Albino x albinio = 3 non albino babies..

[lillith]

I do agree that you should have kept them for life as you stated you would.
You released them into the public, as you stated you would not.

I will not kill them..

i will keep them for myself before i did that!!!

So...do you have a binding agreement that if the folks you have given them to cannot keep them, they will be returned to you?

Just curious. Not trying to be disparaging of your (not culling) decision at all.
I am a little disappointed you didn't keep them with you.

 

[The Gecko Person]

no reputable breeder would allow those out of their hands, and anyone with decent ethics would have culled them.
you have made it quite clear what your ethics are.

So are you saying to only breed compatible morphs together? There wouldn't be many, if any. In ball pythons, there are a few compatible morphs out of hundreds. The leucistic complexes are an example. If you breed a mojave to a lesser, you can get the same looking super as a mojave x mojave or lesser x lesser.
Tell me how you got any combination morphs that you might have.
I'll use blazing blizzard as an example.

Generation 1-
Albino x Blizzard-
-100% heterozygous for Albino and Blizzard

This should be enough for you to understand. They are not compatible genetic mutations*, and in the second generation, you basically 'force' the mutations, on different loci, into one animal.

-het. Albino Blizzard x het. Albino Blizzard-
..........6.25% Albino Blizzard (Blazing Blizzard)

Now compare these odds to the albino strain 1 x albino strain 2 odds. They are the same. People will only tell you not to cross them because they want to know exactly what they have in the future. If you keep records, you should only have as many possible hets as you would from any other double recessive cross.

I am also not saying that I have crossed them, or that I would recommend someone crossing them. It's just the fact that the response is immediately 'cull them'.

Minus all of the other things, like lies along the way, about the crosses supposedly being deformed, saying that it is ONLY ethical to cull/kill them sounds extremely unethical/non-professional to me.

If one person hears something they will exaggerate it. The main reason I am writing this, is because I have not ever seen any writing saying not to cross axanthic ball pythons. Think of how many more people breed them. They don't have to fuss about someone not killing animals from an accidential crossing of genetic mutation strains.


*The genetically mutant alleles reside at different loci, making them genetically incompatible.

 

[im faster]

Well said David.

 

[GeckoCrossing]

I don't get why everyone is freaking out on Dennis... He didn't purposefully cross the albino strains. He didn't further breed them after finding out what happened. And they went to a friend that won't breed them... so what's the problem?
As for the whole "cull them" proposals and it's unethical to not have culled them... how is it ethical to kill something that can live a perfectly healthy and happy life, AND give someone the satisfaction and happiness of taking care of said Leopard Geckos?

 

[Thorgecko707]

I don't get why everyone is freaking out on Dennis... He didn't purposefully cross the albino strains. He didn't further breed them after finding out what happened. And they went to a friend that won't breed them... so what's the problem?
As for the whole "cull them" proposals and it's unethical to not have culled them... how is it ethical to kill something that can live a perfectly healthy and happy life, AND give someone the satisfaction and happiness of taking care of said Leopard Geckos?

This thread has resurfaced for god knows what reason. The main problem this week was Dennis trying to sell deformed animals on a family friendly Facebook group. But since I was informed today that they won't be allowing him to do that anymore, I have nothing more to say. If the moderator of WCR wants it down I told them I wouldn't be offended, but no threat on earth will convince me to remove it myself. So that won't be happening.

 

[GeckoCrossing]

Ahhh... just saw that it's an old thread. Figures I'd miss that even after reading the entire thread lol.

 

[lillith]

So are you saying to only breed compatible morphs together? There wouldn't be many, if any. In ball pythons, there are a few compatible morphs out of hundreds. The leucistic complexes are an example. If you breed a mojave to a lesser, you can get the same looking super as a mojave x mojave or lesser x lesser.
Tell me how you got any combination morphs that you might have.
I'll use blazing blizzard as an example.

Generation 1-
Albino x Blizzard-
-100% heterozygous for Albino and Blizzard

This should be enough for you to understand. They are not compatible genetic mutations*, and in the second generation, you basically 'force' the mutations, on different loci, into one animal.

-het. Albino Blizzard x het. Albino Blizzard-
..........6.25% Albino Blizzard (Blazing Blizzard)

Now compare these odds to the albino strain 1 x albino strain 2 odds. They are the same. People will only tell you not to cross them because they want to know exactly what they have in the future. If you keep records, you should only have as many possible hets as you would from any other double recessive cross.

I am also not saying that I have crossed them, or that I would recommend someone crossing them. It's just the fact that the response is immediately 'cull them'.

Minus all of the other things, like lies along the way, about the crosses supposedly being deformed, saying that it is ONLY ethical to cull/kill them sounds extremely unethical/non-professional to me.

If one person hears something they will exaggerate it. The main reason I am writing this, is because I have not ever seen any writing saying not to cross axanthic ball pythons. Think of how many more people breed them. They don't have to fuss about someone not killing animals from an accidential crossing of genetic mutation strains.


*The genetically mutant alleles reside at different loci, making them genetically incompatible.

The only thing that leos and balls have in common is that it's quite possible there are TOO MANY OF THEM in the market. Please stop comparing the two. The ball market is not the leo market, you are comparing apples and oranges.

This is the bigger, long-term ethical question:

What is good ethically for an individual with genetic problems may not be good for the long-term viability of a nearly completely closed captive-bred population. Is it ethical to continue to propagate "mistakes" and allow them to take up a larger percentage of a captive population, thereby weakening the overall fitness of such a population?

If he was going to not cull them (which I DO respect his decision on, it's his to make), he should have NEVER released them to the public. Because best friends or not, friend of the family or not, he has no way now to control where the geckos he has given away will end up; or if they end up being bred. He was given this information up front in this situation, and chose to release them to the public anyway. That was the unethical action, IMO.

If geckos could be easily spayed or neutered in a cost-efficient and non-life-threatening manner, it would be an entirely different debate; because "culling" from propagation would mean that you didn't have to kill the animal. I used to be very, very, anti-cull. It took me a few years of fighting with a weak hatchling here and a spinning enigma there to understand that it is sometimes the better thing to do. I never do it without a small injury to my heart and spirit. I am not in this "only for the money", I have yet to make any sort of profit and sometimes I break even and sometimes I don't. So don't even try to bring up that I'm heartless and in it for the money, because it's an emotional argument that just isn't true in my case.

Regarding the curly tail, I have never seen a tail deformity that severe that is only from incubation. I think sometimes it's easy to blame tail issues on incubation, but I think no one has ever settled that debate about incubator vs. overbred.

One way to get around this whole issue is to make sure you have a written and signed document regarding the non-breeding of "pet-only" geckos. Perhaps you could stipulate that if it is found that they have bred the gecko in question, they either turn the gecko and all of its offspring back over to you, or they forfeit any money from the sale of such offspring to you. I have no idea if that would work in the real world, likely not...but people take signed docs more seriously than their given word these days. It still would not resolve the creation-of-messed-up-genetics issue, but it might be somewhere to start.

If you are not willing to take these sorts of steps, then you should not be releasing any of your "mistakes" to anyone, period. They should live the remainder of their lives with you, since you created them. And I would say that to anyone, not just the OP.

 

[im faster]

I had the 2 that were incubating during the heat spike that are deformed.
i have had 8 hatch since that are not deformed. even with the slightest tail kink.
i take that as enough proof that it was from incubation.

 

[lillith]

You just made the correlation = causation argument.
Sometimes true, sometimes not, sometimes not the only factor at play.
That was my point.

I was trying to look at this from all sides and give you (and others!) a way to possibly deal with situations like this in the future. Live and learn, right?

 

[im faster]

Indeed

 

[The Gecko Person]

The only thing that leos and balls have in common is that it's quite possible there are TOO MANY OF THEM in the market. Please stop comparing the two. The ball market is not the leo market, you are comparing apples and oranges.

This is the bigger, long-term ethical question:

What is good ethically for an individual with genetic problems may not be good for the long-term viability of a nearly completely closed captive-bred population. Is it ethical to continue to propagate "mistakes" and allow them to take up a larger percentage of a captive population, thereby weakening the overall fitness of such a population?

If he was going to not cull them (which I DO respect his decision on, it's his to make), he should have NEVER released them to the public. Because best friends or not, friend of the family or not, he has no way now to control where the geckos he has given away will end up; or if they end up being bred. He was given this information up front in this situation, and chose to release them to the public anyway. That was the unethical action, IMO.

If geckos could be easily spayed or neutered in a cost-efficient and non-life-threatening manner, it would be an entirely different debate; because "culling" from propagation would mean that you didn't have to kill the animal. I used to be very, very, anti-cull. It took me a few years of fighting with a weak hatchling here and a spinning enigma there to understand that it is sometimes the better thing to do. I never do it without a small injury to my heart and spirit. I am not in this "only for the money", I have yet to make any sort of profit and sometimes I break even and sometimes I don't. So don't even try to bring up that I'm heartless and in it for the money, because it's an emotional argument that just isn't true in my case.

Regarding the curly tail, I have never seen a tail deformity that severe that is only from incubation. I think sometimes it's easy to blame tail issues on incubation, but I think no one has ever settled that debate about incubator vs. overbred.

One way to get around this whole issue is to make sure you have a written and signed document regarding the non-breeding of "pet-only" geckos. Perhaps you could stipulate that if it is found that they have bred the gecko in question, they either turn the gecko and all of its offspring back over to you, or they forfeit any money from the sale of such offspring to you. I have no idea if that would work in the real world, likely not...but people take signed docs more seriously than their given word these days. It still would not resolve the creation-of-messed-up-genetics issue, but it might be somewhere to start.

If you are not willing to take these sorts of steps, then you should not be releasing any of your "mistakes" to anyone, period. They should live the remainder of their lives with you, since you created them. And I would say that to anyone, not just the OP.

They are comparable to me. Both have many morphs that are inherited in recessive ways and are not compatible, and both have 3 strains of an incompatible, but identical, morph.
I just can't see how people would be fine with someone buying an unknown PetCo or PetSmart gecko, with unknown genetics, and not think that it should be culled. I think these geckos are the same thing. If Dennis sold them to a chain store, then they sold to some person wanting a pet, they probably wouldn't be bred.

Just think of what would happen if they were bred. It wouldn't be the end of the world like people make it seem. If I bought a double het albino blizzard, and bred it, then sold to people that also wanted a pet, it's not doing damage to breeders' collections.

Like people always say, buy from a good breeder. Ones with 'mutt' genetics are just as normal pets as any others.

 

[The Gecko Person]

This is the bigger, long-term ethical question:
Is it ethical to continue to propagate "mistakes" and allow them to take up a larger percentage of a captive population, thereby weakening the overall fitness of such a population?

The way I see it is about the same as purebreds. If his geckos were bred, breeders should know not to buy from someone who doesn't know what they're doing. I can see what you're saying, but I just think that if people want the strains separate, there will be a few people keeping them separate.

If 10 years from now the population is mainly of possible hets, you will still be able to get pure strains from people that kept them pure.

 

[UnicornSpirit]

I think ive done a bad bad thing..

uh oh... time to cull some dude. :main_huh:

 

[The Gecko Person]

uh oh... time to cull some dude. :main_huh:

*NO COMMENT*

 

[katie_]

Culling is involved in the breeding of any animals.
Although it may be harder for some people than others, its responsible and needs to be done.
Why I wouldn't necessarily cull an animal for having two albino strains, I would highly consider culling an animal with a large defect.
If someone got a hold of either of these geckos, and bred them - theres a big difference between getting the "wrong" albino in their offspring than there is to getting deformed offspring.
I'm not sure this whole arguement stemmed from the Albino x Albino breeding, I was under the impression is was mainly centered around deformities.
Thats just my opinion, thought I'd share my two cents.