Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not trying to " open a can of worms " and put anybody on the defensive, just want some insight on why us locality breeders are doing certain things. Not to judge, I am just as guilty as anyone! It seems that more and more each year, the locality breeders in this country are becomeing " victims of the market. " Why, are we more and more each year baseing our prices and desires for an animal on; " how thin its saddles are and how much speckling it has and how red the tail is? " Breeders and buyers have made it to the point of anything less than what the " market " says is perfect, is JUNK! The morphers, have got their own little world going on and most of them are honest about what they are doing; " creating designer boas. " So, this really does not apply to them. Locality breeders, only in the last 7yrs have really got on this; " thin saddle and no speckling ect. ect. bandwagon.Have you guys ever thought that maybe we are " destroying our own market? " Not much is selling right now and the animal is either a thousand dollar snake or not worth 2 cents. This is being based primarily on; " thin saddles and no speckling and so on. " When I got my very first True Red Tail 15yrs ago, it was not like that.It was a dark and thick saddled Suriname and the fact that it was a Suriname, made it beautiful and worth good money. This is how most breeders were back then. Value, was based on; " How accurate the locality data was and how healthy it was." Now, so many people are baseing value on pattern and color characteristics and everyone is breeding for them and alot of guys and gals are being successful, BUT NOW even those characteristics are not selling good, because more and more people have them. I am seeing more and more True Red Tails being produced every year that have almost no pattern at all! That is cool to look at, but only for a second and then you realize the damage being done. If we breed away all of the pattern on a boa,what do we have left to represent the true beauty of its particular locality?? We basically just have big " grub worms " that eat rats and have no real significance! I think we all may want to take a look at the real motive in our " Selective Breeding " practices. Is it all about the market or our EGOS to say; " Look What I Have! " If I could have posted my first Suriname on here, you guys would have thought she was ugly as crap. She, however was beautiful and a TRUE representative of her locality and that is what made her beautiful. The so called " ugly snakes " get 10 gallon aquariums and hot rocks in some kids bedroom and receives an instant DEATH SENTENCE. While all of these " MARKETABLE " and " EGO BOOSTING " snakes get Visions and Neodeshas and Microclimates and lapse of luxury. Maybe we all need to do a little soul searching. I am not pointing fingers, I am guilty also. I just think that in the end, we will only hurt ourselves and the market and most of all the animals.........Johnson Herp

I would suggest you consider a few things......

What is deemed beautiful now may not be what is deemed beautiful say five years from now. We are all fickle, and our tastes change. When one thing becomes old hat, we want want something different. So in this there is hope for your ugly boa.

There is NO chance for "natural selection" in an artificial, captive environment.

Also.... and this is only my opinion.... The finest, most outstanding examples of almost any locality specific animals I have ever seen were wild caught.

Be true to yourself. Happy herping!

Jesse Van Atta
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"Continuing to cling to the patterns you know, inhibits your ability to discover what you don't know." - Eric Allenbaugh

although i do understand your love of the natural look of the differnt locales, you have to understand that money influences everything. the market is influenced by supply and demand. those selling natural patterend snakes are not able to sell their snakes for the money they used to because of the abundance of morhps available, so inturn they have to promote the interesting charateristics so they are able to sell their aninmals. my thought is that the market will begin to get flooded with albinos and such morphs till they are as common as the albino burm and there fore dont cost nearly as much, then you will see that the demand for naturalistic bloodlines and patterns of your snakes will be in higher demands and you will again be able to sell your snakes as you used to.

I have some opinions on this, whether or not you are “pointing fingers” at any one person. I will start by saying that I do agree a high amount of value should/could be placed on locality data and of course, the animal’s health.

But…

“I am seeing more and more True Red Tails being produced every year that have almost no pattern at all” you said? Where are these boas, I would buy one!

You seem to imply otherwise, but I feel there is nothing wrong with someone being happy/proud of what they have or have helped produce for that matter. Those same people who take pride in their animals will likely be the same people that take good care of them and the higher price they might demand in selling them can help to insure such animals go to good homes. The more someone pays for something, the more likely they are to take care of it. Not guaranteed, but more likely. I can assure you that some of the people that I personally know on this forum that post very nice photos, “who like others to see what they have”, also tend to take very good care of their animals (not that those without photos don’t take care of their stuff). This is no coincidence.

Then you say with a negative connotation “Is it all about the market?” Simple reasoning would dictate that if you are producing animals for sale, YOU BETTER cater to some market or you’d have a bunch of animals with no potential homes. We can help the animals we produce avoid the “DEATH SENTENCE” you referred to by doing just that: catering to a market. I saw these points of yours as quite contradictory.

Some, such as myself, produce animals primarily for myself and sale of surplus is a secondary concern and even in this, one such as I parallels my interest with a market. I’d give an animal away before I’d sell it to a seemingly ignorant person.

Then you say referring to color characteristics, patterns, etc,”and everyone is breeding for them …BUT NOW even those characteristics are not selling good, because more and more people have them”. Wow, what was your first clue? Are you an economics major? This is called supply and demand and even though you specifically said otherwise, THIS DOES APPLY TO MORPHS AS WELL; just look what happened with albino corn snakes back in the day. As more are produced, if corresponding demand is not equally increased, the market price per unit tends to decrease also.

And what is “ the lapse of luxury”?

So in essence, your ideas could imply we should stop breeding true redtails or should we just roll dice to see which male we pair with which female and still hope for a market for them?

I found your logic here very faulty. As for me, I will continue to like low saddle counts, red tails, and thin saddles as well as thick and peaked saddles or both on the same animal.

Matthew

If you think my points are flawed, that is O.K. We are all intitled to our opinions and beliefs, you and me and others. I understand " supply and demand " completely as far as markets go, however 90% or more of us, do not do this hobby for a living. We do it as a " hobby. " My point on the morphers was pretty simple; " They breed for designer boas and make no mistake about it and that is fine as long as they are selling them for what they are." At the same time, the morphers are the ones in a way that really brought the desire to selective breed for crazy patterns in the collections of locality breeders.Everything will and always does come " full circle " and in the future, the people who have kept their true locality bloodlines representing the way they look in the wild; " regardless of saddle count and color, " will be the ones getting good prices again. In other words; " people will forget what a real Guyana or Suriname or Peruvian ect.ect, looked like and will desire them. I am not getting on anyones case. In 1999, I produced the most clean and thin saddled Peruvians that anybody had ever seen; " maybe to this day. " I think they all have their place, but I feel that the value of an animal should go much further than; " how thin the saddles are and how big is the tail and how bright is the color. " This is the real point of it all. YES, in essence; " If you do not do this for a living and you do it for a hobby and for love of the animals, screw the market! " I hope, if mankind turns the jungle into a desert or the importation of animals stop completely, that we can all still show our children what a real; " Suriname or Guyana or Peruvian or Columbian Ect. Ect. use to look like?? No offense and thanks for the debate......GOD BLESS....Johnson Herp

The more flaws the mass`s see in your logic,the more confirmation(s) it should give you.Just let`em be about their buisness of social circle acceptence and candy store dreams.
Notice how people like Gus come on here and post pics of purity and the thread gets a few regular notations. Awesome animals to the core.Someone with a morph mutt snags some bandwidth on a few pics and the board turns into a bunch of drooling spastics.
They act like the people outside their holy huddles cant understand what is very clear(and getting clearer)yet on they trudge for a chance to ring the social bell.

more I`m sure............

>>If you think my points are flawed, that is O.K. We are all intitled to our opinions and beliefs, you and me and others. I understand " supply and demand " completely as far as markets go, however 90% or more of us, do not do this hobby for a living. We do it as a " hobby. " My point on the morphers was pretty simple; " They breed for designer boas and make no mistake about it and that is fine as long as they are selling them for what they are." At the same time, the morphers are the ones in a way that really brought the desire to selective breed for crazy patterns in the collections of locality breeders.Everything will and always does come " full circle " and in the future, the people who have kept their true locality bloodlines representing the way they look in the wild; " regardless of saddle count and color, " will be the ones getting good prices again. In other words; " people will forget what a real Guyana or Suriname or Peruvian ect.ect, looked like and will desire them. I am not getting on anyones case. In 1999, I produced the most clean and thin saddled Peruvians that anybody had ever seen; " maybe to this day. " I think they all have their place, but I feel that the value of an animal should go much further than; " how thin the saddles are and how big is the tail and how bright is the color. " This is the real point of it all. YES, in essence; " If you do not do this for a living and you do it for a hobby and for love of the animals, screw the market! " I hope, if mankind turns the jungle into a desert or the importation of animals stop completely, that we can all still show our children what a real; " Suriname or Guyana or Peruvian or Columbian Ect. Ect. use to look like?? No offense and thanks for the debate......GOD BLESS....Johnson Herp
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Money Only Wished It Had The Control Over The World That FEAR Does !

boa's.It doesn't matter how many times I post this boa NOBODY REPLY'S.ZERO, NADA,ZIP,NO NOTHING.However,I still take great care of her and love the way she looks.I'm also still holding out for a super clean No speckling/sm peaked saddles from Matt P or Lee B and will happy to pay the high price.Too bad I got beat out TWICE for the same animal two different times from Matt's 03 litter.I'm still holding out for THE PERFECT B.C.C.So all you breeders KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!Anyway posted below is ONE UGLY W.C GUYANA.

That's a beautiful ugly snake you have there,I haven't seen it , or I woulda said so before.
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Jeremy J. Anderson
snakepimp.com
gemstatereptiles.com
Email me!
Of course it's my opinion, I said it, didn't I?
No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful. - TMBG

An option is to breed endangered species of boas where maintaining a viable gene pool is more important than looks. I think there are some Epicrates you could get involved with. Bimini Island boa; Epicrates striatus fosteri for example.
Link

The market is bad right now because of supply exceeds demand. There are too many boas being imported and produced. In a down market only the select animals are going to be sought after. That is naturally going to be the prettiest, most unique, rare, or some other defining quality. Convincing locality breeders to not try to produce the prettiest examples of their locality isn't going to change anything. Cutting back the imports is the best solution, I guess that won't happen until the market gets bad enough that it isn't profitable.

what is produced by "selective breeding" the animals that I've seen get the most praise on this forum are imports. What makes it even better is those very same animals do NOT have thin saddles, do NOT have huge widows peaks, do NOT have reduced patterns. They are just clean, colorful animals produced by mother nature herself, captured accurately be people who bothered to learn how to use their camera. A pretty animal with a good photo will always get more comments then a gorgeous animal with a crappy photo.

And.... for the record , stop trying to blame the breeders, everybody breeds for the characteristics they like. Some like thin saddles, some don't ... some like em clean, others could care less , some are in it for big tails , some love pattern or color. There is no magic conspiracy ruining the market , there is no magic supreme boa that others are being judged by .. if you think there is , you are spending wayyyyyyyyy to much time in your own head and not enough time cleaning cages! The supply is up , I think there were more true redtail litters born this year then there has been in the last 2-3 years combined...couple that with an already weak economy , and the fact that these are BIG snakes and people just don't need 50 8-10' monsters in their basement, and you will understand why the market has slowed. Of course you are gonna pick the best animal you can aquire based on your tastes , that's common sense!

I have yet to see some freak produced in captivity that is so far removed from the wild type. I've personally seen more reduced pattern , missing saddled boas come out of the jungle in the last few years then I've seen come out of anybodies basement. Choose your battles wisely , and take a real close look at what's out there before making blanket statements insulting the hard work of others...

Here's a thin saddled boa just for you !

this is one of Rob (the lawnmower slayer) Tudehope's babies .....
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My post was not posted to " bash " anyone. It was to simply bring an " awareness " on the way I personnaly feel about boas being judged. Agree or do not agree, but do not think that I am trying to " punish " anybody. The original question was; " what is the REAL MOTIVE. " Do we get a certain characteristic in a boa or breed for it, because we like that particular characteristic the best? " or Is the real reason; " to show people what we have and what they do not have and get our EGOS stroked? " I fell into all of that myself a few years ago and realized that; " I was letting a market and my EGO control what it was that I really wanted to do. " That was; " appreciate the beauty in all animals REGARDLESS of their characteristics. " Alot of things that some of you pointed out or definately effecting the market directly. My point, is more indirect but nevertheless a definate aspect. Thanks, for all of your opinions and GOD BLESS!!........Johnson Herp....P.S.......Ugly boas deserve good homes to. If you guys would have seen the parents of those 1999 Peruvians, you would have all called me a LIAR! Regardless, those ugly parents produced the finest Peruvians around.Food for Thought????

I don't understand what point you are trying make. But I will try to. I don't think ego plays any role in the majority of the animals posted or purchased. People buy what they like , and are happy to share their joy of opening that box with others who understand their passion for these worms. The people who have been fortunate enough to "make their own" have that same passion and , as I am sure you were , are filled with joy when they see those little heads sticking out from under the newspaper. How often do you see true redtail breeders showing off their holdbacks? I'm sure they would love to , but doing so will cause more stress then it's worth. Of course if you show me your holdbacks, that's the one I want , and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

As for the ugly boas needing homes , guess what ? the pretty boas need homes too . Being a pet raised in a fish tank recieving hours of TLC from a youngster doesn't sound like a bad life to me. I would think alot of the UGLY BOAS recieve much better care amd more attention then the animals sitting in a basement with 200 relatives, Fed to obesity so they can be bred at 2-3 years of age.

"One man's trash is another's treasure" , just think about what that means. Ugly to you is not ugly to me and vice versa. Not everybody is out to be a breeder and produce pretty babies , some people just enjoy the animals for what they are , no motive involved , just happy to see a piece of mother nature's handywork sitting in their house. Happy to help dispell the myth that snakes are evil, cold, slimy creatures that don't deserve a place on this planet. It's a hobby and lately it appears that people are starting to forget that ,nobody here is ReALLY trying to save the species otherwise they'de be in south america chained to a tree trying to stop all of the deforestation. Let's be realistic here John , we are here for a love of the animal , not to make a dollar , not to save the rainforest, not to produce freaks. Everybody loves their snakes for a different reason , this isn't the ball python, or morph market where people actually consider some snakes as a real investment. The odds are against you making any sort of profit breeding true redtails once you factor in the time and energy, not to mention the years it will take you to raise a female to breeding size. all that space you are eating up in your house, all those days defrosting or killing rodents, all that time cleaning snake crap, trips to the vet.... if you don't actually LOVE the animals for what they are you could never live this life.

I wasn't trying to be rude to Johnson herp, I just couldn't remain silent after I read that.

Email me when you get a chance Charles.

Matthew

I also agree. I am often misunderstood, maybe I fried to many brain cells when I was younger or something. I tend to ramble, instead of getting to the point. My main point is still simple; " If you breed for certain characteristics BECAUSE you enjoy them, that is one thing, BUT do not let the MARKET influence your every breeding stradegy. " My only concern in breeding for certain characteristics such as; " thin saddles and reduced pattern " is that in the future, we will have plain boas that will be poor representatives of their natural beauty. Granted, they are not all dead in the wild, YET. Granted their are plenty of other imports coming in right, NOW. That could all be subject to change one day though. I hope if my grim predictions of the future are correct, I will be able to find other breeders with good classic stock to incorporate into my own. Preferably, animals with patterns.Until my " insanity " crops up for another debate, Merry Christmas To All!!....Johnson Herp.........P.S. Look at the bright side guys, I only post on here about 2-3 times a year tops. It seems however, I always get you guys flared up and loaded for debate! GOD BLESS

Simply, the real motive is to SELECT the preferred traits that will be passed on to following generations. In the wild it happens more by chance than in captivity, but the desired, or selected, traits are passed on. The animals with less desireable or undesireable traits do not survive as often in the wild, and they are not selected for breeding in captivity. Either way the desired traits are passed on.

Even people who breed true redtails, as opposed to morphs, are going to make some money from it unless they give away the offspring. I doubt anyone breeds snakes and keeps all the offspring they produce. I haven't heard of anyone breeding snakes just to have them go through the breeding process with no interest in selling at least some of the offspring. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think very many people would breed snakes of any kind if there was no market for the offspring, so the real motive is pretty easy to figure out.
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Guess What? I got a fever...and the only prescription is more cowbell!

I look at the differences in offspring as simply the plasticity in the traits of your boas. The amount of different patterns and colors produced by breeding two different animals is really incomprehendable. I think it is awesome to see all the different styles and variations mother nature has to offer. Like was said in another post, there is no natural selection in captivity. When something new or odd comes up through selective breeding it peaks our interest and thats why it becomes more valuable. How valuable it really is and how much it is being marketed for are very different things. The price tag on an animal can sometimes be very reflective of the breeder and his/her motives.
After having said all that I have to say, healthy animals that have an accurate locality are important. Variations, genetic or selective bred, are interesting and really keep the hobby alive. What would we be the point if they were all carbon copies?

Very good point but what?

What do you mean “the amount of different patterns and colors produced by breeding two different animals is really incomprehendable” you say? Perhaps you mean “incomprehensible” and on the intended meaning, I am confused. Does that mean you think it yields a lot of variation or a little?

I will say that the variability can be quite large as I've seen it myself, even within a litter. Also, just because it isn’t “natural selection” in captive breeding, that doesn’t make it bad either. What about random selection? Like when people breed two different imports from the same locale? That could serve just as well as natural selection I would think.

Matthew