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What do you do...

I

IMacBevan

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This is perhaps going to be a heated discussion but I thought I would bring it up anyway and see what everyone else does.

The general question is what do you do with the seemingly unsaleable hatchlings (that normal het for everything that in your minds eyes was awesome as a neonate, but once it grew through it's color/pattern change, had to reach to look OK and the entire clutch was male) that result from your breeding efforts. In an ideal world, there would be none as they would all sell. But alas, that is sometimes not the case. Do you cull them? Do you give them to your friends? Do you seek trading partners who want to strengthen their lines by outcrossing? Do you maintain them for the rest of thier lives?

Just an interesting question I was thinking about today and thought I would throw out there and see what happens...


Ian
Silver Rose Reptiles
 
I have produced many of those 'really cool beginning of a new project' males, that just never sold....

they are the reason i have so many cages with only 1 gecko in them :-(

I figure its better not to rely on one male anyway, and even small variations help enormously to keep genetic diversity in bloodlines.
 
shoot alot of what i call normals that are priced lower are het for this or possible het for that.. No culling but you might have to drop the price on them.. or give them to a friend or like monte said a reputable pet store (but there is only one in my area and it's quite far) and sometimes i might give one away to someone i see potential in... it just depends
 
mindcrash said:
I'm a noob to this board, can someone tell me what "het" means?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
het is short for heterozygous. heterozygous you can look up in any genetics book, but it means having a mixed gene set, i.e. one dominant allele and one recessive allele. Reason why people wanna get rid of hets, they don't express recessives, i.e. normal that's het for tremper looks just normal. But if you breed hets together you have a 25% chance of getting a full recessive, or at least in classical mendelian genetics (there are some wierd genes that don't follow normal rules).

Reason why hets are so interesting, is that if there's some mutation that's never been seen before, and it's just not expressed, you don't know it's there. And if you were lucky enough to have two animals that was het for the mutation, you breed the two and might be pleasantly surprised (woah, a blue gecko!). Or, certain combinations of recessives give you new morphs, in cornsnakes, you can get a blizzard (totally white snake) by getting a double recessive anerythristic A and B. The main thing is, you can't have a new recessive morph without starting out with hets to begin with.

Sorry for the genetics lecture, hope that helps

-Lemur 6
 
This is ripe territory for research. It's so sad nowadays that more research isn't done on reptiles the way it's done on domesticated animals and even rodents (I've been working in medical research for the last 5 years and it's mind blowing how many mice and rats we go through). Healthy geckos, sick geckos all with the same sickness, large populations of geckos, etc etc can be used to test drug effects, research behavioral patterns, diseases and cures, neurological research, prosthetics, cybernetics you name it. Reason why its not done: mice and rats are cheaper, geckos are expensive.

There are issues such as knowing the exact strain of a gecko, health isssues, and so on, but comparing a gecko to a well cultivated animal like the mouse isn't fair. Who knows, the leopard gecko might be the first universally used reptile animal model (most domesticated reptile and breeds easily and quickly as well)

Kinda far fetched in terms of what you can do, but heck, you can donate you geckos to some poor herpetological researcher so he can actually get some research done instead of wasting all his grant money.

-Lemur 6

IMacBevan said:
This is perhaps going to be a heated discussion but I thought I would bring it up anyway and see what everyone else does.

The general question is what do you do with the seemingly unsaleable hatchlings (that normal het for everything that in your minds eyes was awesome as a neonate, but once it grew through it's color/pattern change, had to reach to look OK and the entire clutch was male) that result from your breeding efforts. In an ideal world, there would be none as they would all sell. But alas, that is sometimes not the case. Do you cull them? Do you give them to your friends? Do you seek trading partners who want to strengthen their lines by outcrossing? Do you maintain them for the rest of thier lives?

Just an interesting question I was thinking about today and thought I would throw out there and see what happens...


Ian
Silver Rose Reptiles
Click to expand...
 
what I do...

I used to take in a LOT of rescues, but I just can't do it anymore. What I did with many of these 'unwanted' geckos was to donate them to school classrooms, veterinary offices, and people who didn't care what they looked like and loved them anyway!
 
I think donating to a school is a fantastic idea. It invites a lot of people into the hobby. When I was in fourth grade, we kept anoles in the classroom, and that was what prompted me to start keeping reptiles as pets. Going back even earlier, in kindergarten I got to see my first snake on a field trip to a petting zoo. It was a large boa draped around some guy's neck. I think that's why I don't remember ever being scared of snakes even before I started keeping them as pets.
 
Golden Gate Geckos said:
I used to take in a LOT of rescues, but I just can't do it anymore. What I did with many of these 'unwanted' geckos was to donate them to school classrooms, veterinary offices, and people who didn't care what they looked like and loved them anyway!
Click to expand...

Same here, but mostly they sell very well to the general public just through advertising on the paper.
 
Interesting question even though I am not into leos. I have kept and bred many other types of herps. When I do wind up with animals that do not sell right after hatching season, I put them into hibernation for the winter, then try to sell them again at a show in the Spring - but that is usually snakes. I have culled some in the past and later used them as food for tough to start feeding kingsnakes.
 
O Boy Here I Go

I think there are just too many people that would gladly take a leo for a pet Including me no matter how low end it is!!! I have wanted some for about three years and still have never gotten any. They have just been out of my price range(because I want some adults)!
Another idea is to put an add in your paper "free Leopard Geckos" or if you do not want to pay for an add, print out some posters and put them up at Wal-mart (and other places) that says you have free or very cheap ($5-$10 ea.) leopard geckos.

P.S. I have just found some Leos that a breeder does not want to keep for breeding and has up for adoption and I am hopeing to get some of them if he still has some left.

If there is some one on this form that does have some low end (male or femal) adult Leos that they do not want to keep and would adopt out and ship (at adopter's expence) please let me know! I know of several people who would love to take a few no matter how low end they are!!!

Thanks, The Herper.
 
Well...

Hi again.

I just got an e-mail that said this: "sorry they are all spoken for." from the guy that I was hoping to get the low end geckos from :( .

So I am still looking for someone who will adopt out some leos! I don't care what sex they are or how low end thay are I saw some one mention that they have a lot of cages with one gecko in it because he/she had a lot of low end male leos that he/she did not have any thing to do with. That is the type of stuff I am looking to adopt! I have Lots of room and have looked up everything and more that I need to know on keeping and breeding Leos!!! Also I have had lots of other lizards, snakes, and turtles!!! Yes I do hope there are some people who have both males and females that they don't want because I hope to breed them some time when I have stuff set up and ready for eggs!
Please just let me know if you have some you don't want!
Thanks, The Herper.
 
Well I'd like a nice male (I know, I belong on the LH forum, lol).
Seriously, I have 4 leo girls. I figure one of these days I will finally show up to a reptile show (I've never been), meet all the Texas reptile people, and purchase a little guy for the ladies. Then the joyful single leo days will be over for them, where they got to retire to their hide and watch soap operas and eat chocolate (mmmm, chocolate), they will have to learn to cook casseroles, wash socks, and make chip and dip plates for Monday Night Football......
 
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