Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First off.. DONT BE SHY - I have read the posts about naming a morph lately and I know most here are not shy and have STRONG opinions.. so dont be on this reply either. Put yourself IN this situation and tell me what you expect- not what you think is right etc... what YOU EXPECT.

As of now.. all hypothetical.

Suppose you will do a breeding loan with someone you know and trust.

You both put the info into a contract.. both sign and agree to all terms including the price of both animals in case something should happen.

YOU send off your animal to the other party in the project- and the pair is put together.

Somehow an accident happens and YOUR animal is killed while in with the other animal. The other animal is fine.. and alive.

The contract clearly states the value of the deceased animal and says MONEY is the payment expected or an animal both parties agree on of equal or greater value can be traded.

Note: a date of WHEN payment would be due if something happens is NOT in the contract, just that there IS an agreed upon amount due.

A payment date was not put in as I didnt think I had to worry about either the animal being killed or someone I trusted not following through with their end or stalling me until I either forget about it or die of old age. Still hypothetical remember.

On another note.. this person who now owes you.. and agreed to the terms before signing.. HAS animals they could either sell or trade to for payment.

You ask them how they would like to repay, or what animal they would like to send for payment and they reply with ALL of the following:

We are not in a position to release any of our animals at this time..

We have no animals we want to part with

We need to keep our animals, as they are our breeders

You Reply :.Ok, keep your animals, how about you just send cash instead as the contract stated either Cash or trade of an equal valued animal we both agree on.

They reply.. We have NO money Nor animals we can part with at this time. We WILL repay you, but as of now I have no idea how or when.

You try to wait it out... thinking something will happen soon because they have animals they can sell, or they can trade one, or than can send me one, or they can send me some money each month to show something is going on .. right? They can at least CALL me to update me.. but NO.. you are left to sit and you hear nothing and get nothing. Total time since initial problem - 10 weeks.

You reply with what?

You expect what?

They should do what?

I am very anxious to see what your replies are…… don’t hold back. Still Hypothetical....

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Thanks
Shawn Morelan
www.Southernboids.com

I had this exact same thing happen to me last year...you are lucky this person is returning your phone calls....there are times where I would not get a call back for 2-3 months at a time. I eventually agreed to pick up my animal at a show, which I ended up not attending because of some personal business I had to attend to....I finally had a friend pick this animal up. It was a ball python, hatched in February, when I got it in July, it was only 300 grams, the size of my month old animals. Needless to say I was upset again, but at least I got my half of the breeding loan...even thought my female died like yours....do you ever think it is a conspiracy? Did you actually see your female dead? I didn't, and have heard some horror stories about this guys other breeding loans that fell through like mine did. Needless to say I have not dealt with the guy since, and probably won't ever again.

Jason

Unfortunately it appears a huge portion of breeding loan situations end up with the person holding the animals doing something shady/unscrupulous at some point of the deal. Whether it is keeping the majority of the litter for unethical reasons (I have seen this happen with the adults being in excess of $12,000.00 in value each) or injuring/killing the other persons breeding animal due to neglect/poor husbandry practices. So going by that, breeding loans unless you are willing to risk your animals health/life are a bad idea.

But to answer your question, if I was stuck in a situation such as this I would imagine the pay off time would be equivelant of the length of time it would take for the pair to have bred, and the female to produce offspring. (so about 3-5 months)
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

first, this is deffinately not a good position for either party to be involved.
what to do is dependent on how you feel about things:

if you did not know this person and it was strictly a business agreement .. you have a signed contract that you should go to court with and settle things up.

on the other hand you say you knew this person and if it was a friend you might handel things differently. if it is a friend and you believe they are truely in a bind i would be willing to work out a payment plan that makes both parties some what happy.
additionally if i was the one in a bind and i had the means to make good on a sour deal with a friend i most deffinately would (ie. give them a snake of equal value).

tough situation, and to me it would depend on your relationship with the person as you are obviously (by contract even) entitled to repayment.
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- Jason F.

I have not had that kind of rotton luck on a breeding loan yet, I can't even imagine what it would be like hypothetically.
I do have a current female out on a breeder loan. I didn't even think to put in a value or stipulations on if she dies. I can only hope the breeder who has her would do the right thing of giving me an animal of equal value. Now, we did agree on pictures being taken of all the babies, separated in piles according to morphs and sex, him having first pick, me getting 1/4 or 1/3 of the morphs produced (I'd have to look it up to be certain)and all of the normals. Since our animals are of about the same value, I think a 50/50 split would have been more appropriate, but I did agree to his terms. I didn't get a contract drawn up, but did save all our emails. Now, will he skim off the top and keep the best couple of babies, never showing me pics of them? Well, that I'll never know. At some point you just have to allow for some trust and hope the other party does the right thing. We will have to see how this turns out in the end.
I have drawn up a breeding loan contract with someone who was considering loaning me an albino female for my DH Sunglow. We agreed I would pay 3k, if something were to happen to her while in my care..though I didn't think to include the value of my male if she were to kill him. And we did agree to a 50/50 split of the litter, as I described above. Now, the people ended up needing to sell her outright, but had it gone through, and had she come to me healthy, I would have been obligated to pay for her or offer an animal of equal value that they agreed upon. I had not specified a length of time to pay the female off, it didn't occur to me. But, I would hope they would be willing to wait for me to sell some offspring, versus an immidiate demanding, which I couldn't afford, obviously, or I would have bought her outright. They offered her to me for $2500 privately to outright buy her, but still would have had to have paid $3k if she died, because that is what we contracted for.
I have, as your friend might have, very few animals, with no animals I could part with, as I do not have two of anything, and don't have very many in any event. Now, if the other party was being a poo-poo and wasn't going to work with me in any way, because they've had their eye on one of my few animals, then I suppose I would have no choice but to give one of my few up. But, my hopes would be that they understood and been willing to work with me by:allowing me to send money as I have it, take there pick of however many offspring I produce to equal the value of what they lost, or wait for me to sell said offspring to pay them off.
Now that you have brought all this other stuff up that I haven't considered, I will have to make sure I ammend all future contracts, just to be on the safe side.
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Delusions of Grandeur feed the EGO...

Never ever do a breeding loan with someone you don't absolutely trust. I have several animals out on loan & several more here on loan to me to & from trusted friends. We have no contracts. Just verbal agreements to split the babies 50/50 with the breeder getting first pick. If we end up with some oddball morph thing then it would be co-owned. If an animal dies, then bummer. Reptiles do die. I've had animals die that were loaned out. I do not hold the friend responsible as I know he gave them optimal care. What if the animal had some preexisting condition unknown to both of you. Is it the other person's fault when it keels over? Breeding loans can be tricky, like I say though, do them only with someone you truly trust & keep the terms simple.

If the animal died due to somthing completly out of the control of the other party I would personaly let it go. Accidental death due to somthing like animals fighting, or the guys house burning down or some other freak accident makes it hard to blame someone. Now if it were somthing like neglect or exposure to illness/desease due to poor husbandry thats a different story. I personaly would have required pictures of the dead animal in an obviously dead position and if there were any doubt at that point split the cost of a necropsy to see whats what.

It's a bummer situation either way, but animals die.. If you beleve the other party is at fault and they admit fault your better off letting them repay you in their own time.. If you were to take them to court and they don't have the funds but you win, all you have is a judgment against someone with no $$, that is now mad at you.
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Ed Lilley, www.constrictorsnw.com

in my opinion, but I had thought to waylay the fears of the person donating their female to a breeding loan with me, even if it cost me in the end.

In reality, I think negligence is the main issue for replacement or payment. I think probably a necropsy split by the two parties would be in order if the loaner didn't believe what happened. Pictures are a must too. Negligence too can be hard to lay blame on...I guess it would depend on how long the animal was away. Otherwise, one would wonder whether it was a pre-existing condition or not.

Loaning can be a scary adventure with both parties. It's a gamble and anything can happen. But, the rewards can outweigh the risks if all goes well.
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Delusions of Grandeur feed the EGO...

When ever you sign a contract with someone, and it is about repaying money or owing money etc, if theres no time limit or due date set in the contract, then there is nothing you can do about when it is paid back.
I made a loan to someone for a car.. they signed a contract saying they would pay it back, they didnt, when i took them to court, the judge said since there was no due date, then i just had to wait for the dough... but eventually wages were attached etc.

If you want to remain friends with this person, then id try and work it out... You may be wasting time and money on going to court. You may just have to chalk this one up to experiance.
I agree with the way lee put it and does his breeding loans.

Good luck

Mike

Wow, that's a tough one. I would really hate to be in that situation. I guess the best thing to do would be to find out when and how they can pay it off. I can understand if they don't want to give up any of their animals but they must pay you back especially if you both signed a contract. I would try to get them to pay a certain about for about 6 months until it is payed off. I would think going to court would not be the best idea. Just try to stay patient and try to get them to work with you. I think that's really all you can do. Good luck and thanks for brings up this topic. I think everyone reading your thread has learned something very valuable.
Michael Burton

I posted more information today about this subject, but I accidently put it as a new thread instead of IN this thread, sorry.

Thanks again for those who have replied and emailed me.

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Thanks
Shawn Morelan
www.Southernboids.com