN!

That is too funny!!

Seeing as had nothing to gain, but guess what? You and your boss Vickie Dachiu did!!

Even funnier, she is still asking the same questions she put me up to asking.

Is that the answer you were looking for JimD?

Now answer mine.

 

[varnyard]

Seeing as (I) had nothing to gain, but guess what? You and your boss Vickie Dachiu did!!

 

[Jim O]

Sammy,

The problem here is that even with several negative tests, no one can guarantee that an animal is negative as viral shedding may well be intermittent. No one really knows. And doing serial tests on a $50 baby dragon turns it into a $200 baby dragon. Short of that, no one can make a "guarantee" of any sort.

I know that I sound like a broken record but I'll say it again. We really don't know a whole lot and until or unless scientific studies are done there is no way to know what this is all about and what the impact might really be. Destroying large colonies is not the answer at this point. Nor is the answer to stop breeding. Honesty and integrity are another story of course and I am not challenging anyone's conclusions regarding those. But let's not forget that there are hundreds of dragons for sale at KS now. Many if not most or all are infected.

And then there are the thousands (literally) of dragons that are sold at shows each year. How many of those breeders are testing or even aware of this issue? I'm afraid the cat is long out of the bag on this one and nothing anyone says or does is going to accomplish much, short of the satisfaction of having thumped one's own chest.

 

[Stardust]

It is a new day. I have gotten some sleep, am in the process still of becoming fully awake and am fairly clear minded and as right now not a lot of emotion involved.

I have read all the posts on the prior thread and this one. From the information that Cheri has had a chance to provide in one area with many people reading coupled with the Denise thread (and may I say now, in PMing with her and reading her posts she is very knowledgable and good in nature) I have received a few PM's/emails of people asking where to go to get tested. I will not name them as 1. they don't want to be involved in the public aspect of it all (who can blame them) 2. they are concerned enough to ask and start testing themselves. This tells me that without all the smoke screens people do start taking action.
I have personally thought well I can just not test and keep my animals as they basically are, pets. I would be doing a dishonor in this as the more testing that is done the more the experts can find the answers that could be key to getting this under control or helping to find an answer to fix the problem.
What I really hope this accomplishes is the big breeders taking and active interest, no more then that, an active role by testing their dragons also. Strains can then be compared and analized and some conclusions can be made. The small breeders and even the pet owners are doing their part why can't the big breeders dip into their pockets as well and contribute?
IF the big breeders would step up, come on board and start educating properly and providing the industry with much needed data we could possibly see results, get answers, isolate different strains IF there are. I am not so sure why this is so hard to comprehend for the bigger breeders??

 

[varnyard]

So Jim, why would you defend her? The facts are:

(1). She has infected babies.

(2). How many is unknown.

(3). She has admitted she will not test her adults breeders, or all her babies, why?

(4). You are her Canadian distributer, and might plan to import even more into you country this year.

(5). Both you and her act like this killing virus it not a big deal.

(6). She has tested positive, and the results are out as proof.

Some here have pointed out, just because a bunch of babies die, it might not be the virus. But what if it is?

 

[shrap]

Jim,

You skipped right past the only thing I have been saying and turning it into something completely different. And that is that people should be honest in representing their animals when selling them. If you have positive breeders that should be made clear. If you have never tested, that should be made clear. If you have tested negative and stand behind those tests that should be made clear.

If me asking people to be honest in representing their animals and asking them not to say that having Adeno is perfectly fine when no one knows one way or the other at this point is considered chest thumping by you, then you aint the person I thought you were. Because I sure as hell aint here to thump my chest.

You know, one of the biggest draws to this site for me was that I always felt I was around a fair amount of like minded people that believed in a higher standard. Who believed in not only doing things the right way, but for the right reasons.

Now I have people here, many of the same people that I thought believed in a higher standard too, that I have the utmost respect for, making excuses for why people should NOT be honest and upfront about the animals they are selling.

I am shocked. I can not believe that asking people to be 100 percent honest in the representation of their animals is anything but a minimum requirement of all sellers.

I have people here who have been nothing but moral and just telling me that only in a "perfect world" should I be asking people to simply be honest about what they are selling. That I am "chest thumping".

If that is what people really think then I have to question why I bother coming here everyday and giving a piece of myself everyday for cause, a set of beliefs, that apparantly no one really believes in. Or that they just selectively apply.

 

[Stardust]

Sammy,

The problem here is that even with several negative tests, no one can guarantee that an animal is negative as viral shedding may well be intermittent. No one really knows. And doing serial tests on a $50 baby dragon turns it into a $200 baby dragon. Short of that, no one can make a "guarantee" of any sort.

I know that I sound like a broken record but I'll say it again. We really don't know a whole lot and until or unless scientific studies are done there is no way to know what this is all about and what the impact might really be. Destroying large colonies is not the answer at this point. Nor is the answer to stop breeding. Honesty and integrity are another story of course and I am not challenging anyone's conclusions regarding those. But let's not forget that there are hundreds of dragons for sale at KS now. Many if not most or all are infected.

And then there are the thousands (literally) of dragons that are sold at shows each year. How many of those breeders are testing or even aware of this issue? I'm afraid the cat is long out of the bag on this one and nothing anyone says or does is going to accomplish much, short of the satisfaction of having thumped one's own chest.

You are correct Jim there is not enough known. The cat has stayed in the bag for far too long.
The only hope that I have is that your predicted outcome is incorrect and that more and more people will come forward and start testing and giving their information so we all CAN know more.

 

[monkeywrench133]

Would any of the people who have lost animals to this disease be willing to post, or email to someone neutral, numbers of fatalities, numbers of positive testing animals, and numbers of entire collection or colony?

Everyone keeps talking about what a killer this disease is, and while I'm not arguing that animal have died from it, I'd like to see at least a rough baseline lethality percentage. That would give us a much better idea of what we're dealing with.


Even if it is anecdotal JimO

 

[Wilomn]

I'm afraid the cat is long out of the bag on this one and nothing anyone says or does is going to accomplish much, short of the satisfaction of having thumped one's own chest.

Not so very long ago someone asked what if any value the BOI had OTHER than that of merely being entertaining.

Some smartass answered something along the lines of, "why need there be more value than that of mere entertainment."

Those who have chests, and sometimes the testosterone to go with them, fine entertainment, amusement AND satisfaction merely BY thumping said chests on occasion. What is the problem with this?

It DOES have some relative merits. It calls out to others that there is a Chest Thumper here who wants/needs to be listened to, someone who WILL take a stand and make a point.

Sometimes it's psuedothumping and we all have a good laugh. Sometimes though, it's the real thing and folks remember who thumped for what and when.

That can be important.

 

[jsrocket]

Just because they CAN reproduce, does that mean they SHOULD?

Let's just say, hypothetically, that these carriers "only" produce 1 in 5 babies that end up dying from the virus...only after living a fairly miserable life. Is that then OK, since the other 4 appear OK....and go on to produce their 1 in 5?

It keeps being said that such a high percentage of dragons tested have been positive, so we can assume from those results that most dragons have it....have you stopped to think about who has actually tested the dragons, up until now? It's not the average owner, or small time breeder, it was those who either were having problems, suspected they had the virus, or knew what was going on when Ron Wood had all of the die offs, but those people chose not to let the "general public" in on that bit of information.

I can't help but wonder how much of an impact these big breeders COULD have had on the impact of this virus if they would have put an effort into stopping it when it was first becoming noticed, instead of going on with business as usual.....

And as for Vickie's "disclaimer"....the average Joe knows little about Adeno. If they were to look to buy a dragon from Vickie, and ask her about it, and she gave them the standard, "Oh, all dragons probably have it, it's no big deal" answer, what are the odds that they are going to put out the money to have their dragons tested for it within that 6 week period? Misleading indeed.

Sorry I was short with you Cathy, it was past my bedtime, and I was cranky.

The truth is, nobody really knows if AV is a big deal, or not. Just because an AV positive dragon dies, does not automatically mean it died due to the virus.

SHOULD the large breeders have been more careful? Well, I simply don't know the answer to that, and to state an opinion on it would be nothing more than "Monday morning quarterbacking".

People who make a living breeding dragons are in business, and in business, you have to accept certain losses. While I agree 100% that the consumer has a right to all the facts, why in the world would a seller go out of his/her way to scare off a buyer, run expensive tests that don't guarantee accurate results, jack up the prices to cover the cost of said tests, and lose their competitive edge, for something that maybe kinda sorta might be a problem?

I am not defending the despicable behavior by some breeders, just trying to be objective.

Who knows where this whole issue will wind up? I am not willing to guess at this point.

One thing to keep in mind, is that viruses stay in business because of their miraculous ability to mutate, so what was fact last year might not be this year.

If someone wanted to diligently test all their dragons, and charge a high price for them, I say more power to them. I'm just not too sure how many they would be able to sell.

 

[Wilomn]

Sammy, you're not alone. There are silent ones who feel the same way you do who just don't have the gumption, yet, to speak up and say so.

And then there are a few like me, who like standing by guys like you.

 

[varnyard]

Jim,

You skipped right past the only thing I have been saying and turning it into something completely different. And that is that people should be honest in representing their animals when selling them. If you have positive breeders that should be made clear. If you have never tested, that should be made clear. If you have tested negative and stand behind those tests that should be made clear.

If me asking people to be honest in representing their animals and asking them not to say that having Adeno is perfectly fine when no one knows one way or the other at this point is considered chest thumping by you, then you aint the person I thought you were. Because I sure as hell aint here to thump my chest.

You know, one of the biggest draws to this site for me was that I always felt I was around a fair amount of like minded people that believed in a higher standard. Who believed in not only doing things the right way, but for the right reasons.

Now I have people here, many of the same people that I thought believed in a higher standard too, that I have the utmost respect for, making excuses for why people should NOT be honest and upfront about the animals they are selling.

I am shocked. I can not believe that asking people to be 100 percent honest in the representation of their animals is anything but a minimum requirement of all sellers.

I have people here who have been nothing but moral and just telling me that only in a "perfect world" should I be asking people to simply be honest about what they are selling. That I am "chest thumping".

If that is what people really think then I have to question why I bother coming here everyday and giving a piece of myself everyday for cause, a set of beliefs, that apparantly no one really believes in. Or that they just selectively apply.

That is one awesome post bro!! That is exactly how I also look at it!!!