Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'd like to here some opinions on purchasing snakes that have been sold without all of the possible genetics accurately disclosed.

I for one like to know exactly what I'm working with. Now don't get me wrong, If I was a hobbyist with 3 snakes that I spent $150 on and produced a couple clutches then bred them back and produced albinos because one of the original animals was a het that I didn't know about, I would be pleasantly surprised.

But on a different note, I'm not just working with a couple snakes and I carefully choose my pairings every year based on the morphs that I want to produce. This decision is made by my own ideas, talking with other breeders, or by other animals I've seen and liked that others have produced. In order to do this, it takes many years of time and effort, large sums of money, space, knowledge, and the absolute most critical ingredient to me,,, known genetics.

I can't fit everything into one post, so I will break it up in a few parts.
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Ultimate Hognose

For example: If I buy a group of animals that consists of a male anaconda and two female toffeebellies with the intention of making my own toffeebelly anacondas from scratch, I don't want them to be poss. het for anything else that will just contaminate my project. To me, when I finally get to the point where I am breeding offspring back together if I popped out t negative albinos and triple homo morphs because one or more of the founding animals were poss het albino, I would be devastated. I for one don’t see a point to breeding a t positive to a t negative albino, because the double homo version is usually pretty much indistinguishable from a t negative because its influence wipes out the melanin from the t positive animal. This would just add unnecessary confusion to the project and it could take as long or longer to remove the trait as you already have into the project. I also don't want to be breeding an anery that's poss. het for hypo into my snow projects, or visa versa. Once I have known clean lines of genetics in my designer morphs, I can then choose at my discretion to breed them to each other to produce triple, quadruple, or as many homo traits being expressed at once as I choose.
I especially don’t want to be “forced” to work with animals that I have intentionally avoided due to weak genetics. I don’t want to find out years down the road that my line has issues due to misrepresented animals that have passed on a genetic flaw that I didn’t sign up for.
If I want a double het or poss. het, I’ll buy it. I have regular anacondas, albinos, anerys, and normals, which I always plan on producing animals out of that are pure. I want them clean to start new projects with and I know others do as well. I understand it is hard to know the genetics of your animals 100%, so there are acceptable examples. The conda is a good one. Unless they have been proven to not carry the ppa trait, there is always the chance that they are het. But this has been publicly announced.
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Ultimate Hognose

Another issue I see is this. Say I bought a "normal" albino for $200 bred it to a couple het females and sold the babies. Then I decided I would like to make snows, so I bought a male albino 100% het for anery and a couple double het girls for $2,000 and sold my original $200 male.
A year or two down the road, before I have even produced my own snows, I find out that my $200 albino was a poss. het anery that proved out and people that bought babies off me are now producing snows out of animals that I sold them. I would be quite upset, because I am now at least a year or two behind where I had already been and I spent more money for snakes that I already had. Not to mention, all these people are now producing high end double morphs that they frankly don’t deserve. They didn’t put in near as much time or money as everyone else that’s working with the same project.
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Ultimate Hognose

If it's that important to the buyer they should ask for the complete genetic history of the line to be aware of all possibilities then make there decision.

I think with anaconda's and there known lineage it's safe to say many are possible het pastel pink & hypo. So if your working with Anaconda's many or all are possible hets as well.
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Thanks for the reply.

I don’t understand the logic behind that statement at all. It is not the buyer responsibility to ask if there are potentially any extra genes in an animal that you are selling. Is it their responsibility to ask if there are any health issues too? I believe these things need to be disclosed by the seller. They should get exactly what they asked for.

So if someone buys a snake off you and doesn’t ask what the genetics are, you are ok with them being completely ignorant when it comes time for them to sell offspring of their own and are asked about the genetics by someone who it’s important to?? Now we are right back to the reason for my post. How are we supposed to know the animals we are buying are truly what we think they are?

I understand the connection between the anaconda and ppa and I actually noted that as an exception. I wasn’t aware of any hypo influence floating around in the original anaconda gene pool though. What’s the story behind that?
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Ultimate Hognose

Jon,
I happen to agree 100% with your posts and your thoughts on the subject. To take it a step further, I would say not disclosing possible hets can be just as bad for someones project as selling an animal that is not a het as a het.

This quote below posted by Justin is just a bit odd.

"If it's that important to the buyer they should ask for the complete genetic history of the line to be aware of all possibilities then make there decision."

So what your are saying is that it is up to the buyer to ask what possible hets are in the genetic makeup?

The seller has no responsibility to disclose that info?

I am not sure I understand the logic here. Whenever I sell an animal, I always give the customer its full genetic background and even offer to show photos of the parents. I also give a full rundown of where the parents were obtained. I keep very careful breeding records especially when I am breeding morphs.

To sell an animal that has recessive genetics as a normal het for nothing shows a few things.

1- a total disregard for our customers and their future projects.

2- A total lack of proper record keeping.

3- Uncareful breeding selection.
And the list goes on.

I for one would be pissed if I found out the hard way that any of my animals were het for a morph that I have no interest at all in working with.

Justin, I have a quick question for you...

How can you produce a possible triple het conda in 2 years time???

Gregg I think you hit the nail on the head Mr. miyagi style (BAM) LOL.
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D.Dedrick

Here is how I see it...

Newbie: Hey Justin, my snake that I got from you last month is not eating

Justin: Well you never asked what it was eating.... I have been feeding it chicken legs

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments Inc.

I think that is a very accurate scenario depicting one of many unfortunate situations he found himself in. so that being said! It's better to have information and not need it then needed and not have it lol. Be warned newbie if it quacks like a duck is a duck.
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D.Dedrick

Jon, I agree with your post/statements.
Unkown/undisclosed genetics ruined one of my projects a few years back. It's not the money. It's the time that is lost and can never be recovered.
Just like hets that never prove out. You can buy another het or the visual morph and start over but you can't get back the lost time.
On the flip side, I have had that pleasant experience of producing an albino when all I was counting on was hets.
John Q

wow what a gang we got on here...geeze..the jealousy as usual is overwhelming.
This stuff just makes you guys look silly being so hostile and all..
let me defend myself here..
Jon..
That "anery/axanthic" mexican hog you caught...and advertised babies for sale as het.s was it proven recessive then?
If it's not proven why did you offer hets for sale on KS
Seen a lot of black and white mexicans over the years..hows this proven different??
What about the shanklin line albino.. what makes it so different?? To me it looks exactly the same as any other bright orange hogs.
All my albino lines produce tigers..especially the extreme reds..
So thats not a uncommon thing in hognose neither is orange...especially orange.
Hypo and Pastel Pinks have VERY similar heritages , many of the ones we have today came from lazik.. and lazik spent a lot of time and effort crossing both lines creating and selling many poss het and possible double hets trying to come up with a pastel pink hypo.. which supposedly has popped up once or twice!!
I believe the father of the original anaconda was one of these animals and is why pinks are popping up now.
As for not disclosing genetics..
its so funny sitting here and watching all you say this stuff. BTW my 1st year breeding conda's I didnt produce any het albino conda's..and never advertised any.
BUT what I did advertise was Anaconda X extreme red het albino's...I even remember being criticized me on THIS VERY FORUM how I couldnt possibly produce extreme reds anaconda's my 1st year...
WELL LOW AND BEHOLD LOOK WHAT IAN PRODUCED from those very babies.
So once again I proved the gang wrong on so many levels.
Also I offer Certificate of genetics for those who ask and always have.
You see what makes this whole argument ridiculous is that why wouldnt I disclose makes the animal a heck of a lot more valuable, it is a huge selling point 99% of the time..
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Every person that contacted me about that pair of mexicans was given the complete history of that project and were made well aware that it wasn't a proven trait at that time. And no, you haven't seen black and white kennerlyi like mine. I'm sure of it!!
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Ultimate Hognose

Usually I try to stay out of this kind of bs and simply want to say.
Everyone stop pointing fingers and being defensive argumentative or what ever the he'll you want to call it.
Disagree with eachother that's what this place is for.
No one needs to start pulling the "well he did this and why did you do this or that" and the why would I's and random played out crap we all already know or think or what ever most of it is already done so.
Everyone chill out about it and have a civil conversation about the TOPIC AT HAND. Make a point ask a question awnser respectfully or be a jerk just don't cross the line. I know all of you well enough to know that some have better emotional control then others but every damn one of y'all can be super f n cool.
I'm not picking sides as all of you know I'm friends with all of you.
You guys don't have to like eachother to respect ones opinion or to simply disagree. I disagree with stuff y'all do all time time and all the way around. We ain't the same people and that's what makes us unique.

I agree with you completely Joe. I started this thread as a simple topic of discussion based on something I believed was worth while and as usual it's turning into a pissing match!
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Ultimate Hognose

http://forums.kingsnake.com/viewarch.php?id=1721233,1721233&key=2009

actually I think I did produced a couple het albino conda's that year..

because I'm pretty sure this is the very female I sold Ian and as you can see on this post she is listed as het albino...

BTW Ian if your swolled up about producing a worlds 1st ( i guess thats why you didnt email me saying thank you) then I am more than happy to send you two adult conda replacements that arnt het albino...LOL
I'll even pay shipping both ways.

HEY CHARLES wheres that appology...
werent you and other wrong about that snake being what it was!!
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

also..

I guess I did produce the world 1st Extreme Red Anaconda's!!

Awesome work Ian!! I think you just forgot she was het albino. Either way you really did well with her and that all that counts!!
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Justin-could u plz stop trying to turn this thread into something all about you? Lets get back to the op's main Post and discuss that . notice how this thread was civil till you popped in ?

I thought Brent Bumgardner produce the wolds first albino conda...
Also, at what shade of orange do you start calling them extreme
red albinos??? Just wondering...

LMAO sometimes that is all you can do. Anybody that truely knows me knows that I am one to speak my mind no matter what but as much as I hate to admit it I have been wrong at times BUT I am man enough to admit it when I am wrong and move forward. I just wish more could do the same then an interesting topic such as this would stay on point instead of becoming a pissing match. If a snake is a het or poss het then it should be told to the customer regardless whether it is important to the customer or not.