Blutengel said:
So you see no difference in ending a miserable life and ending a life worth living because it was born in the wrong clutch?
Do
I see a difference? Yes, I do...which is why I opersonally would not do it at this point in my life.
That doesn't give me the right to judge someone else for making that decision for themselves.
I respect, understand, and appreciate the difficulty with which someone like Susan might make the decisions that she discussed. These are not the right decisions for me at this point, but only because I am so new to the breeding program that I currently have no plans beyond 1 or
possibly 2 clutches over the next few years. Being overwhelmed is not a problem when I've chosen to severely limit my breeding program. How ever, I can still understand and respect another breeder for making those decisions for themselves. This would especially ring true with someone who was, like Susan pointed out, breeding hybrids, and a culling of any "pure looking" snakes is the only way to guarantee that there is NO future breeding potential and unscrupulous dealings made with THEIR stock.
There is another discussion going on right now regarding anerythristic "C" possibly being from hybrids/integrades. Rich is taking ALOT of flak from people(somewhere) about this, because it is ALL originating from his stock...that he sold many years ago. Is it his fault? Nope. Does he deserve a tinge on his reputation because of other people's doubts? Nope. Could it be that the opriginal snakes used to produce anery "C" were some sort of hybrid that looked pure enough to fool one of the best in the business? I'm sure it's a possibility.
Let's speak purely hypothetically for a moment. Just say that somewhere back a few years ago, some "Joe down the road" breeder starts playing around crossing different species of rat snakes with corn snakes, and "discovers" some extremely interesting results never before seen in corn snakes. The offspring LOOK like pure corns, to even "trained professionals", but the genetics are entirely new due to the crosses made. So this unscrupulous seller decides to market them as a brand new morph in the pantherophis gutattas line of snakes...even though they aren't. These things sell like hot cakes and are now found being crossed with every morph available in a mad rush to be the first to create something with these "new" recessives.
Flash forward 15 years...someone breeds some of these "new snakes", and gets offspring thoroughly unlike the rest, resembling the OTHER side of the early hybrid. What now? Now we know that it is a hybrid, but the hybridized blood has been so thoroughly distributed throughout the bloodlines of pure corns that it can never again be completely seperated out of at least several different varieties of "corn snake". Now everyone starts pitching a fit and ranting and raving about whomever they got THEIR snakes from because they are hybrids...
So yes...I can completely understand why someone with a reputation to protect would cull "pure looking" snakes from a hybrid project. I think it is a difficult decision to make for a breeder, but I also think it is an extremely responsible decision to make, as well.