Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Strictly hypothetical but input from big and small breeders appreciated.

Lets say you sell someone a het and a couple years later they call you and say the het didn't prove out. It was a standard size clutch - het to het pairing or het to homo - your choice. Most people at this juncture work with the customer to make it right - in a variety of different ways of which is relatively unimportant to the question.

The Question:

Do you go a step further and contact the owners of the clutch mates to notify them that there might be an issue with the genetics? Or do you assume perhaps this one was a fluke, there wasn't sufficient evidence to prove that it's not a het perhaps bad odds, take a wait and see approach - if I don't hear from the rest of the owners then assume the best?

Thanks for your input!
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Insert Silly Quote Here

im not sure i understand. a het to het breeding doesnt give 100% hets. so it wouldnt matter if one didnt prove out because it was'nt 100% it was 66%. and on a homo to het. the genetics had to be there if u produced any visuals. so you should know
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Jeff Stringer

No - The het you sold is 100% het - which hasn't proved out - your customer either bred a het to het breeding which should have (statistically) produced a visual or a homo to het breeding which should also produce a visual.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Insert Silly Quote Here

If I sold a customer a 100% het, that is what it is. They could produce 5 clutches of het to het without a homozygous animal and I would still know that it was a het.

That doesn't mean that I wouldn't work something out with the customer to help them feel more comfortable with the situation.

The other side of the coin is this, what if the customer mixes up their snakes and the animal they think they got from you isn't the right animal at all. That's where photo records come in...

Justin
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J. Kobylka Reptiles

Warning: Snakes have been shown to cause death in laboratory rats.

So say someone bought a het clown male from you and ran it through three of their het clown females - and got decent size clutches but no clowns - would you question the genetics (perhaps retained sperm) would you assume it's just a fluke - and at any point would you contact the owners of the clutchmates and let them know there might be an issue with the clutches genetics?

Thanks!!!
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Insert Silly Quote Here

Every het that I sell goes with a photo record of the snake, of course if by some horrible odds no visuals come out from breeding to their het or homozygonous forms. Then I will work something out with them and make them feel a little better about the situation and see that I am not some fraud they may think since I am a little new to the market. I usually will send them a baby visual morph of what they have and have them send me back the het that they bought. However if it was sold as a possible het then I really cant guarantee that it would prove out because it's not a proven het.

I'm not suggesting that no mistakes are ever made, but I do guard against retained sperm by keeping females in the same recessive project year after year. Or putting them to a co-dom after they've been in a recessive project.

That helps.

To answer your question though, if for some reason I became convinced that a clutch was suspect I would DEFINITELY contact all those who purchased animals from it.

Justin
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J. Kobylka Reptiles

Warning: Snakes have been shown to cause death in laboratory rats.

I recently breed a normal female to a VPI Axanthic male. The resulting clutch was 4 eggs in size. As they hatched I was floored by a "yellow" snake and 2.1 visually normal snakes. The yellow snake appears to be a pastel, male, and hatched out 2 months ago at 34 grams and hasn't eating on it's own. I've had the Dam for 3 years and last year was her first clutch. I think she retained sperm from the previous year. I am keeping the female as a PH Axan. If the yellow male survives, I'll breed him back to the female. The ethical part of my scenario is: I can't sell the 2 males as Het Axan. or even PH Axan., only if I were to prove them out could I sell them as Het. Axan. So, if anyone needs a couple of normal males, let me know.

Tom.
snakewrangler69@hotmail.com

Actually your 'very yellow' male sounds more like it could be a classic jungle. They look very much like a pastel (which was the reason for the pastels original name of Pastel Jungle) Classic Jungles haven't been proven to be reliably reproducible and some people think they may actually just be premature (which would also explain the small size). In all likelihood, all of your hatchlings are het axanthic, and one is ALSO a classic jungle.

The photo record is a very good idea. I can see where it would be real easy for a customer to get some of their snakes mixed up and end up breeding the wrong ones.

But what if they can prove that it is the same snake and it hasn't proven out to be a het? Is there a possibility that this could happen due to retained sperm from a previous breeding? How many times could they breed it to be reasonably sure that it isn't an actual het?

Vic

n/p
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J. Kobylka Reptiles

Warning: Snakes have been shown to cause death in laboratory rats.

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1430062,1430100

I am on both ends of it right now. I have a het that I sold somebody, that is a 100% het that he told me did not prove out this year. But it will next year because I know what produced it and that it has to be a het. I would never sell an animal that was not a het as one and in fact have had people prove out my possible hets and hets and post them on this forum.

On the other side I have a female het I purchased that produced no visuals this year when bred by a visual male. I am going to breed her again before I take my situation to the seller I purchased her from if she does not prove out.

What seems to really be lost on the newer people and hobby level people in ball python breeding is that each egg has it's percentage of being a genetic mutation and clutch size while great for longterm averages is not a predictor of what you will get. If you have 6 eggs and expect that a dominant male will mean you get 3 visuals, you could be wrong either way. Like rolling dice, the percentage is the same every time and it is on each egg. Every year some people will hit on 6 of 6 and others will get nothing.

Now I am not saying it is a great feeling to breed hypo x het hypo, get 8 eggs and no hypos. But what I am saying is that it could still be a het and just bad luck. Now after 2 clutches like that, it is time to talk.

I guess you have to ask yourself a couple of questions:

1) How many times did I try to prove this het? One clutch, IMHO, is not enough.
2) What did you breed the het to? Het X Het? Het X Homo? You mentioned 3 females with good clutch sizes and no Homo animals. Are you sure the 3 females are legit?
3) Did you contact the seller for a photo comparison and reiteration of the full details behind the animal? Perhaps the breeder was confused and listed a poss het as a het?

I might contact other buyers just to see what their luck was - I'm assuming they bought from the same sire/clutch. If they have luck similar to yours, you might have a case.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

It seems we are getting stuck on everything but the question so I am going to try to rephrase it.

Remember this is only hypothetical ....

Lets assume a 100% het that you have sold has it's genetics questioned - to the point where you feel that the customer might have a legitimate concern. Perhaps multiple breedings. lots of eggs with no visuals - perhaps even two snakes from the same clutch .... We assume that you have done everything to confirm that it is your snake, and breeding are good and you've done everything to make this right and the customer(s) happy/comfortable with your transaction.

There are still 6 or 7 clutch mates out there you haven't heard from - do you contact the owners of these hets to alert them to the issue or do you wait to see if they contact you?

Thanks!
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Insert Silly Quote Here

>>There are still 6 or 7 clutch mates out there you haven't heard from - do you contact the owners of these hets to alert them to the issue or do you wait to see if they contact you?

Depends. Your (hypothetical) issue was resolved to your satisfaction. But was the core issue deception? Mistake? If deception, I would contact EVERYONE! If mistake...

If I were one of the others, I would appreciate hearing what happened to you. If my hets proved out, then nothing lost. Otherwise, there might be more proof for my suspicions - assuming my hets are not proving out.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Kind of a trick question really.

If you sold 66% possible hets as '100%' hets, then you are not being honest at the get go...why be honest later?

If you bred normals to visual morphs, all babies will be 100% het..so if the new owner bred them a couple times and no visual morphs showed up...all i would do is confirm it is a 100% as the parents are normal x visual morphs. the odds are just not in the customers favor. It could also be the fault of the other snake it is being bred to (maybe its a normal, not a het at all, or the wrong kind of het (ie het albino and not het pied)

For CE you can offer another Het snake and take the 'defective' one back..but I wouldn't go contacting all my other customers, really no need to. Not unless you realize your 'pied' is not a real pied, but somebody decided to paint parts of the snake white.
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PHLdyPayne

...........even though you just told them ...Houston...there's a problem out there........

.......you made the het......what's up??

.you didn't make it and bought and resold.......send them to the first guy......
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If I sell hets and I sell them with a genetic guarantee and customer A provides proof that it is not a het or not compatible, etc. Then I honor my guarantee. I make it right.

Customer B & C, bought from the same clutch under the same terms. However, for whatever reason these 2 customers did not breed their hets. They are a year behind customer A. I would not let them invest another year of time, energy, etc. knowing that they are not going to get the EXPECTED results. I would contact them, inform them of what has happened and ask them what they want to do.
We all know that by the time we raise our hets to breeding size and actually produce a visual morph it's no longer about the money we paid for the hets. It's about the time, food, energy invested and the other projects that are tied to the het project.
Any breeder that ignores this just because customer B & C have not failed yet is a total ASS. A complete POS.

Also, only a person that knows they sold FAKE hets would ignore this responsibility. If you produced them and you know they're hets you would contact other customers to see if they got the expected results. There is a chance that the first customer missed, especially if the breeding was a het X het.

Is there anyway that breeding a visual to anything else, would not produce a het. I was under the assumption that visual to anything else, was always 100% het. Assuming this is correct, I don't see any reason to contact the other sellers. It only makes sense that the person who missed, just missed. It is not possible that your het is not a het.

Tosha has already stated "Lets assume a 100% het that you have sold has it's genetics questioned - to the point where you feel that the customer might have a legitimate concern. Perhaps multiple breedings. lots of eggs with no visuals"
So at this point you already have enough proof to say that something is wrong. So yes, I am going to contact the other customers and present them with the facts. Also, those other customers may present you with information such as "I had no problem and I produced a visual". Now you have something to support the just missed the odds theory. BTW...I think that card is played way too often by breeders that are questioned about their hets. Just my opinion.

Also, you are wrong about how could it not be a het. Learn about sperm retention. There's an excellent book titled "Keeping and Breeding Snakes". There's a chart/table in the book with documented records of sperm retention.
It should make you think about that gravid import if she gives you hets the next year or that proven breeder female that has produced clutches multiple times and been bred by a different morph each year.
Just something to think about.

raise our own Pennsylvania born balls.......

.....wild stuff suxx and was sold.......

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A)Did you breed the animals and sell them to someone else, or did you buy the animals, either from the original owner/breeder or did you buy them second had and now you think you were scammed? I am not clear on that part, so are you the buyer or seller?

B)If this is in regards to another forum that I have seen you post on, then here is maybe a little better explanation of the situation.

Person A sells a bunch of "hets" to a number of people and claims they were from an "albino x normal" clutch. A couple of years down the road, it is discovered that Person A was actually selling "normals" as "hets." Now, before it was discovered that Person A was selling "fake hets, " Person B, who bought the animals from Person A decides to sell some of the "hets" for whatever reason. At the time Person B is selling the hets not knowing about the scam that Person A is conducting, is Person B involved in the scam, and should Person B make good on Person A's bad business buy replacing the animals with thier own hets produced at their own facility or give the purchaser of the "hets" their money back in return for the now proven "normal" animals? Also, It is a known fact that Person B is an honest person and did not take part in the scam and forwarded all paperwork and guarantees of genetics provided by Person A to each customer with the "hets" that would later discover are actually "normals." This would indicate that Person B did not do this intentionally but is also a victim of the scam.

With this being the case, Person B should inform his customers of the scam and let them know he is a victim too and help them get what, if any, compensation from Person A who is the scumbag that started the whole mess.

But, ya'll know how I do things and I would just show up on person A's front porch with a big 'ol can of whopp@$$ and take care of the matter and be done with it. I would then breed the normal animals to dominant or co-dominant animals and make my money back that way.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

Actually - it didn't really have anything to do with that topic - tho that thread did get me to thinking about future obligations when dealing with hets.

In general I've not wanted to produce hets in the past because I just didn't want to deal with the obligations that go along with it. If a het doesn't prove, how to be sure all parties are on the up and up - what restrictions to put on your guarantee, how many clutches till you say for sure, and what is fair for all parties, etc etc. What a headache.

The added thought that if a het didn't prove on the first attempt I would have to immediately track down every buyer of that clutch to let them know (maybe needlessly) - there might be an issue with the clutch or be label bad guy - certainly doesn't make it worth while. But I have a bunch of normal females doing nothing again this season so I'd considered it. I bounced this topic off of several of my snake friends and was surprised at the responses - so I was looking for a general consensus.

Thank you for the insight.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Insert Silly Quote Here

We need a commercial paternity test. I think it would be a fairly attainable application of biotechnology to our industry (way more practical today than cloning or gene splicing). Then you could at least prove that the morph was the parent. Could still worry about chimeraism but probably not very likely and should fail the paternity test anyway.

In your case if the females are really just sitting around what does it cost you to make the hets? Keep your pick of the females and sell the rest as normals if it worries you that much. I think it's a shame more recessive hets aren't being produced but maybe that will pick back up now that the dominant type males aren't as profitable as they used to be.

I would solicit clutch results from other customers and ask if I may provide their names as references to the party who is questioning the authenticity of my het(s). My intention would not be to inform the other customers, but more to put the concerned customer at ease. Photo ID's are important. I always keep pictures of the clutch as they hatch then provide separate individual photo ID's with the snakes, this can clear up any questions later as to which clutch the snake came from and eliminate the possibility that the ID of the snake was mixed up at some point after hatching. Also dedicate females to a given recessive morph project to eliminate the possibility of sperm retention.
Paul

Piedpeddler wrote:

"Also dedicate females to a given recessive morph project to eliminate the possibility of sperm retention. "

This is of paramount importance! All my female's enclosures are color-coded for the particular project, as well as the individual male that they will be paired with (whose enclosure is also coded to match). This makes the possibility of a catastrophic mixup extremely remote.
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Brad Chambers

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

If my female wasn't virgin, I'd go a long way to make my customer happy since I may have unknowingly spoiled someone's breeding program due to retained sperm.

If she was a virgin, or a visual morph, and the snakes pattern matched my records, I'd try to trade two or three visual hatchlings for the breeding age het and her het 66%-100%, depending on the sire, clutch.

two or three visual animals for a adult "het" man you are nice. I couldn't imagine giving someone 2 pieds = $4k just because a $900 het didn't work out. Keep your females dedicated to one project and I don't think that this will be an issue. I do not buy other people's "proven breeders" for this reason.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

if I made the hets I know what they are......if I sell hets I got from Joe Other Guy..I send them to Joe OG.....

if I sold them possible hets.....possible they were....

......people can buy a het and mix it up in the rack and screw everything up......especially if they have alot of hets or possible hets and are breeding them all at the same times......they screw up.....and some people don't write everything down......
heck.....they end up throwing male with male and female with female........

........my hets are hets........

......here...Chad got 5 poss het amels...........2 gave him amels.
..Don Hamper got 5 poss amel hets...he got 0 amels.....

.......same male het to start with........

and I don't make poss hets too much anymore.......and most go for normals at normal prices..........

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If you are sure you did not make a mistake in your own breeding(ex.. retained sperm)and especially if you had a visable as a clutchmate in a het to homog breeding... the problem most likely is due to your customers error. I would do my best to help that particular customer out WITH ADVICE, but would feel zero obligation to inform other customers.

BUT...
If you re-sold an animal as a 100% het without proving it out yourself, it is absolutely your responsibility to make right on that deal.
( and go back yourself to the original breeder you purchased it from)
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"There is a fine line between a hobby and mental illness"
COLD BLOOD.........WARM HEART