Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was visiting family for Christmas, but I wanted to answer one of your questions since it is a good one. I hope you have/had a Merry Christmas. This conversation is one of those that would be better in person, or even in a small group.

>>1.Is it wrong to breed the animal to see if the offspring carry the trait or even signs of it being recessive? (i have my opinion whats yours)

Well it depends on the goals of the breeder. If he really likes the look of the short tail, and wants to produce more like it because he thinks there is a market for them, then I guess he has every right to try. However, I really doubt that there is a market for a Leo like that. If they turn out to be unsellable then he needs to be prepared to euthanise all of the resulting offspring whether they show the trait or not.

There are over 100,000 leopard geckos produced each year. This is more than enough to satisfy the current demand for leopard geckos in the pet trade. So in my mind the goal of leopard gecko breeders has changed from trying to produce enough animals to meet the demands of the pet trade (and thus negate the need to import wild caught animals) to trying to refine the leopard gecko. This is the new goal of leopard gecko breeders. The only way that this will be accomplished is through strict culling and selective breeding.

What to cull is a little harder to say. The reason why is because it has a lot to do with personal opinions as to what the ideal for the species is. Many breeders refuse to work with any morph; some think that morphs are the pinnacle of herpetoculture. Some will only work with locality specific animals, others freely produce hybrids such as jungle corns (King x Corn) or walls (Woma x Ball). In leopard geckos it is widely accepted that animals with disproportioned body parts are considered poor specimens and are thus culled. This is just like a snake that is missing an eye or has a kinked back, or a chameleon with fussed toes or missing toenails.

I myself stay away from the giant gene in leopard geckos. It is not yet known how it affects the longevity of the leopard gecko, but I feel it might shorten the lifespan of the Leo. I guess in my mind I just see how people that are unusually tall or large (think Andre the Giant) never seem to live as long or as healthy a life as people of normal stature. That plus I don't feel that a Leo needs to be any bigger. IMHO.

On a side note I would never buy anything off of a table that had any animals with deformities or traits that are not considered by the majority of herpetoculturist to be acceptable.

Thats good enough for me. I doubt the tail thing would be worth breeding as a project as well. I do stand apart from you on 2 minor issues, however. I think the giant gene, since it is expressed in hets, is the same as tall populations of humans such as some African tribes verses shorter humans that may be of stereotypic height for their race. The other issue is of wild caught individuals. I think it is very beneficiary to introduce genetics that mother nature has culled herself, things that are not visible to use and my not become apparent until old age in the gecko if at all. Besides, with leo production what it is i think we are safely avoiding over collection. This thread does bring up the interesting topic of locality types and breeding. This can be a huge controversy for all types of reasons and i'm glad i don't have to deal with that in leos...what a mess that would be.

I believe differently on the giant gene. It has been present for some time. I actually think it's a gene from fuscus, cousin to loe's in India. Though they look cosmetically similar fuscus is larger than your usual leo. So giants are just hybrids of the 2 subspiecies.

Yeah, I have an opinion about that. The Giants are a breeding of Fuscus and Macularis, but since the two are so genetically simular I could hardly think of Giants as being a hybrid. The other issue I have was the sentance,.. Be prepared to euthenize ass resulting offspring,.. hmmmm I think thats nuts. There are plenty of people to give homes to leo's the idea of killing a gecko because the market wouldn't like the trait (excuse me if that's not what you are saying). BUt yeah, the only times I think it is excusable to "euthenize a leo is when it has eyelid deformaties that prevent it from having eyelids. Or an impacted geck that won't surive. Anywayz thats what I wanted to say,. no gecko killy killy

If someone is not prepared to euthanize a leo, then they should not be breeding leos. One of the goals of herpetoculture is to improve captive populations of reptiles. The only way to insure that poor specimens do not breed is through euthanasia. If sold as a pet only there is no way to ensure that the person will not breed it in the future.

Selling an animal as a pet only used to be an option a decade ago. However today it seems every leo owner also wants to be a breeder. So selling it as a pet only is no longer an option. Besides there are already enough unwanted leos and those used as disposable pets. There are already hundreds of thousands of leos produced each year. And I doubt that even 5% of these make it to be older than 10 years old. That is what is really sad.

It not only seems cruel, but also ridiculous to euthinize an animal that has a genetic defect. Would you suggest to kill a person if it had a crooked leg, or a missing eye? You say there are thousands of gecko breeders producing geckos all over, both pro's and home based,.. so the logic of saying that a home produced gecko breeder should kill his visually defected geckos offspring has no point. I wouldn't even see the point if everybody was doing this. If that's the case, then hey, why doesn't that guy just kill his gecko,.. and any clutchmate to it,. maybe we could trace this genes lineage all the way back to your geckos as well, then you'd have to kill them, because of the possibility maybe of passing on "bad" genes, if the person who buys the geckos possibly might breed them. Asthetics are one thing, the right to life when you knowingly or unknowingly create it is not your choice. We aren't gods, we have no right if we breed our geckos to kill the resulting offspring, if they have a deformity. I think that you might think about this differently if you were to spend some time with some disabled kids or adults. Should they all be killed, should they not be allowed to procreate. In the average human being we carry tons of inactive "unhealthy genes" you know genes for deformities, abnormalities. We are all potentially capable of producing offspring with these. You know that guy, whats his name, oh yeah Hitler,.. that's right. He thought we should even kill old people,. cause they were not usefull. I think that I might be going way too far out on the Human-gecko connection here, but, I think you have the wrong thing written, If you breed geckos, you should be prepared to care for the lives that you knowingly brought into the world,.. that goes for every species. People too. Can you imagine having a child, finding out it would have cystic fibrosis and saying to the doc,.. oh yeah, I'll just go home and give him/her a lethal injection,.. I wouldn't want it to pass on those genes,. Anyhow thats how I feel about it, I really don't care if you disagree.

Leopard geckos are not people. That was just a stupid comparison. I am sorry that you don't understand the difference but there is one. If you had a child and 2 years later it died, the police would be at your door with plenty of questions. If your 2 year old leo dies you post it here and every one says sorry for your loss.

Big difference.

When was the last time you were able to buy a few people and keep them in a small glass box? And then when they produced kids you stole them and sold them to someone else to make money?

Something similar happened before...let's see what was it... oh yeah, SLAVERY!

If you want to talk about right and wrong you had better decide if it is first OK to take an animal from the wild and keep it in a cage. Then is it ok to have them breed so that you can sell the offspring to make money. Where do you draw the line?

First lets state the fact that we are talking about captive bred animals here. These animals were born in a cage, they live in a cage and die in a cage. I personally agree that taking animals from their native habitat is wrong. The thing you pointed out so clearly that we keep these animals in the interest of our hobbies and passions. I personally don't truely keep lizards as a hobby. Its fine that people do that, I just feel the same about my girls and guys as I would my dogs who are like my second children. I would never sell my animals for profit, I had planned when I bred my geckos to give them away to friends that wanted offspring because they liked the morphs and patterns I would have produced. I have a personal attachment to each one. When my geckos have died through the process of impaction and some other mystery affliction, I have been very upset. Now some peopole collect these things like they were Baseball cards, they buy and sell and trade, because to them its a "hobby". I am as excited about new morphs and colors and all that as well. But the thing that sticks in my mind when I get a gecko is that I want it to have a happy healthy, home, with me. It isn't a thing I keep, but more like a lifefriend. I didn't make a comparison of people to geckos, I made a comparison of life to life. When I do breed my animals and if one of them happens to not be perfect, I will instead of killing it so I don't potentialy affect my stock as a "breeder", (which I will never call myself) I will take on the responsibility of fiding a forever home for it, unless I have the space and time to commit to another gecko for 20 years. I eat steak, I like it, I understand that to get it I have to have an animal killed, but that animal has been raised for meat, and lived a part of its life already (if you can call it that) a gecko that hatches deformed, the person who bred the gecko is responsible for its life, and it's being alive. I think they owe it to the animal to try and give it the best kind of existance they can. I hope this clears up what I was trying to say, after all it is just my opinion. I have a hard enough time thinking of needing to put my dog down soon cause she has arthritus. Anyways, so yeah that's that.