The right thing

[Thorgecko707]

I have a question that involves morals and values. I'm tired of getting on local gecko sites and finding them run by little kids. Most have postings for leopard geckos asking for "adoption" fees rather than for sale. This is to avoid a California business and breeding license. So my question is: would it be unethical to start incubating for "hot" females to cripple my local breeding market? I'd sell them as "pet only" to the stores to keep kids from breeding their geckos. I'm just tired of seeing "albino het patternless het giant het tang het baldy" ect. What are your ideas? It's really bad here.

 

[Theinfidel]

There are plenty of times people incubate for males, get "hot" females and they breed perfectly.

 

[acpart]

I can understand your frustration. Unfortunately, unethical behavior is not age dependent. For every "little kid" trying to get around the rules there are other "little kids" doing a good job and adults scamming. I agree with the poster above that "hot females" will not change the situation. The best thing to do is to keep educating the public about what they are getting and how to get it legitimately. Good luck.

Aliza

 

[roger]

I have a question that involves morals and values. I'm tired of getting on local gecko sites and finding them run by little kids. Most have postings for leopard geckos asking for "adoption" fees rather than for sale. This is to avoid a California business and breeding license. So my question is: would it be unethical to start incubating for "hot" females to cripple my local breeding market? I'd sell them as "pet only" to the stores to keep kids from breeding their geckos. I'm just tired of seeing "albino het patternless het giant het tang het baldy" ect. What are your ideas? It's really bad here.

I as a hobbiest breeder aim to produce the best quality leos I can.To produce hot females is not a top quality animal IMO

 

[OneFootedAce]

I see where you're coming from, that being said, there are some things i don't agree with. I, as a 16 y/o "kid"(and breeder/hobbiest) don't like hearing when people always saying that the kids or teens are up to no good( in the reptile world and out), we're not ALL that bad. To be perfectly honest, it sucks hearing that all the "blame" is going on the kids. Adults (just as much, if not more, than kids/teens), do scam, rip people off, or are just plain rude. There are just some people like that, kids or adults.
Now, back to the original question... The whole hot female ordeal, to my knowledge, doesn't have much truth to it, females produced at male-temps, often reproduce just as well as females produced at the normal 80-84 "female" temp. Besides, even if the "myth" were to have some truth to it, how would you go about trying to produce hot females. Not like you have much control over how many females you produce when incubating at higher temps.

If my post offended you/anyone in any way, I apologize, it was not meant to be offensive in any way. I'm probably just over reacting anyways lol.

 

[Thorgecko707]

Thank you all for the input. It is true that all ages have made good and bad of this situation. I try to educate local breeders but it just isn't working for me. My problem is their constant mixing. I'm not against making new morphs. But I am against mixing as many random morphs and claiming one animal is a new master morph that they can sell for a 400 dollar "adoption" fee. I special morph just discovered would sell for a lot more, and by a real breeder. I just see it as exploiting something I care about for profit. More input from you guys would be great. I'm not ragging towards any of you on here. Just reading these forums shows us you care about learning.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Unfortunately, in the reptile community we don't have a spay an neuter protocol to prevent unwanted pets. Besides, the "hot female" theory is incorrect anyway. Back in the labs of David Crews when they were doing studies on temperature sex determination, they came up with the notion that females incubated a higher temperatures were aggressive towards males and were sterile. It wasn't until several years later that they repeated the study that they found that 'hot females' simply did not ovulate until their second or third year.

 

[Thorgecko707]

Marcia, you are right. I joined this site because I've been working off of late 80's early 90's notes on genetics. Mainly I work with albino mutations. I think I am going to go back to what I know until we find a way to produce a "pet only" gecko for people that shouldn't breed. The market is so flooded these days. I remember in 2000 a leopard gecko was over 200 in my town and you could never find one. Now they are over 300 and low quality mixed breed. Is anybody out there doing genetics for a true "hot" female?

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Is anybody out there doing genetics for a true "hot" female?

I'm not sure what you are referring to. If there was a 'true' hot female, she wouldn't be able to produce anything to test the genetics on, and I don't know what genetic testing on a 'hot' female would prove since it isn't a genetic condition (theoretically). There is lots of information on all the clinical studies that were conducted by David Crews in the 90's, but not much else I am aware of since then.

 

[acpart]

With the gecko market being so flooded, I'm wondering if people are actually paying $400 for these "new" morphs? I still feel that if the "breeders" won't listen, then maybe the buyers will.

Aliza

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Sounds like a GREAT opportunity to introduce the "NEW" morph... the 'Hot Female'. Something we ALL can relate to???

 

[roger]

With the gecko market being so flooded, I'm wondering if people are actually paying $400 for these "new" morphs? I still feel that if the "breeders" won't listen, then maybe the buyers will.

Aliza

up here in toronto breeders are charging $300-1000 for leos ranging from bold striped to radars.i'm assuming ppl are paying these inflated prices.if they werent paying these prices they would be a lot lower

 

[Thorgecko707]

I don't charge more than fifty dollars for a gecko. For me it's a hobby. And hobbies cost money. I'm not out to get rich breeding. I'm not against breeders that charge a lot, just the uneducated mixes I know of that are local. I will never pay 2500 for a gecko that is a little of everything.

 

[M_surinamensis]

up here in toronto breeders are charging $300-1000 for leos ranging from bold striped to radars.i'm assuming ppl are paying these inflated prices.if they werent paying these prices they would be a lot lower

That's not necessarily true.

The first factor, which is a bit difficult to define exactly, is the way that visible advertised prices are not reflective of a genuine market average. They are reflective of the ads which stay posted with the animals unsold for long enough to be seen during a period of random sampling. Further, many breeders tend to market a bit higher than they actually want to sell at, with an understanding that it is common for consumers to negotiate for discounts when dealing with an individual.

The second is pretty easy to predict as an abstract, but more difficult to pin down as a specific. Morphs get cheaper over time, unless the specific genetic mutation is used in a new designer combination. The total population rises, the consumers who are interested in them are satisfied but more and more are produced every season, the price drops. For a time preceding every price adjustment though, there will be a period where there are unsold animals sitting at the previous price plateau. It is sometimes a bit less obvious where these market saturation and price breakpoints are with leopard geckos because of the rapid reproductive rate of the species, it often ends up being a bit more gradual and even than it is with some of the species which are slower to reproduce (say... ball pythons), but the same thing is happening.

Breeders produce, they price based on their own overhead, reputation and business model- taking into account the visible market average. If the market at that price point is exhausted (all the consumers who want one and are willing to pay that amount have already done so), then the animals go unsold. Unsold and eating, unsold and requiring maintenance, unsold and using electricity, unsold and taking up space. The price drops, they need to be moved. It doesn't always drop easily though, many breeders don't seem to understand that this is a natural result of high production and are resistant to changing their pricing, their reluctance keeps the prices artificially inflated for a time, as they are posting those ads which give the appearance of a higher market value than is actually the case if one looks at completed sales.

Although in your specific case, the Canadian herpetocultural market is pretty substantially different in some respects than the market in the U.S. It's smaller, for starters... fewer people involved, especially along the edges. You're not immune to the efforts of naive production, but you're not hit by it anywhere near as hard as the U.S. is, so the prices may simply still be that high. I'd like to insert a joke about how Canadian Dollars are like monopoly money, but one U.S. dollar is worth just shy of ninety six Canadian cents this morning and that is so depressing that I'm not really up for lighthearted nationalism at your expense.

With regards to the original question: yes, that would be unethical. To (attempt) to intentionally produce sterile animals for sale to the general public without full and accurate disclosure is blatantly unethical. If you want to manipulate your local markets and halt the production from people who don't know what it means to be selective, the moral approach would be getting involved with educating these individuals. Herp society presentations, lectures at your local pet stores, getting involved and active and providing readily accessible information that leaves them in a position where they make their own decision to breed responsibly. Although the fact that you were considering intentional sabotage of other people's breeding projects would not make you my first choice as a spokesman for responsible anything.

Although I suspect that you're misinterpreting the ads to some degree. Many of them will be a result of a lack of selectivity, breeding attempts using the first available male and female with little thought given to the genetic results of the offspring. Many of them will also be the inevitable result of some of the more involved designer morphs, mixing three or more recessive traits in a project where the goal is to see them all expressed in a single animal, there are a great many possible hets and oddly mixed genetic grab bag siblings produced every year. If you want to end that, then you'll have to join me over on my side of the morph fence and encourage the exclusive production of dominant, baseline, normal, wild genotypes.

Edit: Undercharging, incidentally- is as problematic as overcharging. You won't make many friends charging fifty dollars for an animal that is really worth three hundred. You'd be artificially skewing the perceived value, just as much as someone who refuses to lower their prices as the gene becomes more common.

Edit 2: Anyone else find it hilarious that a 23 year old keeps using the word "kids" in a pejorative sense?

 

[Thorgecko707]

Those are all good points. I have to clarify some things.
1: I do not, will not, and never have incubated or otherwise manipulated life to be infertile.
2: the "kids" I refer to are young children ages 10-14 in my specific community that are mass breeding. I am not discriminating against anyone in the community of any age responsibly breeding.
3: I only sell my pure bred albinos to fellow breeders because of overstock due to current projects at Mutant Geckos.
4: I am 23, and that is why I ask for advice in the forums. I don't claim to know everything about leopard geckos. I only participate in albino mutations.