Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 2 100% hets for Albino and didn't get papers. They came from a large dealer and he said he didn't do that, it was 3 yrs ago. I deal baseball, basketball cards and the guarantee is no better than the dealers word. Anyone can draw up papers and it's done all the time. QUESTION: What does the papers do for you except to make you feel better? If the ball doesn't prove out you can't get your money back unless the person is honorable so the same goes with or without the paper the person needs to be honorable. WHY PAPERS?
Thanks for youor opinions

...it might as well be written on toilet paper.......or a $1000 bill......well..I'll take the bill.......

...papers are worthless........

if you want guarentee.....it has to be a chip and a written promise that it is het,100%...and that you would get your money back if it turns out not a het....

then...the person would probably have to breed it themselves after you get your money back....

and if they find out you lied...they would get their money back from you....

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The paperwork would mainly be useful if you for any reason needed to resell the animal down the road. Best if there is a signed picture or a chip to connect the animal with the paperwork though. There is no perfect system and it comes down to trust but paperwork is a nice start for keeping things strait. I've sold possible hets to people who either didn't understand the concept or where out right crooked as they re-sold them as hets. Maybe if I had provided paperwork they would have kept things strait.

I've bought possible hets from big breeders who don't bother to mess around with pictures. I'm not worried because I trust the breeders but I think there is a niche for up and coming breeders to provide an extra sense of security by posting pictures of the animals they are selling ahead of time and providing documentation with pictures.

...so that buyers don't come back with a "switched" snake. This obviously would be a RARE occurence, but in situations where the buyer is breeding to a mate from another source and get unexpected results it still protects the seller. SJM

Yep, a good picture showing the complete pattern is a good thing all around. I like the way Ralph Davis takes his clutch pics with the clutch ID written on paper in the pic. I'm starting to do my first pattern pic of babies right out of the egg with the ID number in the pic so that I don't have a chance to mix pics (and hence snakes) up later. I'm also going to try numbering all my eggs sequentially and writing the numbers on the eggs and photograph the clutches with the parental info this year so there is no chance of getting clutches or eggs mixed up in the incubator. Of course it helps that I don't have that many clutches so I have time to do all of this but I suppose it would be even more important if you had more animals and clutches all hatching together etc.

The best documentation I've seen was the Joe Dembinski ad when I purchased my possible double het Jolliff snow. I suppose it was the breeder (Paul Newstead) who took a picture of the clutch in the process of hatching together in a container. I can clearly pick out my animal by pattern crawling right next to his albino sibling. There was a very similar pic of a half sibling clutch that had an axanthic in it. Of course if someone happened to have multiple clutches hatching at the same time they could fake such a pic so in the end it all comes down to trust but I thought this whole clutch pic was pretty reassuring and an example of an extra step a smaller breeder might go to while establishing their credentials.