# Breeding



## Central Scotland Reptiles (Nov 23, 2008)

It is rather slow at work today so I thought I would ask a question (no right or wrong answer) and hopefully foster some adult debate.

So my question is: ethically, is it right to be pairing up animals this coming season if you still have babies which are unsold from the previous year? 

I am not talking about 1 or 2 babies but especially on sites like MM you see some breeders with many, many young that are still looking for homes - are we creating a problem with market saturation? What happens to the 'unwanted' morphs from certain pairings? 

Personally I only pair up a few animals and typically give each female a year off from breeding thus deliberately limiting the number of young produced. If I had a number of young which were unsold from a previous years breeding I certainly would not be considering pairing up the next year. 

Guess this question is mostly aimed at morph breeding but it may also apply to non morph breeding too.


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## strike21 (Sep 20, 2010)

We are absolutely creating a problem. The numbers of snakes being bred is astronomical and I know for certain the vast majority of them will not live full quality lives (as good as is possible in captivity anyway). 

I don't know a single person That has kept a snakes it's entire life, do you? Not including snakes that die prematurely obviously. Ball pythons are especially long lived. I will be honest and say that I recently rehomed my snakes after more than 10 years. That was actually my second rehoming as I had to do it with snakes I had before i went off to university before then, so I'm not innocent.

There is a terrible culture of "getting bored" of species/individual animals and passing them on to give someone else the "chance" to work with them. We don't do it with dogs and cats? 

I did dip my toes into breeding ball pythons a few years ago now so I know how hard they are to sell, okay they weren't cutting edge animals but I had some 4 gene femals going for a steal that I almost couldn't give away. 

There is definitely a culture in reptiles keeping that you have to breed everything you own, I know i had that mentality, but all it does is make a giant pool of unwanted animals that sadly get neglected and die.

We have to think responsibly and not continue to breed what ever you have especially if it is those animals that already saturate the market places like corn snakes, bearded dragons, ball pythons and leopard geckos. We certainly shouldn't be routinely breeding the giant snakes. 

I am snakesless for the first time in 17 years and I most definitely won't be getting any more until I know for certain I could keep and care for them properly for the rest of their lives. Handing over snakes id had for 11 years really really uspet me and i still feel guilty to this day, knowing they will probably be past from pillar to post until their untimely demise. Really does upset me because i loved those animlas. Of course unforseen things happen, they can't be helped.

In short there is way to much breeding and giving up of reptiles happening to have to continue putting more into the same unfortunate situation. Carefully thought out batch breeding allocating animals before they are bred is most certainly doable, and should be the way forward.

Apologies for the rant but having being doing rhia for a long timw now I'm fed up of seeing it. Again I'm not innocent 

Cheers

Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk


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## arwen_7 (Oct 21, 2009)

Like pretty much anything for sale, if there is a good market for them then fine, breed them (putting aside all other ethical questions about pet ownership/gotta collect them all mentality). However if the same morph is still avilable from last years young on the market now, then I would say it's probably not wise to breed. Unless you already have buyers lined up. 

I raised some axolotls last 2019... covid hit just as they were ready for rehoming so I was "stuck" with 15 young axolotls to care for untill I could get homes for them (I still actually have 7 of them...). During that time minecraft released axoltols in game and it seems every kid who played the game wanted one... creating a massive flux of folk who bought them, didn't understand their needs and resuces are still dealing with the uninformed purchases made through lock downs. It's put me right of breeding them in future, I cannot stand people who purchase pets without doing their research first.


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## burmman (Oct 30, 2008)

I think you are 


strike21 said:


> We are absolutely creating a problem. The numbers of snakes being bred is astronomical and I know for certain the vast majority of them will not live full quality lives (as good as is possible in captivity anyway).
> 
> I don't know a single person That has kept a snakes it's entire life, do you? Not including snakes that die prematurely obviously. Ball pythons are especially long lived. I will be honest and say that I recently rehomed my snakes after more than 10 years. That was actually my second rehoming as I had to do it with snakes I had before i went off to university before then, so I'm not innocent.
> 
> ...



I have kept all my large AFRocks and retics till old age. There the sort of snake u can't pass on, you can but you cant always be certain they will be well cared for.


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## burmman (Oct 30, 2008)

Central Scotland Reptiles said:


> It is rather slow at work today so I thought I would ask a question (no right or wrong answer) and hopefully foster some adult debate.
> 
> So my question is: ethically, is it right to be pairing up animals this coming season if you still have babies which are unsold from the previous year?
> 
> ...



I think you right dude. If i had babies left over then yeah i wont breed then next season. The issue i think is alot of morphs are still expensive for some ppl to buy and therefore u sit on them for periods of time. 

Cheaper morphs obviously sell quicker. You could drop prices but u end up loosing money in the long wrong. 

Its a shame some species like boiga don't get bred as much. I know they have issues but they are such a stunning species that deserve more attention.


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## LiasisUK (Sep 30, 2019)

Good topic of discussion. I don't do much morph breeding mind. 

Personally I think no if you're still sitting on a load of hatchlings from the previous season then pairing them again is probably not the best option. There are certain parameters though that may change this, for example I often hold back some animals anyway to increase group sizes, but they were never offered available in the first place so the interest may/would have been there for them. I mean they may have sold if I decided not to keep them. 

Also you may have people biting your hand off for some of the hatchlings but they simply aren't ready to go yet (not feeding, no paperwork etc), if this is the case I wouldn't see anything wrong with pairing the adults again. 

I often give the females a rest for health reasons, OR I just won't pair them as I don't want to over saturate the market with them. Often when I have done this I then get asked for them though; "where were you last year?!" haha

Many morph breeders would argue that they are trying the pairing again as their odds were poor or they didn't hit the multi gene thing they wanted. 



strike21 said:


> I don't know a single person That has kept a snakes it's entire life, do you? Not including snakes that die prematurely obviously. Ball pythons are especially long lived. I will be honest and say that I recently rehomed my snakes after more than 10 years. That was actually my second rehoming as I had to do it with snakes I had before i went off to university before then, so I'm not innocent.
> 
> There is a terrible culture of "getting bored" of species/individual animals and passing them on to give someone else the "chance" to work with them. We don't do it with dogs and cats?
> 
> ...


My first ever corn snake died last month, I got her in 2002, she hatched in 2001. I also still have her son, who hatched in 2006. 

I personally am one of the I-have-to-breed-everything-I-own people, however that doesn't mean to say I would do it more than once. I agree there is a problem, especially with species like Corns, Hognoses, Leos and Royals


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## Central Scotland Reptiles (Nov 23, 2008)

I always think breeding any species is as much about what you do throughout the year in terms of promoting yourself, your animals and your breedings than anything else. 

Some people do this via You Tube, others via forums, FB, show attendance and yet others by clubs / society involvement - whatever works for that individual is fine with me. 

I don't keep many species but the ones I do I try to do them 'well' (I know that is a subjective term) which means having multiple males and females from bloodlines as diverse as possible - I recieve much of my sales / business from word of mouth and recommendations which for me, given the fact I don't breed very many animals - means I am rarely chasing sales and often have waitlists before an animals is even born / hatched / ready.


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## LiasisUK (Sep 30, 2019)

A lot of my animals get new homes also via word of mouth and recommendations, that, along with breeding more unusual species means finding homes is not too difficult. 

Personally I do not do waiting lists as I know I will just forget and offend people. Though I do try and remember to tell people who have asked to be informed when certain species are available.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

I was fortunate to sell all my surplus 2019 clutch of royals to a retailer as a bulk purchase at what was the going rate for the morphs at the time. I retained 4 of that clutch, one went to each of my daughters to keep, the other two, a BEL and Pastel I kept for my self, mainly as the whole project was to try and get a BEL, but also the Pastel was (is) such a stunning example. 

I didn't breed the snakes the following year, but bred the same pair again in 2021, mainly to try and offset the running costs. All apart form one will be sold ( a nice high white normal that my daughter wants) with the two BELS reserved already, but so far all the possible deals on the remaining six have fallen through. Now I'm also considering a new pairing this season, but there is a chance that I could end up with some hatchlings of the same single gene morphs (Pastel and Lesser) as a result. What's putting me off any introductions is the fact that I have not yet sold the surplus hatchings form the 2021 clutch.

I'm taking the nine hatchlings to be probed by a well known shop owner and herpetologist at the weekend and in the telephone conversation he mentioned that now the sort after snakes are kings and corns.... In his words it's gone full circle, and if these hatchlings were corns would have taken the lot form me for a fair price, but he's not touching Royals. So for now I still have 9 extra mouths to feed that I hadn't planned on, nor do I have the housing them long term, unless I go for rubs. Given this I can see the point in breeding anymore snakes until all the 2021 hatchlings have been moved on. It doesn't make sense, both logically and economically.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

I have known a fair few people who were lifelong pet owners, and also many who take on stewardship only to pass on at a later date. Have seen similar with dogs/cats.
Given the attachment humans build with dogs and cats, I am more troubled when they get rehomed than for reptiles, but there is nevertheless a duty of care for both.

Surplus offspring can be a major issue with captive breeding. You often get a surplus of some spp, whilst others are in short supply.
Fads and popularity perhaps affect ability to rehome a clutch or litter more than many other factors.

I remember breeding some theraphosid spiders - Ceratogyrus marshalli, and Stromatopelma calceatum (horned baboon and feather leg baboon); had four egg sacs, at a time when there had been very few recent captive breedings in the hobby, (or they had been hybridised with others) so I shared out some and easily rehomed my surplus (Guessing that was 300-400 spiderlings at the time).

I do intend to season my eldest rainbow boa late this year.

If there was no demand, I would seriously struggle to maintain a full litter of 16-30 neonates beyond two years, and certainly couldn’t provide life long homes for 30 into/beyond adulthood.

However, they start small and can be slow grown, so that mitigates the timeframe somewhat. 

Even though I have surplus males, I am thinking I may borrow / loan a male, who has favourable parentage, so if we were successful would then be halving the litter between us, reducing the numbers I then need to rehome.

Will have to appraise the situation when the time comes, but it is not always easy to anticipate the trends and where they they bottleneck or collapse.

Andy F


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## Central Scotland Reptiles (Nov 23, 2008)

As a hobby breeder I am mindful not to pair up more adults than the number of potential young they could produce and more importantly I can cope with. In all honesty I tend not to pay any notice of what the market did, is or may do.


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## retic666 (Jan 18, 2021)

I agree with you in that I don’t think breeders should keep pumping snakes out if they can’t sell the last clutch. I breed my snakes, but all my adults are my own personal pets that I’ve had for a long time or most of them are anyway. Any new adults I’ve bought is because I’ve wanted that particular morph for a while & have been building up my own personal collection of snakes that I’ve always wanted.

Now when it comes to breeding, my ethos is that I only breed the snakes that I want to breed & only stick to 4 genetics ( Goldenchild, Anthrax, Motley & Marble). These genes are my favourite so will only breed these snakes. So if someone wants a GC or an Antrax, then they will come to me or some people point them my way if their after these particular genes. I’m certainly not into breeding whatever gene is fashionable that particular year as I only do it for the enjoyment & if I can make a few quid to cover the costs of the upkeep of all my animals at the same time, I’m happy.

I think a lot of breeders are into breeding the next new thing, which is fine, but the problem with producing a “worlds first” or a highly desirable animal is that they go for big money. The only people that will pay £2k upwards for a snake is another breeder that wants the next best thing. The problem with this is they generally have these animals kicking about for a long time & end up building a big collection of hatchlings they can’t sell. I try to aim to breed animals that go for £300-£500 tops as they sell well & quickly. I mean who is gonna pay £2k for a pet Retic when you can buy a lovely looking Retic for £80 & have that as a pet!!!

This is my views on breeding Retics, but I guess everyone & every breeder does it for their own reasons. Whatever these are doesn’t mean to say that I’m right or wrong in everything I’ve just said 🤷🏻‍♂️

As long as the animals health comes first & they get looked after, that’s the most important thing!


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## retic666 (Jan 18, 2021)

Something else that I forgot to mention is that I've noticed with some, *NOT ALL* of these new breeders is that they watch these YouTube celebrity breeders & they think 2 things....

It's easy
The are gonna make lots of money
Well they're wrong on both counts as....

It's not!!!!!
You're not..... What they fail to realise is that these celebrity YouTube breeders make the bulk of their money from us..... The subscribers, not the animals.
I had 2 people enquire about buying hatchlings from my last clutch & both people were big dog breeders & they knew nothing about snakes & wanted to buy Retics from me so they could breed & make money. I refused to sell to them for the obvious reasons that a Retic isn't a good 1st time snake & not for beginners & most importantly the main reason...... Is that they are doing it for all the wrong reasons!!!!


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## arwen_7 (Oct 21, 2009)

Wow at that dog breeders looking for retics! I can't help but wonder if there is a correlation to the massive anti-puppy farming campaigns just now...

I've never bred any reptiles, and frankly I don't think I ever will. It was hard enough, emotionally, for me when some of my hatchling axolotls died for no apparent reason... And I thought I was prepared for that because it's rare for all of them to survive even in the best conditions.
I think I would really struggle, emotionally again, dealing with alive neonates that simply refuse to eat and die of starvation, or any of the other unfortunate cases you breeders need to deal with on occasion.


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## Elly66 (Feb 27, 2021)

Our 1st corn snake came to us at just 8 weeks old in 1997 and we lost him last year 😢 
We've taken in 2 corns that people brought "for their children" with no real knowledge on keeping them and then blaming the kids being bored of them as the reason to rehome. One keeper was actually afraid of the snake, but had rescued it from a bad home 🤔

Over breeding is irresponsible point blank. The animals health and wellbeing must come first. If you're going to breed, you must be able to provide all that is needed for the animals for life. You can't just breed in hope they'll sell. Many are also unaware of complex genetics and the dangers of cross breeding.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Elly66 said:


> Many are also unaware of complex genetics and the dangers of cross breeding.


Are you referring ‘hybridising’ or of mixing of different localities?

I suppose if one population has a gene grouping along a section of the chromosome and another population this gene grouping has drifted, then that could lead to compatibility issues.
This would presumably be more liable with hybridising.

I would assume outcrossing within captive populations is mostly a positive thing in the medium to long term, but slows the selection process for visual genetic characteristics.

I would hope all breeders consider not just the visual characteristics, but the overall vigour of the offspring and descendants.


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## spigotbush (Feb 8, 2019)

i would certainly say that if you still have unsold young then its foolish to pair up for more. it just begs for stressing of the systems you have in place for caring for young. which would surely result in either unexpected expense of needing to buy more equipment in, or sacrificing the care of the animals you have.
i definitely agree that the youtuber approach gives a false impression. i have only been in the reptile world for a few years and the initial impression i got was that breeding was easy, financially viable and the ultimate goal of keeping. as i kept learning i fairly quickly got past that but it was certainly there on the surface.

i think breeding should always be a carefully considered and sparing activity.


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## Elly66 (Feb 27, 2021)

Swindinian said:


> Are you referring ‘hybridising’ or of mixing of different localities?
> 
> I suppose if one population has a gene grouping along a section of the chromosome and another population this gene grouping has drifted, then that could lead to compatibility issues.
> This would presumably be more liable with hybridising.
> ...


My concern is regarding the passing on of faulty genes that cause physical defects and health problems. 
I do wonder how much damage is being caused by the want of to "try breeding these hybrids to see what I get" is doing long-term ( just look at what damage has been done to some dog breeds). Many issues can take several generations to start to show. 
The question has to be, are we doing this for the good of the animal or just because we can?


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## loxocemus (Sep 2, 2006)

the hobby has expanded some due to covid, isolation, pet purchases exploded (not the pets, the purchasing), inc reptiles. as future significant lockdowns are looking increasingly unlikely, this expansion will contract, a significant portion of isolation pets will be and are being put up for rehoming, watch the various classifieds for species u own, and importantly species often bought instead of species u own..

gauge the market before u pair, if you produce balls burms retics corns then u have a right to be worried, colubrids have come back. classifieds can be a gauge of 2 things, species people don't want anymore and what's currently or coming back into fashion. which do you have....

rgds
ed.
ps rosys of any type, rarer eryx, rarer housesnake morphs, unusual south american colubrids inc fwc's are guaranteed sellers just now, just saying. (as are any of the cribo's, but not at some of the recent pricing, or at least not for long)


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Elly66 said:


> My concern is regarding the passing on of faulty genes that cause physical defects and health problems.
> I do wonder how much damage is being caused by the want of to "try breeding these hybrids to see what I get" is doing long-term ( just look at what damage has been done to some dog breeds). Many issues can take several generations to start to show.
> The question has to be, are we doing this for the good of the animal or just because we can?


Breeding hybrids is very rare. Mainly because such pairings are commonly unsuccessful and when they are, the offspring tend to be infertile.
There is also a VERY limited demand for them.
However, faulty genes is a bigger issue. As an example, the spider gene in royals.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Overall, I am not in favour of hybridising species, however, I don’t believe this example would extrapolate to dog breeds.

Canis familiaris, quick look on Wikipedia 😉

I would assume negative heritable issues in dogs has been to do with genetic bottle-necking, inbreeding depression, and less to do with crossing of different breeds, hence the cross breeds typically living longer than pure breeds.

Sure, outcrossing may mask deleterious homozygous genotypes, but surely hetero diversity is a better bet in the long term both wild and captive populations?

The bigger risk I perceive is us humans preoccupation with phenotype expression, how the animals look, rather than also seeking to maintain genetically ‘fit’ captive populations. 

I agree that many people seem to focus on 1-3 generations, rarely beyond, yet it will be down the family tree that cumulative effects become more apparent.

I wish there was some kind of breeding database, and tracking system. Far too few breeders document records, and even fewer publish them. This will be to our detriment in the longer term.

Andy


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## liam peel (Sep 26, 2011)

I think it depends on a few things.
For example I'm waiting on a few clutches pairing was mojave x pinstripe and mojave x normal. Naturally bulk of what I'm expecting is mojave and normals so let's say fast forward a year I still have all those left over I would use a different male to reduce the chance of getting mojaves and normals.

Another argument is can I house and care for these animals if they don't sell? Yes I can I have the room and ability to care for these aninals untill they either get sold or eventually pass on. 
There are always people looking for animals, I always say if you look hard enough you can find royals, corns, leos, bearded dragons, boas, horses, dogs, cats for free. The sad reality is there are a lot of people who get these animals and soon lose interest in them from working in a reptile shop I seen first hand how bad it really was. Thabkfully there are also a lot of people who never lose interest in these aninals.

My argument with breeding is the same as people who keep multiple animals.
If you can keep them and care for them to the best of your ability then do as you wish. Breed no snakes breed 100, however the moment it gets too much you need to stop increasing the numbers. There are a lot of animals I love that I will never own (unless I win the lottery and can employ people to care for these animals when I'm not capable of doing so). At the moment I could probably quadruple the amount if snakes i own and it wouldn't be a negative impact on me. Doesnt mean I'm suddenly gonna do so but I could. 

Back to the point though, a lot of people also breed hoping fir a specific combo, they may not have hit it last time so may try again this year.

But like I said whatever you don't sell providing you can care for the animal untill you either do sell it or decide to keep the animal yourself then id say go for it.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

I've got mixed feelings on breeding. I've tended to breed my large Pastel Lesser every other season, giving her a rest between seasons as he's dropped 9 large eggs each clutch. I breed to raise cash to cover the running costs of my 10 snakes, and don't treat it as a business. The 2019 clutch resulted in four hold backs, two of which were for family members. The remaining one and two gene snakes were sold to a local reptile shop. The last clutch in 2021, I had great odds, and when chatting to the manager of the shop was informed how prices have sored and the shops can't get enough stocks from private breeders. Things were worse in 2020, when there was so much demand shops were paying retail prices for surplus from breeders.

Moving on the surplus is always a gamble. Trying to predict demand in a years time is impossible. In the late 1990's I could sell a complete clutch of 30 normal corn snakes, unsexed straight out of the egg to a retailer for £10 each... a few years later people were giving corns away as the market was saturated. In the 2021 clutch I had two BELs which were "reserved" for private keepers. I was mucked about so much that I pulled the plug and sold them to trade. I would have kept them to the point where eventually they would be sold, but have no need for two male super lesser's as i already have a female form the 2019 clutch which was the goal of that pairing.


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## liam peel (Sep 26, 2011)

A good few years ago I bred some corn snakes, had roughly 60 babies I think, sold 20ish no problem people buying two or 3 at a time.
The other 40 though I struggled to sell. Dropped the prices which helped was legit with id say about 25 and hobeatly looking back i don't actually remember how I rehoused them. Tried a few shops but the best I was offered was 5 pound store credit which was nearly useless to me at that point.

I did eventually rehouse them all but had a quick look recently and noticed just how saturated the market actually is. Now I am waiting on a couple clutches but I'm producing far less animals and do feel id be able to sell them a bit easier but if they don't sell thats fine, there probably will be a couple holdback too. I will most likely breed as long as I'm keeping reptiles but it will be on a small scale, I don't even think I'll make enough to cover the costs of keeping my animals it'll will be that small of a scale.


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