Been a way for a while, have a concern

[Albert Clark]

Originally Posted by dannybgoode

Go on then. Give me one benefit to the hobby from breeding snakes with a guaranteed disability. What do we gain, how is the hobby advanced by this practice?

I can think of precisely one - different coloured snakes and that hardly justifies the practice but I'm open to hearing others if there are some.

1- supply. demand.

2- Amazing morph/ combos some with great personalities despite.

3- More keepers get to study a reptile that is a enigma and is under constant examination and study by big breeders, veterinary schools when the elective is exotics (reptile genetic chromosomal abnormalities). And commonly people who just love the morph.

[Albert Clark]

Originally Posted by regi375

There's a big difference between your nephew and a snake Albert. With your nephew, it happened by chance that he was born with those issues. With these snakes, they're being intentionally bred and born with these issues. The problem isn't that they have a disability, it's that they're being bred knowing that they're going to have a disability that affects them adversely.

Actually a small difference but the principle scenario is very similar. The spider disability (thank you) is one that has varying degrees of severity and most are certainly not adversely affected with all due respect. I have only a vague recollection of one person that claims to of had a spider with a wobble so bad it wouldn't eat. However, that same person just culled it instead of taking suggestions on how to minimize it, so who knows how bad it really was? Then there are always the " i know a breeder", "i have a buddy", my sister's cousins aunt" rumors that you never find a source to, seems to be the same people that have desert females that lay viable eggs. Besides that, we have multi thousands of spiders that thrive perfectly fine in captivity.

[TRD]

Just going to leave this here..
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ns_for_welfare

[Albert Clark]

Originally Posted by TRD

Just going to leave this here..
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ns_for_welfare

Unfortunately i can't view the link, thanks anyway. Let's let ThirteenRavens decide what his path is going to be. This will be how i end this back and forth. At least some of the pros and cons of owning , keeping , breeding and the ethical and or unethical considerations have been posted herein.

[ThirteenRavens]

Thanks for all of the input guys, I really appreciate it as always. I have been out of town for the holiday, thus the lack of response.

I had a different friend stay at my home (who I trust implicitly to take care of my dogs and her snakes were also in this other friends' care and fortunately they are ok and are now at my house as well) while I was away and had her update me daily on Dayo. He has settled down and is no longer corkscrewing like he was when I made this post.

I am not a breeder nor do I ever plan to be, and I if I were I wouldn't be breeding the spider lines. As beautiful as they are, my heart breaks every time I see how bad they can be. Fortunately Dayo is a fantastic eater (which I'm afraid wasn't done often enough in the "care" of my friend either...) and has no issues with eating. I do have to wait a bit longer with the mouse on the tongs for him to grab it himself...I don't wave it around otherwise he strikes and misses.

I will continue to monitor him and if this becomes routine or worse I will do right by him.

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by TRD

breeding something with a known lesser quality of life (and god knows how they experience it) is not ethical. These morphs are bred for 1 reason, and one reason alone: $

And Ps. I'm not calling all other bp morphs 'defective', just those with known neuro issues.

Think of it what you will, but it's still not ethical what is being done.

There isn't any conclusive evidence that spider morphs (specifically we will discuss those) have a known lesser quality of life. Snakes are instinctive animals. Their job is to eat, poop, grow, stay alive and proliferate the species. The spider mutation as a whole doesn't interfere with that.

If you personally are against them that's cool. No issue with personal choice, however don't pass along misinformation as truth and fact.

Originally Posted by dannybgoode

So what does the hobby gain by breeding defective morphs? What benefit is there to doing so?

The option is there to not breed them (intentionally that is) so why bother?

Since you've agreed with TRD I am going to believe you'd agree with the link to the medical paper TRD posted. Here's two examples for the benefit:

"Aspects of reptile welfare may have benefited from
the growth of captive breeding. In the past, it has
been more financially viable to replace a diseased
reptile than to seek veterinary intervention.
This is no longer the case owing to greater veterinary
expertise and growing commercial value of reptiles..."

First example to sum it up is we now have a greater (also still increasing) knowledge of the reptile physiology on a medical side. People would replace reptiles and now seek out Vet. help on a regular basis.

Secondly, the morph market has greatly increased the popularity of reptiles as pets. Bringing them to a mainstream level which helps bring more people to not kill them and put forth an effort towards conservation instead of eradication.

Originally Posted by TRD

Just going to leave this here..
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ns_for_welfare

Did you read your own article? It had an incredibly low amount of people for the study answer the questionnaire sent to them. Further, the welfare side came out to be "inconclusive" with current evidence. Meaning there's no current definable way to say there's a lesser quality of life for this morph.

As well the article also states both groups (breeders v welfarists) may be biased due to which group they belong in. Which to me further conflates the issue because the answers to the survey may simply be answered to push a personal agenda.

My personal issue with the welfarists is how do I know they have even seen this snake in person or ever kept a snake in their life to actually understand the issue at hand? From the article it seems they only read the results of the breeder survey (Which is 13 people deep).

In the end, I agree with the article that there definitely should be more studies done to find out if certain morphs with known defects (in this case the wobble syndrome) has a negative effect on it's welfare. Until then though, I have to go with the general consensus that as a rule of thumb, it doesn't impede the quality of life of the individual animal.

[Andy_G]

I dislike the fact that the spider morph has come into fruition and I don't see any reason for myself to work with it. I don't however see a reason to "exterminate it" or to shame people who buy it or work with it and it's much too far along to even propose this. There's a difference between education and cramming your opinion down somebody's throat. One's opinions and ethics are personal and full of bias and they do in fact vary without being right or wrong...or sometimes they are right or wrong...but I know that wouldn't be cramming my opinion down anybody's throat here when it comes to something like this, especially if I were recently corrected on the origins of such genes.

[dannybgoode]

The origins of the gene are somewhat irrelevant as I feel the same way about the jaguar carpet morph, scales snakes, silk back dragons, eyeless snakes and any other animal (and I include things like pug dogs) where humans are breeding defective animals poorly for their own aesthetic satisfaction.

[dannybgoode]

@Aaron - 'Their job is to eat, poop, grow, stay alive and proliferate the species.'

I'm surprised you could have such a low basis for what constitutes a quality life and the criteria differ greatly from mine.

And the challenge as always. TRD has at least provided a proper scientific peer reviewed paper to back his argument (which you have discussed last have done flaws but it is peer reviewed). So seeing as we are always asked for papers I will ask for the same. A paper demonstrating snakes are purely instinctive animals that are unduly affected by neuro issues.

[dannybgoode]

[Albert Clark]

Start with the basic info then....

OWALReptiles - Issues

[dannybgoode]

That's a breeder website - why would I have any interest in what someone who is making money through unethical breeding has to say? I'm asking for peer reviewed papers.

[TRD]

...by the same logic eyeless, scaleless, or whatever deformities that can be bread should be OK because "it lives".

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence when it comes to how reptiles perceive their world, or how they "feel" about it.

It's fine anyone calls it my opinion, it's also fine nobody agrees as I cant provide conclusive evidence it adversely affect the snake as that simply doesn't exist. In the very least anyone should be able to agree that it is not an ethical practice that despite the certainty neurological issues in varying degrees will be present in the animal it is not an issue.

I'm not trying to shove it down anyone's throat here, I'm simply asking to take a step back and think about it.

[Albert Clark]

Originally Posted by dannybgoode

That's a breeder website - why would I have any interest in what someone who is making money through unethical breeding has to say? I'm asking for peer reviewed papers.

OWAL is one of the pioneers in genetic science as it relates to ball pythons and world reknowned for their studies in chromosomal disabilities/abnormalities in them.Guess you can call them a authority on the science front and more than just breeders. It's totally your prerogative to not be interested in what they have to say though.

[TRD]

I'm sorry Albert, I don't want to come off harsh, but that is in no way scientific. He's following the same logic as many others to justify with "They live; poop; feed; breed; hence are there is no issue"

He even literally states that...

"We breed them because it's a morph, in truth every morph is a "defect". People have brought up the arguement that they would not fair well in the wild. My response would be, they are only going to remain in captivity and they eat, poop, breed, live healthy lives just like any other ball python in captivity."

For god sake they even list the morphs paired with spider and some of them just flat out die at birth, or shortly after. How does that possibly show a healthy genetic make-up? Is it so hard for people to admit that "Yes we make a nice looking snake, but it's not viable to continue this project due to the neurological issues attached to it."

He even states it's attached to the spider gene, it can't be out-crossed.

...It's fine, we are humans, and we love to solve complexities, explore, find the limits, but for christ sake don't do it with living organisms. And certainly not with a commercial aspect attached to it where every person can just simply obtain one and start his own "breeding project".

I'm all cool with morphs, or ball pythons, even if it sometimes frustrates me to see the sheer numbers of them at expos and I see no value in color patterns outside of the natural ones, but some things just take it one step too far and tick me off.