The No-Insults Hybridization Debate

[Wilomn]

Quote: "Want a cool one of a kind snake? "

Sure...oh wait, you mean a hybrid. Naw, never mind...too bad you don't put so much energy into a project that has some good long term goals...like really getting the mandarin rat snakes going, or perhaps any of the other beautiful colubrids out there.
Hybrids= waste of feeder mice

You? Not toot your own horn? Uhhhh.....please.

As stated before...sure there are some pretty ones out there, not faulting that...it's just that they are a genetic dead end, and a big accident waiting to happen.
greg

AHHHHHH, I begin to see now. If YOU don't think it's a project of worth then it has NO value.

As far as genetic deadends, I get new stuff every year, so NO end is in sight.

I am NOT responsible for what happens to ANY of my babies regardless of their species purity or lack thereof. I do NOT have one standard for my purebloods and another for my mutts. I do find it interesting that you do. Squamatic bigotry.

I'll NOT try to sway you to my way of thinking and I'll NOT think less of you for keeping to yours. However, YOU do NOT have the right nor the ability to TELL me what is good or not good. I'll listen to your OPINION should you care to couch it in terms that do NOT demand I work with mandarins or some OTHER species of YOUR choice, but seriously, if you're trying to TELL me I'm wrong, well, you'll have more luck getting blood from a turnip than you will getting me to DO what you TELL me to.

 

[cthulhu77]

tell you to do something...

Wes, that is the last thing I would ever try to do....

Brick walls are easier in give...LOL.

Don't like hybrids myself...but have to admit, some of them are pretty...but, still seems like a biological dead end to me...ah well.

greg

 

[LakesideBoas]

AHHHHHH, I begin to see now. If YOU don't think it's a project of worth then it has NO value.

I don't think he meant to come across quite that way Wes!

As far as genetic deadends, I get new stuff every year, so NO end is in sight.

While this provides genetic diversity to produce more hybrids, I do not believe he was aiming at future stock with his comment either. I took it to mean, 'Once they are here, and you sell them, what do they do with them now? Mix them with yet another phenotype?' (Feel free to correct me if I am barking up the wrong tree here, Greg!)

What do you call them then? I am curious as I find it difficult, if not imossible, in my area to find a corn snake that isn't either het for multiple things and/or a mixture of everything imaginable. I can not find a local normal! A plain, old, normal corn snake! How sad is that?

I am NOT responsible for what happens to ANY of my babies regardless of their species purity or lack thereof.

I am sure that you are not, but I find it a sad state of affairs that you have to take a stand like that in this industry.

I am trying to become an honest breeder in this hobby and I feel I may be shot in the foot before I even begin. My very first litter of Boas, something I was extremely excited about I might add, and I get one weird one. Just one. I've talked to three local breeders and two think it was fluctuating incubation temps with Mom and one thinks what I think; way back when someone put a Hogg Island in with their BCI.

So tell me, Wes, if I decide to sell these, just what do I call them? If I market them as normal BCIs someone for sure is going to get a weird baby down the road and I'm the bad guy. If I market them as possible Hogg/BCI crosses since they look normal except for the weird one someone sure as shooting will call me on the carpet because of what they look like. So I'm sitting on 36 babies that I don't know if I can sell. (The weird one is staying right here in the 'pet' collection.)

See, it's not you(not you personally, this is a collective 'you') making the crosses or even the next fellow who buys them really. It's the next dude down the road who didn't get told just what they were who breeds them and sells them to the next schmuck (me) who also doesn't know what the heck they are except what said schmuck (me again) is told that pays the full unadulterated price for the crosses you (collective again) made years ago.

I'll NOT try to sway you to my way of thinking and I'll NOT think less of you for keeping to yours. However, YOU do NOT have the right nor the ability to TELL me what is good or not good. I'll listen to your OPINION should you care to couch it in terms that do NOT demand I work with mandarins or some OTHER species of YOUR choice, but seriously, if you're trying to TELL me I'm wrong, well, you'll have more luck getting blood from a turnip than you will getting me to DO what you TELL me to.

Thank you for that and I would never "tell" you what to do, I would couch it in a little more diplomatic terms- LOL! Mandarins would be nice though!

I respect your input in regards to what I mentioned in my response to you, though Wes. Please take it in the light that I meant it as this is a real quanry for me. I really do not want to have to cull my first litter of otherwise healthy, fat little Boas.

 

[Wilomn]

I think, or hope, that Greg and I have enough "history" to joke and jibe a little, which IS how I took it.

As far as your boas, market them just like you told it here and let the buyers make thier own decisions. YOU can't be responsible for what someone else does with babies they got from you.

As long as you're honest there can be no serious detriment to you. If you do NOT misrepresent your snakes you're a good guy, or at least doing good as best as you can.

The plain and simple is that there IS a market for oddballs. Just like some guys will ONLY drive a ford or ONLY drive a chevy or whatever floats their boats, the same hold true for snakes. I don't try to appeal to any particular type of buyer in PARTICULAR, I just produce what I like and if I sell it I try to get just as much as I can while remaining honest about what I am selling.

There are breeders out here that I will NOT buy from because I can't trust them to be honest about what they are selling. Just this year some guy who is big into sinaloans was trying to sell me on his spotted morphs, he, after about a half dozen emails back and forth, said that they were possible hets. RED FLAG as there are no known, at least to me, naturally occurring albino Sinaloans, they've all be crossed with Nelsons. I asked him if they were in fact crosses and NEVER heard from him again. He's off my list forever, can't be trusted. There's some yahoo selling razor banded kings, or he was until I asked him about them and it came out that they were milk/king crosses. He was off the list anyway but proved again that I was right in my initial removal of him.

YOU have to decide what to do and how to do it in a way that YOU can live with YOU.

What do you want for your boas? If we can reach a price we're both happy with I'll take them, represent them as the possible crosses they are and NEVER let anyone know where they came from. It's no ones business from whom I get my snakes and I've got several good pet shops just dying for good boas and a good price, not to mention a few individuals who may make good homes for them. If you feel better about that drop me a line and let me know.

Good luck no matter what you decide, just be comfortable with what you do, be it culling or selling, make sure it's what YOU want to do.

 

[cthulhu77]

Cull, CULL,CULL!

As a fish breeder, I am used to culling frequently (and don't tell me that fish aren't the same as herps...I have some with great personalities )...it would be nice to see the same standards applied to the herp trade, where you still see "eyeless" boas for sale, etc...gag a maggot.

Lakeside hits it perfectly on the head...I see obvious crosses being sold to new herpers as straight strains at shows...and even in stores. Before you know it, you will be breeding muddled genetic mutants...I think it is easier to produce one of the naturally occuring thousands of morphs, rather than trying to make your own...
As stated before, though...some of them are pretty, have to admit.

Of course, Wes, you can do anything you want to do...it is a free country and market...and I am sure that you are honest about the animals that you produce and sell. There are hybrid breeders that just throw two animals together and they happen to breed, then have the balls (pardon the pun) to come on here and post a "look what I did, I'm special" page make me sick.
They are the same sh's that sit around at a herp show making noises about who they know and throwing around the word "phase" a lot. Those guys really get to me...(you know who you are out there )

greg

 

[PaulSage]

My .02

My main concern with hybrids/integrades is this: what if we start breeding say blood pythons into ball pythons, and suddenly new legislation makes it impossible to continue importing true, wild caught, naturally occurring ball pythons?? What impact might that have on the hobby if we know there are blood-balls (maybe that was a bad example) out there and it becomes unclear as to whether or not a given ball python has blood blood (okay, definitely a bad example) in it, and we can no longer import REAL ball pythons?? It may seem unrealistic or unlikely, but after raising different species of parrots, you'd understand the dilemna.

For example, and I apologize if this is but there were three main strains/subspecies of Eclectus parrots in captivity here in the US: the vosmaeri, red-sided, and soloman island. Each of these is just slightly different than the others, yet they do have unique traits to them as far as temperment, fertility, etc. Breeders were so concerned about producing ANY eclectus that they took any male and any female and bred them together, thus blurring the lines between the strains. Then, when it became illegal to import parrots, the source of true, naturally occuring specimens was gone. Now if you go to a pet store to buy a soloman island eclectus, you may very well end up with one that may be part red-sided, which means a lower fertility rate (if you're going to breed it) and most of the time, a crabbier disposition. Without a pedigree (which can still be as BS as any other sheet of paper) you have no way of knowing for sure if the animal you have is a purebred or not.

As a cornsnake breeder, this wouldn't pose much of an issue since there is a significant wild population right here in the states, but what about species that we have to import?? What if the Feds impose the same importing legislation on reptiles that they put on birds??

Personally though, I have no problem with my creamsicle cornsnakes that have emoryi blood in them, since the two are such similar subspecies to begin with. But I'm not going to breed my Russian ratsnakes with my Yellow ratsnakes just because they're both an aboreal Elaphe...

Just my two cents
Paul

 

[reptilebreeder]

My main concern with hybrids/integrades is this: what if we start breeding say blood pythons into ball pythons, and suddenly new legislation makes it impossible to continue importing true, wild caught, naturally occurring ball pythons?? What impact might that have on the hobby if we know there are blood-balls (maybe that was a bad example) out there and it becomes unclear as to whether or not a given ball python has blood blood (okay, definitely a bad example) in it, and we can no longer import REAL ball pythons?? It may seem unrealistic or unlikely, but after raising different species of parrots, you'd understand the dilemna.

You don't have to use a hypothetical situation, it is already happening with animals that can't be imported now. Diamond Pythons, Carpets, Hog (g)? Island Boas, several more.

 

[Uncloudy]

Personally, I've owned a Jungle Corn for over a year. As a somewhat newbie into the hobby (5-6yrs) , I couldn't understand what all the hoopla was about hybrids, to me it just seems like the evolution and part of the direction many other pet hobbies have gone. When some people who've posted on this thread become the governing body of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable in the reptile industry and hobby, please let me know.
With that said, my interest went into a completely different area;
I became a fanatic of the mexicana subspecies, especially the thayeri. To me the Lampropeltis mexicana thayeri is best non-hybrid, type of a hybrid. One clutch of thayeri babies has more variability than 4 generations of breeding a hybrid. They are much more exiciting to me than any type of hybrid out there on the market. Ok, I'll end my thayeri plug here, but they are one of the best and most amazing snake species to breed, you never know exactly what's going to pop out of those eggs.
Happy Herping,
Uncloudy

 

[crotalusadamanteus]

Personally, I do not believe in Hybridization, crossing, whatever you want to call it.
Look what can happen.......
The Texas jackalope

The liger

The Rick

Sorry, had to bring some humor to the topic.

In all seriousness though, it does make it hard on breeders, and keepers that like to maintain the specific bloodlines, or locales. Like stated, you may end up with something unpure, regardless of what the papers say.

Ciao,
Rick

 

[DragonCharm]

One problem seen in the tropical fish world with the arrival of hybrids is a complete muddying of the market. Often times a hybrid fish (that still looks a lot like one of the parents) is sold as the same type as one of the parents and not as a hybrid. Example would be Flowerhorns being sold as Trimacs. Flowerhorns are often a complete mystery, many times after a few generations you end up with way more than 2 species mixed in to get desired shapes and colors. It is more often than not impossible to guess the lineage or what "paint" went into the mix. I fear reptiles will go this way in the future.

If 2 animals hybridize in nature that's the way mother nature intended and may contribute to an evolutionary process. It happens due to natural forces and is part of the "plan," something that happened as a step in the chain. I don't think it's right to have hobbyists doing the mixing, it should occur naturally. Now if there is a natural mixing I don't see why we can propogate those hybrids in captivity.

 

[coyote]

Dead ends

Quote: "Want a cool one of a kind snake? "

Sure...oh wait, you mean a hybrid. Naw, never mind...too bad you don't put so much energy into a project that has some good long term goals...like really getting the mandarin rat snakes going, or perhaps any of the other beautiful colubrids out there.
Hybrids= waste of feeder mice

You? Not toot your own horn? Uhhhh.....please.

As stated before...sure there are some pretty ones out there, not faulting that...it's just that they are a genetic dead end, and a big accident waiting to happen.
greg

Greater than 90% of all the species that arose on this planet have gone extinct. The preponderance of those "ended" with no human involvement.

 

[kiote9]

If you believe in evolution you might notice that species change and evolve....some die out while new ones are discovered.

If you believe ceation then all is predestined and some things die out and new things are discovered.

If you are human you might notice that some humans love to create change regardless of the consequences and sometimes good things come of it and other times they don't.

There are usually three trains of thought on any subject; for, against, and apathetic.

This will not change.

Life, however, will continue to change. We can't stop it. If the only Black Headed Pythons left to the hobbiests in this country all carry JCP blood so be it. Somewhere in the world there may or may not be pure bloods.

Do I believe in hybridization? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Will hybridizing affect the course of the future? I don't know. Neither do you.

The hybrid question when purchasing will be similar to the het question. Is it or isn't it? You wont know until you breed it....if even then.

 

[coyote]

Having only gotten into the snake hobby less than a year ago I am still pretty much clueless when an animal is a hybrid. This is especially in reference to colubrid hybrids like "jungle" etc. I did buy one, it was represented as a "jungle zigzag kingsnake". She is quite attractive and thriving. I came to realize that she is a hybrid in the course of my online research on kingsnakes and cornsnakes. She is phenotypically more cornsnake looking than kingsnake looking. Except her conformation is more kingsnake, "no-neck". Anyway, I do not ordinarily seek to aquire hybrids. I have her now and would love to know more about her geneology. In absence of that, I have every intention of keeping her-and yes, am even considering breeding her. I do agree with some of the concerns expressed. I hope that there would continue to be conscientious and committed persons in both camps. Those who breed true to species and maintain the natural genotypes. And those who hybridize but are completely forthcomming about the pedigrees of the animals they produce. As an aside, I am also very interested in the Tricolor Lampropeltis. I do not like the "apricot", "tangerine", "hypo" or "anery" types. I prefer NORMALS. And, have found that it can be difficult finding normals. After reading some of the posts made in this thread, I am giving serious consideration to maybe making that MY project-NORMAL tricolors. Of course, I would have to be able to find animals that are not het for the morphs that I find undesirable. Perhaps this is a whole other topic.