Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A about captive survival rates. While I would "like" to think captive survival rates are higher then natures. The numbers do not agree.

A person below was trying to defend captive husbandry, I did not read the whole thread, I rarely do. So I will put this forth.

Between two Fla. Breeders, they produce over 150,000 corns and kings a year. Every year. Thats only two of the bigger breeders, there are hundreds and hundreds more in Fla alone, muchless the other states.

With that in mind, lets say 500,000 corns and kings are hatched a year. Most likely a conservative number. Where are they? In two years, thats a million, in four years 2 million, in 8years 4 million. Now considering the lifespan of a normal corn or king, again a conservative number 10 years, Thats 9 million. Now consider, if kept correctly, they start breeding at 2 or even 3 years.

I would think every human in the states would have to own a corn or king. That is, if they had a high survival rate. Obviously they do not.

Obviously these breeders keep producing high numbers because there is a very low survival rate. Its merely common sense.

Ok, show me otherwise. Cheers

np

That is a great topic FR, and I myself had been asking that to some friends recently. What is the percentage of these snakes that truly live a full life in captivity?
Where do all these baby snakes end up? The millions you see at big shows are something to consider, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Well, it is obvious, as you said, that maybe they do not live as long as in the wild. But, at the same time, the conditions could be considered safer, as far as safety from natural predators.

I have had snakes live 16 years + and also, have had some snakes not make it as long. My oldest one right now is 14. This is only what I have observed in my collection. I have friends that breed snakes that still are living and breeding in their twenties, and I have some friends that stop breeding around 8, but still the snake is living.

Where do they all end up?
Thanks for the good topic!!

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Genesis 1:1

>>
>>I have had snakes live 16 years and also, have had some snakes not make it as long. My oldest one right now is 14. This is only what I have observed in my collection. I have friends that breed snakes that still are living and breeding in their twenties, and I have some friends that stop breeding around 8, but still the snake is living.
>>
>>Where do they all end up?

A decent portion end up in pet stores where they often die in the poor care received there or are sold fast enough to then die in the care of the new owner who probably don't now how to care for them. A portion of the snakes are also probably sold as feeder snakes for other herps.

My eldest snake at the moment is an emory rat snake. I bought her in 1994 as an adult. I assumed she was at least 3 years old... so that makes her 15 years of age now. Before that my eldest was a corn snake who was 11 when he died. I also have a ball python that is at least 14 years old. At work we have a corn snake that we got in 1993 that was 5 years old at the time.... making her 18 years old now. We also have a copperhead that was wild caught in 1984. He was not quite full grown then. Estimated he was 3-5 years old back then.... so he's 25-27 years old now.
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_____

PHWyvern

Very good to hear about the good sized amount of the years lived out so far by those snakes!
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Genesis 1:1

np

!
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Genesis 1:1

Wow. Interesting. Never thought about it that way before. Great post, FR.

reako45

Great Point,
In (98 &99) I produced over 1000 campbelli both years in the hopes of figuring out the weird halloween gene and the oreo gene.
In (95-96) I had held back about 300 what should have been hets and poss hets.Well,lucky for me Gary Sipperly had a contract with pet-co or something to buy all the baby tri-colors (just pueblans,siniloans,annulata)for the stores.

The great thing was that he prefered them right out of the egg.Both years I sold him 1000 pueblans in three drops and I bet only 100 of them are still around.

Once I figured out that the halloween gene is nothing more than a pattern abnormanty I sold off most the adults and the rest is history

Anyway,Frank has made a great point.

L8r Shannon

interesting perspective FR, i think most are killed by newbies and or the pet trade or have escaped only to be killed by nature, personally i dont feel they are weaker than wild in anyway. but then again maybe they are some how genetically inferior, i know after going through the entamoeba problem i had i learned the hard way exactly how frail/suseptable cbb especially morphs are to wild cooties, and the importance of quarentine, and it has made me think about weakness in general along with husbandry techniques.the fact is no matter how good the setup we cannot duplicate nature and it stands to reason (A weakened IE:no exercise,fed domestic mice diets,no or unsubstantail UVB,temp/humidity gradients,etc) snakes raised in boxes will produce weakened offspring(maybe we cant hide from nature!)but being dead to nature and like with aquarium fish is all i could come up with if that makes any sense
it is sad to think about those kinda numbers though,,,,,,,thomas davis

I'd have to say that many many probably don't even make it "home" from the show/petshop alive.
We'd be overrun with snakes if they all made it..(and/or rodents would be on the decline)
Also many wild caught animals don't survive in keepers' hands to a ripe old age either...
Animals die in the care of humans no matter where they come from I guess, huh?
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

my understanding/what i recall is that aprox. 1 in 10 hatchlings/neonates survive to adulthood/reproduce in the wild....given the huge range of quality of care in captivity(i read some high survival rates of the above keepers in this thread...mine are well above 1 in 10,i can say with confidence;probably more like the mid-upper 90 percentile,off the top of my head)between well-read/experienced keepers and neglectful/new ones(no i'm not saying all newbies are neglectful),i bet overall it does average out to be about the same between the wild and captivity....i can't fault the novice,as long as they learn from their mistakes-we all started somewhere.some of the 'pushers'-poachers and 'mass numbers' wheeler-dealer huslters that lurk in the classifieds with nary a shred of dignity or remorse on their conscience,that's another story, imho....interesting topic.
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

FR you bring up an excellent point. One that I have thought a lot about. Where are all of these babies going every year?

This is one reason I "shut down" my colubrid breeding. There are so many babies out there every year and every year more people are breeding them - that these snakes will have no dollar value soon and then people will treat them like baby turtles were treated before they were banned. Look around. That is why people push all of the morph stuff. Is it really any prettier than the natural variety - or are breeders marketing that stuff to you and you have bought into it? Why is a white & colorless snake more valuable than one with all of the colors God intended and armed it with? Think about it.

Justin - I believe you are incorrect. I had a lengthy discussion with Bob Bull about this very topic. He informed me that a highly successful female king will produce 3 snakes that live to adulthood in her lifetime: 1 to replace her, one to replace a stud male, and one extra. Think about it - it has probably worked like that for a million years. Before man anyway. I am not rubbing your nose in this. I used to think the same thing but I think Bob Bull is right. That would make it about 3 out of 100 to 250 babies probably.

I have moved my efforts to something else. See below. Hopefully these do not become like baseball cards too soon. I don't care about making money from them - but I really do not want to breed and sell anything that people de-value due to "common-ness".

I have more than twenty of these now - this is a "Merauke" locality green tree python. Find an albino king that matches him for color!!! I took this picture on New Years Eve in a light box in my basement.

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Peter Jolles
East Coast Colubrids
www.eastcoastcolubrids.com

Sorta. Its all about context and time. Wild populations are NEVER static. They are normally expanding or contracting. Which means a constant survival rate is impossible to gauge.

Over a certain amount of time, a GUESS of 1 out of 10, could indeed by accurate, there is no arguing that. Or with a contracting/shrinking population, a guess of 1 out of 100 or 200 could indeed be accurate. No arguing that either.

A overall guess of a 95% failure rate is often used for one reason. We have no better method of actually finding out. Consider, all of these are very very loose guesses.

I imagine its also a species specific thing as well. Species with a very specific nitch can have very low reproductive rates. These most likely have a higher survival rate. With kings, this is apparent with eastern vs. western kings. Western kings are more subterrainian, therefore have a higher survival rate and fewer offspring. In the end, reproductive rate tells you a lot about survival rate. Along with egg size, small neonate vs. larger neonate. Etc etc

So yes, its a fun subject to think about I just hope you consider during times of exspansion, survival rates can be very high.

FR.

I really think that cannot be right - unless there is a die-off of the adults.

How can a population (besides humans) expand at a rate of 5% a year and sustain itself?

I realize that you modified your response by saying that it is not static - but even a 1% survival rate year in and year out is impossible. Over a million years that would be millions of Kingsnakes. I believe the wild populations are more stable than that.

About as stable as Bob Bull suggests.
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Peter Jolles
East Coast Colubrids
www.eastcoastcolubrids.com

Peter your kinda making me crazy I did not know, that this was not understood. Its taught in basic biology. Its population dynamics.

It kinda makes my head hurt to think so far back for the right terms. So I will try most likely using the wrong terms, but hopefully you will get the idea.

First most here think in terms on one or two. That is, right or wrong, left or right up or down. This is reason why man has a hard time saving nature.

Nature is complicated. Nature is a balance that never stays balanced. Its like ripple or waves in the water. Plants insects and animals populate, another species benefit and populate(recruit), and on and on. Its topped off by the apex predator. You using humans is totally off as we are apex predators at this time. We are waiting for the big desease thing to readjust our populations.

Again the base energy source is consumed by a layer of life, and so on and so forth. As each consumes its food source, it not only allows it to recruit, but impacts the food source. In essense, no layer stays the same, they cannot, because their predators populate as much as they can to consume its energy source. So like humans, they all overpopulate. The food source is impacted and then there will be a die off of its predators and on up the chain.

With this in mind, all populations are in some stage of bloom then bust. While in the bloom stage, they go through range expansion.

NOW, all of this is dependant on enviornmental conditions. Droughts, fires, floods(katrina) sort of wipe the slate clean, so they are something that are easy understand. A real extreme. These areas get depleted of a normal balance. What comes back first is, plants and insects, then their predators. The ripple effect is in action. While one layer preys on the other, it also does not have a normal predator load. So that layer expands. It expands until its predator load is great enough to stop it. Or it uses up its resources, then in both cases the population adjusts. Its rarely ever constant.

I ask you, do you get warm winters, cold winters, dry winters, wet winters? How about all that with spring and all that with summer, and all that with fall? Weather variations have a direct effect of plant and insect loads. Which have a direct effect on each layer of predator, the ripple. Up to and including the apex predator.

Apex predators are effected by lack of resources and desease. Not by another predator.

The above is a very general idea of whats going on.

I mentioned nature being complicate. You know those ripples, they not only spread in a outward direction, but they also ripple up and down, and in. Which means many many things are effected. Kinda why man cannot get it right. But alas, nature is constantly re-adjusting, It has always re-balanced. But then something happens. As an example, many life forms are based on parasites, which are in snakes.

If you take snakes, its very common for them to overpopulate, They have a reliable energy source. So all you have to do is take away predator loads. Such as farms and feral fields. Or the spaces between agricultural fields. They often house huge populations of such snakes as kingsnakes and of course pits. The fields are grain, which equals mice, they are watered regularly, all equal dense snake populations. Then they plow that dang fields which causes population re-adjustment. hahahahaha Which leaves the remaining individuals with excess prey. So bloom they go.

All and all, I get the feeling you need to find some books on population dynamics. They explain this well. And yes, a population can stay balanced for very short periods. But its not likely to stay balanced over any extented period. Another example, such things as mice, voles, rats, have distint population cycles, which end or start with a bloom(dynamic overpopulation)

Now, if you can understand that. Then you may want to entertain this. Snake populations, at least natural ones, have an age factor. In the populations I have studied, colubrid populations last about 5 to 8 years in a given area. While one population ages, others start and mature. This occurs within populations. Sorta like family groups. They come and go. Which directly effects the movement of the whole population.

Then if you consider a ever larger picture. Hmmmmmmmmmmm this is long enough but please look up what ancestoral ranges mean. In general it was the area a species use to inhabit. In many cases, their ranges are shrinking, in other cases they are expanding. This has to mean the population is growing or shrinking. Not constant. Sorry for being so long but I still cannot believe your not aware of this. With any or all of this in mind, its very easy to say 90% die, but its really not accurate at a given place and a given time. Cheers

FR, Your post, besides the personal shots, makes sense. However, I believe that overall I am right. I think that is why populations are static over a long period of time.

Sure, populations and even entire species die off over time - but overall and under natural conditions (meaning no grain fields) I think that my thinking is correct.

I don't need an ancestral range map. Quickly calculating population expansion on a notepad is all I need. 10% survival rates compounded over 100 years is impossible. 5% is just as impossible.
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Peter Jolles
East Coast Colubrids
www.eastcoastcolubrids.com

All that and your not getting it, not unusual I guess.

The last sentence says, a defined percentage is not accurate, any defined percentage. At a given place and a given time. The reason is, we live at a given place and at a given time.

Over a million years you can give a certain percentage, make it up, any percentage, like 1.9 percent survival rate to mature adult.

The problem is, we are not aware of extented periods of time. If you go to the 9 ninth ward. you will see an over abundance of many species as they move into that new habitat. As mentioned, speckled kings will soon be amoung them. There survival rate will be much much higher then the set average. When mice or voles bloom, their survival rate increases like crazy. They simply mass their predators. Then die off of lack of resources. Did you see that mouse bloom on Steve Irwins show. Consider, those billions of mice were adults. So they beat the odds. A bloom indicates a high survival rate. At least for a set period of time.

So you can go to 50 different populations, and all fifty will have a different survival rate. Which would depend on conditions and timing.

All and all, you can believe whatever you want, as its pretty much meaningless anyway. Your never going to apply it to gain any real result, and neither am I. Cheers

Using Cal Kings we could say at the low end we have a female becoming reproductivly active at 5, producing 4 eggs every 3 years. Living to 15 years old she will produce 16 eggs in her lifetime. Towards the high end we may have a female becoming reproductive at 2 years of age, producing 6 eggs every 2 years and living to 25. She would produce 72 eggs in her life. If (and it is a big if) the populations remain static each female will have 1 male and 1 female survive to live the same lifespan.
2 out of 16 equals 12.5 % survival.
2 out of 72 equals 2.7 % survival.

Over short time spans (decades and centuries) predators and competing species in the same habitat loose and gain advantages/numbers due to droughts and wet years.
Over long time spans (thousands and millions of years) entire ranges expand, contract and fragment due to overall climate change.
And in between there are cataclysims which at times reduce and at other times disperse and expand populations.

On the bright side each one of those millions of captive born animals that either lived or died in captivity potentially represents a coresponding wild animal that was allowed to be left in nature to do whatever it is to do.

The problem with that is that you can't just calculate 1 male and 1 female out of her total surviving, because some will survive only long enough to produce 4 clutches before something gets them. They did not make it to be 15 years old, they were removed and something else replaced them.

But that's the key, I think.
Survival rate can not be talked about except in a specific locality in a specific time frame.

How many will survive? As many as their are resources to support. Increase resources and more survive, decrease resources and less survive. There also are pressures such as predators, but I suspect most populations (not the word suspect) produce more young than resources can support even after predators, resulting in range expansion IF POSSIBLE and die off if not possible.

Extirpation happens when pressures such as existing/new predators demand more than they overproduce and/or resources diminish (change in climate, habitat destruction, new competing species).

Pulling a number out of ones rear really is meaningless because the fluxuation due to resources and predation is quite likely many times larger than the margin of error for any kind of model.

My guess anyway.
I'm not a biologist, let alone a population biologist.
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3.3.4 L. getula californiae
1.1 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

"The problem with that is that you can't just calculate 1 male and 1 female out of her total surviving, because some will survive only long enough to produce 4 clutches before something gets them. They did not make it to be 15 years old, they were removed and something else replaced them."

>>>Funky I realize the problems with my models that is why I qualified it and set a parameter for which it was applicalable when I said:
"If the populalation is STATIC each female must produce 1 male and 1 female that will have THE SAME REPRODUCTIVE LIFESPAN".
Now for example continueing with Cal Kings. EXCLUDING DEVELOPMENT their total range and density has probably not changed much in the last 500 years. I would say it is also likely that their density has gone up and down in that time but overall it has probably remained fairly static thus on average over that last 500 years the combined survivorship of all populations has probably averaged between about 3% and 12%. There have probably been many populations that have seen much greater ranges over brief periods of time but if we had data for each and every population which we could combine it would still over that amount of time (the last 500 years) probably be about 3-12%. It is when you start looking at either really small time periods or really long time periods that those averages don't apply; or when you look at small parts of the range or at individual specimens.
Establishing those general averages are only an aid to help us to see the very small and very large fluctuations. It is unfortunate that there are not 10 million Frank Retes' available to monitor each and every sub-population but barring that we only have imperfect generalities.

I thought it would never get any better than Frank being called "eloquent" a while back.

And then you go and say:

"It is unfortunate that there are not 10 million Frank Retes'..."

Now that tops them all. I think he's doing just fine solo. Two Franks would be a handfull and then some. I got your point too re. field work etc.... but what a great way to phrase it... 10 million Franks!!!

If looking at survival rates, I think the only way to do it is to look at survival rate by size and season.

A certain number of neonates will make it to the second year.
The survival rate of those to make it to the third year is probably higher (they know where to shelter, find food, etc.)

By the time they are 3.5' long or so and still young, it probably is quite high - until they get old.

Similar thing in the pet industry.
I'm pulling this out of my ass, but it is my guess that more than half of the neonates sold as pets die before they are a year old.

I don't think comparing the death rate with nature though is very useful, because with a few exceptions, the neonates that die in captivity die because of lack of husbandry. That is something we can fix, I think it is getting better, but it is not good enough yet.

I like Nokturnal Toms attitude.
I bet breeders to hold on to them for just a little while longer have a higher survival rate of their offspring in the pet trade. It is certainly less profitable to hold onto them until they are *well* started, but I think it is the right thing to do - at least with some species.
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3.3.4 L. getula californiae
1.1 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

just curious, what formula and what numbers did you use in your calculation?

thanks,
daveb

Yeah, I suspect the reptiles and amphibians this year in ohio, be quite populous because of our very warm winter we are experiancing. Warm winters=lots of bugs, which hopefully result in more herps roaming around.

I think the poster meant that the overall survival rate of offspring is 5% not that it grows at 5% a year.

You asked for it...
Peter you just said
"This is one reason I "shut down" my colubrid breeding. There are so many babies out there every year and every year more people are breeding them - that these snakes will have no dollar value soon and then people will treat them like baby turtles were treated before they were banned. Look around. That is why people push all of the morph stuff. Is it really any prettier than the natural variety - or are breeders marketing that stuff to you and you have bought into it? Why is a white & colorless snake more valuable than one with all of the colors God intended and armed it with? Think about it."

Ya know Peter this part of your post is just silly. So what...you just realized there's a billion colubrids out there? Now that they're [according to you] destined to be worthless you move into Chondros but it has nothing to do with money? Locale specific Chondros no less??? Why not breed generics and cross locales? Cause they'd be worth less money? And why pick on morphs again?

How about this example....I am unsure of this snakes value but lets just use the Speckled Racer. Say you can score wild caughts for 25 bucks a piece,,,and they're not easy to acclimate or to get babies from. Finally someone who succedes has captive born offspring available but he shouldn't ask a lot more money for those? I know I would. You can buy wild caught Chondros for a fraction of captive born costs..but since a lot of work goes into producing the captive ones people price them higher and they're a safer buy for the consumer. How about the work.....or much better said TIME morph guys put into projects to offer something people have never seen before. That is not that much different and it is why I get so freakin angry when I read a post like yours!

Might there be a chance that you produced a bunch of average colubrids fairly easy to find from numerous sources and had a hard time selling them all even for a very reasonable price and now that frustration has set in you may realize it is not worth your time? I think that may be at least part of why your attitude is the way it seems...to me anyway. Being a morph person I can tell you I don't care how many others have what I have or what the final dollar value is on something I am working to produce is. Chance are it will be a morph that may make yet more variants when combined with others. Just like all people who love snakes get that rush when they see a long awaited clutch pip....the rewarding feeling you get that it was worth the wait and effort is enough for me to keep from becoming bored or frustrated...and to think you had so many people thinking you were doing what you did for the love of the animals[Which I believe you do] and how much you cared about keeping locales pure...and NOW YOU ARE BAILING ON IT???? Why am I surprised.... I just don't know.

I never doubted you are a snake lover. I am sure you are. But this preaching about how you only breed pure locales and morphs are worthess and this n that and now say forget it all since there's so many colubrids out there is just laughable. I saw tons of people bash others for selling their colubrids to get into Ball Pythons and this is not too far off from that so all I can say is good luck with everything and hopefully some of your colubrid offspring will be kept pure for another year or two....pretty soon there will be more generic snakes than anything, there probably is already and luckily I have no problem with that.

In closing your work tracking down pairs of locale specific colubrids and putting in a few years of work to produce something you prided yourself on is not so much different than a morph guy patiently waiting for the odds to fall in his favor and produce a killer morph. The only difference is the price tag and its not so different anyway,.,,,as for example an Outer Banks King costs more than an Eastern. So thanks for yet another jab at morph breeders....I will keep pushing my morph stuff
Tom morph loving Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Tom, Really - I cannot read that whole post. It might be better to email me.

Yes - I do not care about the money. I really don't. I will stay in the reptile business here and there but I am not going to focus on breeding colubrids and other snakes that are just so mass-produced that there are not enough homes for them.

However, I never did this to support myself and I never plan(ned) to. I just do this for fun. I don't have as big a stake in making morphs a "must have" item as some people.

I saw that you mentioned "locale specific chondros" in your post. Yeah - I really like those. I think I am gonna keep a lot of them. I think that Chondros are very hard to breed so I don't know when I will have babies. Actually I don't care.

Man I am sorry you are angry. I'm not. I am happy.

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Peter Jolles
East Coast Colubrids
www.eastcoastcolubrids.com

I don't see why people are constantly arguing over morphs locales, normals, market. We love snakes is the fact morphs are cool, they look sweet and have alot of genetic possibilities as well as marketability. Locales are cool they are a break from the normal cookie cutter snake, some even differing enough someone who does'nt know would say "Nice morph" bairdes rat snakes come to mind with this. Normals, a cookie cutter snake, blah its worthless: Yeah right, I don't know about you but I love all snakes I have a poss het brooksi if it is normal who cares have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a hatchling anything working on a meal? The market, well FR I'm sure that your tree pythons will become more mainstream and easier to breed just as everything else is. They'll be in the 100 dollar range soon too. Everything is destined to be cheap, I don't think any snake will ever be as cheap as turtles were. Breeders put too much time into their animals morphs or not to not get what they are worth. BTW any of the albino mt. kings could give that snake a run for its money. Or a sunglow albino cornsnake for that matter.

> Why is a white & colorless snake more valuable than one with all
> of the colors God intended and armed it with?

The same reason why people want white eggs and white bread and white mice and white rats.

White is very marketable. Why, I don't know - but it is.
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3.3.4 L. getula californiae
1.1 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

I do love my pure white snakes! These are certainly pure Texas Rat snakes from a very long line of captive bred snakes. I am breeding her to a male Black tail Cribo next year and going straight to snake breeder hell! Any takers for a couple of these mutts? (just a rhetorical question, not advertising here)

a spray of cribo poop.

Vee haf vays in my secret laborayatory to enhance zee coopreration of our subjects, No? YAAAHH!!!!

the morelia are addictive huh?wish i had a cam that could capture this ones luster,i freely admit it im a morelia head,,,,,thomas davis

Here's a thought..how many of you have ONLY one snake?. I've got four so far, so that's at least four people that could have a snake in America, and I'm sure I will add more to my collection. Plus you have your buyers from overseas. Japan loves pet snakes from my understanding, I've read about some breeders selling to clients here in this forum..and China's trade is just opening up. Sure some die, but if you just count the snakes in the collections of the posters on this thread..I'd bet you'd have quite a large number.
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Richard Evans

no not THAT one

>>Here's a thought..how many of you have ONLY one snake?. I've got four so far, so that's at least four people that could have a snake in America, and I'm sure I will add more to my collection.

I currently have 16 snakes and fostering 1:

0.1 eastern kingsnake
0.1 emory rat snake
1.1 corn snakes
4.1 black rat snakes
1.2.2 eastern hognose snakes
1.1 ball pythons (normals)
0.1 ablino het snow ball python (fostering)

I have 5 additional black rats (2.3) that I gave to my boyfriend so in a way I still have them so to speak. My female bp was bred to his axanthic het snow bp and I should be expecting a dozen eggs or so in a few months which would mean more little hatchlings to play with in the spring. I doubt my known male hognose hatchling will be grown up enough for breeding to my adult female this year so I won't be seeing any babies from her until '08 unless I find a nice adult male later this year.
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PHWyvern

Very interesting post Frank. This is why I am never in a hurry to sell all my snakes. Occasionally some parent will contact me to buy a snake for a young kid and they seem baffled when I tell them it is best for them to wait as opposed to buying a fresh hatchling. A well started snake is often hardier...and there's lots of people selling snakes after they take a single pinky. Sure I have sold snakes out of the egg and whatnot but the customers were well aware of it and had the confidence they could handle it. I know some wholesalers prefer to buy things right out of the egg at an even lower price and I think this is a major factor is the pet shop scene as far as people buying snakes that simply perish soon after they get into homes of new keepers.
Some of us are concerned with a persons level of experience keeping snakes whether they're high dollar or cheap as can be. Some people will never turn down a sale and others will make sure someone is capable of caring for what they're purchasing. To think that something as common as regurgitation can send a snake on the downward spiral to death is a serious downside to this hobby....as you really can not be sure the animals are as healthy as they appear til you own them for a while... I am always happy to hear from people who have snakes produced here that are thriving years later in thier collections. It's also a real bummer ot hear the bad stories of escapes and things like that.... We can only hope people learn from a bad experience and make more of an effort to care for their pets the way they deserve to be cared for in the future. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

How many snakes did those breeders need to produce 150,000 corns. My point is that yes alot of snake die (ball pythons come to mind) because people are ignorant of the care these animals require (its not that hard I mean come on). But most people have more than one snake so I guess the survival rate of CB would still be higher. I mean I read a statistic in a book once (don't quote me but I think this was it) That only one in one-hundred wild snakes survive to breeding age. And according to some other posts is 18 inches.

My CBs are fine

Captive snakes are not hit by cars, burned in wildfires, eaten by predators, washed away by flood, frozen in winter, bulldozed or plowed, implanted with radio transmitters, skinned or eaten, mowed, rained on, or for the most part, hated. I think they have a lot of advantages and are far more likely to survive for a longer time than their wild counterparts. Most wild populations are probably not static, but are more likely in some degree of decline in nearly every locale.

There are over 200,000,000 people in this country between the age of fourteen and 65, basically the entire potential reptile owning population. They make up only 67% of the total population.
There’s a lot of pet loving people in our country. Last April Petco reported quarterly earnings of $521 million from it’s 799 stores. Each year the USA will import more than 2 million green iguanas for the pet trade. Currently there are 153 threads in the Iguana Forum, not even listed in the top ten forums on Kingsnake.com. The top five snake forums on Kingsnake.com combined have received about 320,000 posts. There’s a lot more snake owners out there than we know about just from posting here. Not surprising that it takes 500,000 corns and kings every year to supply the demand. If the captive population is static, then that is how many die each year. I would imagine the captive population is not static and that it is growing every year. I also think newbies are getting better at properly maintaining them because of the unprecedented access to decent care information. I believe snakes are receiving better care from the breeders, shippers, dealers vets and the end users than ever before. The survival rate in captivity should continue to improve. Snakes really have no choice, they must live with us, in our homes, or disappear along with the suitable natural habitat that use to be able to support them.

Very good and thought provoking statements!
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Genesis 1:1

And you could float around the world, in a balloon, with all that hot air! Scientific research, theory, and facts are not based on popular opinion. Nor, should wars be fought with popular opinion. In both situations, you could end up in disaster. Has anybody, that is posting their "opinions" here
taken at least a basic High School level Biology course? It amazes me, when I here "Well me and all my herp breeding friends think." and your using this statement to contradict a published work! I just do not get it. I have a "Theory" that very large numbers of wholesaler's stock is lost soon after their sale. I have personally heard Petco staff tell customers that wanted to buy their child a pet snake, but did not want to deal with rodents, that they could feed them crickets. Have you ever seen a 15 year old Corn Snake that was raised on crickets? They then proceeded to sell them a ten gallon tank, and screen lid, calcium sand, a hot rock, some plastic plants, a water bowl/hide, a dome lamp with a 75 watt bulb, an under the tank heat pad, some vitamin and calcium powder for the crickets, and a fresh out of the egg Corn Snake, oh yeah, and they gave them a print out care sheet. Now how long do you think this Corn Snake
will live under these conditions? This has happened at more than one location that I have been to. Now imagine how many times a day this happens around the country, especially around Christmas! The wholesaler/breeder doesn't care, they get paid cash. Petco doesn't care, they just made a hell of a sale, they even train their staff to do this. I've also seen pet stores throw Cal kings in with Corn Snakes, and a few days later you have two or three really fat and happy Cal Kings! There is one store that really made me laugh. They had a San Luis Potosi King marked as an albino Honduran for the rock bottom price of $250, in the same cage as a Brookesia Chameleon. When I brought it to the managers attention, they said that they had been together for almost a month and that the "Hondurans" do not eat lizards, Okay? I think that the well intentioned and serious hobbyist are few and far between. Most of the mass produced Corns, Kings, Boa constrictors, and Ball Pythons, die either at the hands of the stores or the ill informed customers. Not everybody that buys a "pet" snake is still interested in it after the novelty wares of, especially 10-20 years down the road. Another thing to keep in mind is that pet stores usually only pay $5-$10 wholesale for a common King or Corn and sell them for $50-$100 plus the $150 of equipment that goes with it. So what do they care if they lose a few before the sale. That's just my theory.
-Phil

Hey you fill a mighty hot air balloon there yourself Patton!
Last time I looked, and there I just looked again and it still said "Kingsnake.com The Online Community for the Reptile and Amphibian Hobbyist", it didn't say "Reptile and Amphibian Scientific Researchers". Take away all the hobbyist contributors that do enjoy this online community and you'd have the same three guys posting here instead of the same old two dozen we currently have! I'm here because I'm a hobbyist, not to rub elbows with scientists. This is not really about facts, scientific research or theory is it? Cause if it is I, for one, shouldn't be participating here at all. I admit it.

The pet shop story you relate, which may be an urban myth for all we know, is sad if true. I don’t doubt what you’ve seen yourself. It is just as likely that included with the pile of stuff would be any number of small cheap books on the care of whatever the critter is. I know my kid, or anybody else I know, would nod politely at the salesman and upon leaving the store say, “Wow, what an idiot!” and go home and properly care for their new critter. Sure a lot of them die, in fact, they all do. All the wild ones do too. If you buy a lone snake for a pet with no intention of breeding it and it lives for four years, is that considered a successful experience? I would say yes. I think it happens all the time, but I admit I’m just full of crap. I don’t know anything for sure. Imagine any number of captive and an equal number of wild corn/king hatchlings. Which group has more survivors one/four/ten years later? I put my money on the captive group, at every stage.

Thanks for the pic. Have you been talking to my wife? I enjoyed that.LOL! I have no problem at all with people sharing ideas and non-scientificly proven theories on this site. Like you said, that's what this site is for. What was getting me fired up is that a few people on this site have used published works to back up their points, and then they are bombarded with responses like "Your wrong, and all the breeders I know think your wrong too". It's one thing to be open minded and discuss things openly and it's another to be close minded and shallow minded at the same time. I remember the first time I heard that monitors should have a basking spot of around 130 degrees, I thought what a load of junk, and likewise when a friend explained the Retes' Stack to me, but who's having amazing success breeding monitors to this day? Sometimes the truth isn't always easy to swallow at first, but that doesn't mean the person that gave you this information is a complete idiot.
In Frank Retes case, yes, he can come off as abrasive and condescending, but we might want to do a little thinking before we shoot his information down. Yet, I also think it's healthy to question what is the standard, but not for the sake of being close minded.
Thanks,
-Phil

I wanted to let you know that I did not intend to post my first post as a responce to yours. Sorry for the confusion. Have a good one!
-Phil

No worries. I appreciate your post. Everybody is entitled to post their 2 cents worth. Some aren’t worth 2 cents, including mine, but they are always worth more than the zero of not posting. FR is quite an icon in the herp world, I think it is really amazing that he is such a regular here. It takes some guts to post and know you’ve got some really highly respected eyeballs there ready to put you in your place. You aren’t going to get away with any b.s. here. It makes for quite a mix and I think it makes the whole thing work. I think I need an intervention, as I have a kingsnake.com problem. I am old enough for this forum to blow me away, because I can remember a time when I was the only herper I knew, and had no one to share it with at all. Let's not forget how the milk snake got it's name, I think for the most part we have come a long way in a short time in this hobby.

One note about herps is that often people who keep them keep lots of them. So while few of my neighbors have snakes, my collection is considered small compared to some - but I've got enough to compensate for several of my neighbors.

I suspect the neonate death rate is rather high. I don't think it is higher than wild neonate death rate though, I think wild populations are bigger than most of us think they are - as snakes are generally very good at not being found.
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3.3.4 L. getula californiae
1.1 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Most people simply dont have a clue what they are doing with the animals that they buy.

Anyone who has worked in a pet store knows the constant dilema of making a living vs. selling people animals that they are clueless about. An ethical pet business or breeder probobly spends more time convinceing people out of what they want in favor of something that they might actually be able to keep alive. At least thats what I did. But there are too many pet stores who not only dont care about the fates of the animals, but they don't even know how to care for them themselves.

How many times have you met someone who says something like, "I once had a snake, the thing died though. It just wouldn't eat. Dunno what happened" Then they give you a shrug like it was a feeder goldfish that you win at a carnival... you know, the ones that are not expected to live?!

And not only do these thousands of snakes have to deal with an inexperienced / uncaring keeper. They have to fight to even make it that far. Shipping errors, days in darkness, bright cages with no hide boxes, endless handling, often sold before their first meal, cronic dehydration cause they are too stressed to eat, its a wonder any of them make it out of the pet store or expo alive. The fact that any survive is a testament to their incredible resilience.

Its easy to suround yourself with people in this hoby who at least make an attempt to learn about there animals. I would hope that most of the regulars here have extremely high survival rates for all new snakes. In 15 years of breeding and collecting I have only lost a very small handfull. But we (the people on this forum who are compassionate enough to even ask about the animals we keep) captive are not the majority. And even we are not perfect.

Great post exposing the underbelly of the hobby we all love.

I work at a pet store and was scolded for convincing people out of the more expensive chameleons for the cheaper leopard geckos and bearded dragons. And for convincing people out of burms in favor of small colubrids. And for telling people the rosy boa was'nt feeding and had'nt for 2 months. I replied "Well you expect me to lie to them? If they take it and it dies its on me and your buissiness. A leopard gecko can live 20 years, would it be better to sell one of those then all the supplies and food over that period of time or a chameleon that if kept in good health 5-6 years are wild caught and I can almost guarentee will be dead in 3 weeks. Or people getting burms and having them just die or be released (not as big of a deal in ohio but still bad when the media gets a hold of it) because it is too big and aggressive. And With the rosy boa after 3 months I got it feeding and it has weight now and I am singing its praises to customers and will be sold rather soon I think.

They can't tell me to lie to people, because I won't. The manager loves animals so he just told me to keep stuff a little quiet when the corporate guy is around. I guess you can't just let people knock you around just cause your 17 and work at a pet store, I know what I'm talking about and I'm not going to lie to them.