A Proposal to help sort things out.....

[WingedWolf]

Now, this may be way out in left field, and I don't know if anyone has thought of it before, but here it is:

Why not create a corn snake registry? I mean, the current mess is a lot of fun, I'm sure, but it's not exactly efficient. The first thing breeders of dogs and cats do when they create a new breed is create a registry, whether it's AKC or other kennel club accepted, or not.

I'm a newcomer, just a small hobby breeder working on my first clutch. I'm sure that my suggestion would require a lot of work. But wouldn't it, perhaps, be worth the trouble?

Not only do you have zillions of unidentified hets floating around, and new morphs popping out of lines of unknown ancestry, but you also have jungle corns, similar hybrids. There's a risk that one of these may wind up unidentified in corn snake lines, if they haven't already.
Wouldn't it be handy to be able to trace the lineage of an animal that produced an interesting new pattern or variation?
Only something like a registry could allow that. Individual breeders keep records, sure--but secure records in a central location are a great deal more reliable, no?

What do you think?

 

[Clint Boyer]

It has been proposed before....

And I think there have even been a few folks that may have started the process.

I think that it would be a bit complicated. For example, would a breeder that produces 5,000 babies a year be able to register each one? What would be the incentive?

If someone started out with a process that only registered the high end, more exotic morphs like a Opal Motley, then it may filter down as it grows.

I guess that even small breeders like myself could trace lines back in thier development. I have a line of Opal Motleys started using SerpenCo Opals and Loves Okeetee/Bloodered Motley.

Start small, the big breeders may be more receptive to a gradual change. The high end stuff would be worth keeping track of.

 

[Kat]

Another thing I've noticed is that some breeders tend to closely guard their projects and secrets to prevent their ideas from being stolen... Project corns like that are less likely to be registered. Furthermore, if you see something pop up that you suspect is a new morph, how do you enter that into the registry? It's not proven, but it might not be anything familiar, so what does one do?

Finally... keeping a registry would be a good deal of work. How many people would actually be willing to pay more for a registered cornsnake than for a non-registered one? I bet not as many as you think. Otherwise, why will people pay $14 for a scrawny, sickly corn than $15 for the healthy hatchling one table over?

-Kat

 

[Darin Chappell]

"Project corns like that are less likely to be registered."

Kat raises a key point here.

With dogs and cats, you are not paying for the various mutation possibilities on a certain animal as much as you are paying for the purity of the lineage, or the championships attained by the animal's ancestors. Confirmation is what is being guarded by most registries, and when colors are important, it is more about what a dog/cat CANNOT be, rather than what it might throw in future breedings. Look at the web sites established solely about the acceptability of the White Dobermans, if you want to see what I am taking about first hand.

So, the specific genetic mutations a dog may have are not the key factor for registration, but for snakes, it is really the ONLY factor (aside from genetic purity, but that is another HUGE issue we need not address here again). I am not interested if my Australian shepherd is het for natural bobtail or not, but I have to know if my bloodred is het for hypo!

Further, I know that my Aussie, being a red merle, can throw a certain variety of colors to her pups, if she's bred to certain colors of mates. However, there are only four real possibilities, so there is no secrret mix to be protected. With corns, there appears to be almost an infinite number of possibilities, and these percentages of parentage mixtures have to be closely guarded for profitability to be ensure by their "creators."

Assigning numbers to known snakes with known genetics, and then providing a hatchling buyer with a detailed pedigree is like giving out the list of "Eleven herbs and spices" with every bucket of KFC chicken. It isn't going to happen. At least not in IMHO.

 

[Tim Madsen]

I was just thinking about how large a job this would be. I can think of 4 breeders that are probably responsible for about 20,000 hatchlings a year combined. That's just 4 breeders, there are probably hundreds of people maybe thousands breeding corns today. So we're talking hundreds of thousands of corns a year. What would be the incentive to start a project of this size? We have been over this many times and doesn't look like it is feasible. Maybe if we had started 30 years ago when few people where breeding, but it's just to large a task now.

 

[Rich Z]

Yes, this topic has been hashed over several times in the past. I remember one gentleman who seemed to make a genuine effort to do this, but it just fell away in the face of reality. His goal was to have each and every animal photographed and placed in his online registry. The fee was a modest $1 per animal to be in the registry.

I simply asked him: "When can I expect the photographer to show up at my facility and where will they be staying the two months that snakes are hatching out here?" Not to mention, that I would find it difficult to justify the $3,000 (at that time) to register all of the expected hatchlings for that upcoming year.

And a certificate for each and every baby showing the ancestry back to day one?

This sort of thing just will not work with animals that produce relatively large numbers of offspring. When the babies are hatching out around here, it is ALL I can do to get them set up with their ID number, get them feeding, get the orders out the door to relieve the pressure, take new orders coming in all of the time, and keep up with the show schedule so I can try to sell of even more of that flood of babies. And that time of year is the ONLY time that application of a registry would make any sense at all. Which, of course, is completely unfeasible with the workload I already have to face at that time.

To have to fully identify each and every baby, take an individual photo, generate a full lineage certificate, and submit this to a registry (along with a check), would make the amount of time necessary to process each animal completely insane.

Plus, as it has been pointed out, there are not only some things that I do NOT want to make public, but there are MANY animals hatching out that I really don't KNOW what they are.

 

[JCam99]

Hey

I usually read through a lot of these forums late at night, trying to learn about all the new corn snake morphs, how they're created, how popular they actually are, and basically just anything and everything. Up to a few years ago, the only morphs I knew anything about were hypos, anerys, amels, snows, and bloodreds. I had never even heard of a caramel, butter, lavender, or opal. Its also interesting to see what new morphs pop up in the next few years.

Now, moving on to the topic at hand. I've noticed that the ball python breeders have a system of some sorts to prove that snakes are indeed carrying certain traits. OF course, ball python morphs are a lot more expensive then corn snake morphs right now, but no one can deny that there is definitely a market in this, and money to be made in this enjoyable hobby. Snakes in many respects are good investments; that's what a lot of hte ball python big breeders say.

I agree with Rich that it would be crazy to classify each and every corn snake, or register them in some big registry. IT would take forever, and would the knowledge really be used ENOUGH to make it worthwhile? I don't think so. However, one thing I have seen is that Rich provides parental stock information and genetic heritage for his hatchlings for a price, giving an acceptable, and if not better, alternative to some sort of registry. That was the real goal for a registry, right? To provide a way of showing what genes the snake carried and what morphs they could possibly create in their offspring? Breeders all keep records of their stock; it only makes sense. And buyers learn to trust breeders. When a breeder has been in this business long enough he or she will either earn the trust of buyers or they will be considered a fraud and discredited. Word of mouth sort of thing ya know. I think the way things are done now is okay, and I think anybody that does breed corn snakes whether for fun, profit, by accident, whatever, should keep records of their own so anyone who may buy from them knows exactly what they are getting. That would be a lot simpler in my humble opinion, and those that are honest will be proven correct in the long run and those that are dishonest will not. It will all work out.

Sorry this is long, and sorry this got off topic. I may totally be misunderstanding why some people want to create some registry thing. But if it's for the reasons I think it is then I think the system we have now is good enough. People should just be responsible with their animals.

Later
Jcam99

 

[Darin Chappell]

"I've noticed that the ball python breeders have a system of some sorts to prove that snakes are indeed carrying certain traits."

I know of no such system. Further, it is my belief that a large percentage of the new "morphs" being seen on the BP scene are not proven to be unique from anything else already known. Someone just has a unique looking juvenile, names it something catchy, and slaps it all over the internet as the "NEW MORPH YOU JUST HAVE TO HAVE!!!!"

There is no piece of paper in the world that can tell you anything about your animals. When it comes right down to it, you either trust the person from whom you bought your animal(s), or you do not.

 

[JCam99]

Hey

Maybe I'm mistaken then about what I saw. What I was talking about is I've seen like a "ball python het pieballed For Sale. Comes with papers to prove." I've also seen it with the albinos, Snows, and I think Pastels. So I thought maybe they had some type of classification or something to prove their animals carried the gene they claimed it carried. Have you ever seen this before, or do you know what it actually is?

Later
Jcam99

 

[WingedWolf]

Registering.

Well, assigning a number to each hatchling is something most breeders do automatically. Simply taking a photo of each clutch with its mother, then a photo of the clutch after hatching with the numbers given, should be enough info for registering the whole thing.
Wouldn't even take much time.

What it does, is guarantee what the parents were--helps to keep track of the complete lineage. Now, if you have a project corn whose lineage you don't want revealed, it gives you two choices--go for a "concealed registration", where only you and the registrar have access to the information, or simply don't register it at all.

Registries aren't compulsory, after all. Now, some sort of centralized registry, I really do think it would be helpful--but I think expecting people to pay to register every animal isn't reasonable. Sure, it's work, but I think it ought to be volunteer, and paid for by donations. Perhaps some sort of database that people can sign up to access, to manage their own records? That way they can hand over the record to the owner upon purchase, if it is not a project snake.
The single format makes trading records easy.
Consider if there is a catastrophe, and a breeder loses their records....there's a place to retrieve the most important ones from.
If it's bound for the wholesale market, there's no sense registering it at all, really, so this isn't really that outrageous an idea, is it?

 

[Serpwidgets]

Re: Registering.

What it does, is guarantee what the parents were--helps to keep track of the complete lineage.

In many cases this simply isn't possible even if everyone wanted to do it. Some breeders put multiple males with the same female to ge better fertility, and there's no way to tell which father the offspring came from.

Personally, I'd love to be able to go through thousands and thousands of pictures with family trees, because I think there are probably a lot of subtle heritable things to be found. A couple years ago I was arguing the same points you are now. But the idea just isn't practical because of the way corns are produced and the numbers of offspring they produce. Even comparing them to ball pythons is IMO not reasonable because of the numbers of offspring they can produce and how quickly the prices fall.

I have to agree 100% with everything Darin said, except that IMO it's easy enough to outcross to unrelated stock and determine the "secret ingredients" within a few years when you produce F2s, so no "secret project" will stay that way for very long. If someone tries to extend that period by including a "secret gene" in the mix, it will then be isolated and named by a bunch of other people, who will then be fighting with each other and the originator over credit for the discovery, possibly creating more of a headache than it was worth to extend the lifetime of the "secret" ingredient.

And as Rich said, "there are MANY animals hatching out that I really don't KNOW what they are" which will always (hopefully) going to be the case, especially when you're working with "bleeding edge" morphs/genetics. If someday that is no longer true, corns will become quite boring.

Also, keep in mind that the morphs selling for $1000 today will be down to $50 within a few years... once everyone has one and can make all they want. It might be worthwhile today, but it would quickly become pointless. Registrations of the progeny will fall off to little or none, which would leave the registry looking like a big piece of swiss cheese.

 

[JCam99]

Something that Serp said made me think of a question. He said that even morphs that are over $1000 now will become worth much less in a few years. That of course makes perfect sense. But what I don't understand is why in the ball python market albinos, piebalds, spiders, bandeds, whatever they may be...why are the prices on those not dropping yet? Spiders I can understand, but haven't the albino balls been around for awhile? The only explanation I can think of is that balls produce fewer eggs then corns, but really when you think about how many people are breeding those things now why doesn't their price go down? I'd love to own an albino ball, but I'm not willing to spend so much money for them, and then have it die. It just wouldn't be feasible to me. No I think I'd stick with my corns. And ur right Serp it is really fun trying to figure out what things are sometimes. Fortunately everything I am producing this year is cut and dry, or I hope so . amels, normals, lavenders, opals, and perhaps snows if my amels are het for snow. Of course, in a few years once I start breeding my bloodreds into other things I'm getting or already have it's gonna be a mess.

anyways sorry i rambled
later
Jcam99

 

[Serpwidgets]

Moichandising!

But what I don't understand is why in the ball python market albinos, piebalds, spiders, bandeds, whatever they may be...why are the prices on those not dropping yet?

Because even a few more offspring per clutch makes the "population expansion curve" of a morph that much steeper.

Look at it this way: say a female ball produces 6 hatchlings and a corn produces 10, and all other things are equal... how do the F2 generations compare?

With the ball, you get 3 female offspring, and breed all the females, so you have 18 grandkids in 3 years. With the corn you get 5 females and produce 50 grandkids in 3 years.

Out of those, you might have 2 breeding pairs of balls, and about 6 breeding pairs of corns. Plus maybe one extra, or a het F1 that can be bred back to the original mutant.

When producing F3s from the existing mutants, about 18 mutant balls and 60 mutant corns would be produced.

With each generation, the gap widens even more...

I think there's also a much larger "Beanie Baby" effect happening in ball pythons. That is, it's like a token-based pyramid scheme. I doubt many people are buying albino ball pythons for thousands of dollars to keep them as pets, nor are they buying them so that they can sell "multi-thousand-dollar" pets. Instead, they are buying them because they want to get in on a piece of the pie. It works just like the Beanie Babies, and Pokemon cards, and every other pyramid scheme, where the "value" is not in the animal itself, but based on the thought that other people are going to be willing to pay a whole bunch of money for them.

Some of this happens in corns, but since many corns will have 15-25 offspring, the market of "people who just want to breed them" is so quickly saturated that the prices drop very quickly. Additionally, nobody ever tried selling a new cornsnake mutant for 100,000 dollars. I believe albino balls started around there, and at a time where there were no other mutants, so you could only buy "normal" ball pythons or spend the $100,000. IOW, someone had a "good" marketing idea and started the pyramid, and a bunch of other people were willing to buy in.

(Actually I'd be breeding ball morphs right now if it weren't for the "pyramid" aspect of it all... I'll wait till a ball morph sells for what it alone is actually worth, and then make some of my own.)

Also, in ball pythons, the stuff going for huge bucks right now is all "genes" and not "new combinations of genes that everyone already has in their collection anyway." I'm sure in BPs the combos will also hold higher prices for a longer time, since getting a 1/16 morph from double hets will take quite a bit more time and effort than doing so with corns.

 

[WingedWolf]

Disheartening

Ah, well...it was worth a try. I can still see some use for the idea, even if it's only used by a limited circle of people. Of course if you're using multiple males you can't register the hatchlings.

 

[Darin Chappell]

One other reason I see for the BP market to be keeping its "value" for mutant animals is, in part, because of the blatant dishonesty of so many people selling BP hets in the past several years. I don't mean to paint an entire segment of the herp community as crooks, so please don't misunderstand what I am saying here. However, there have been a lot of wc/farm hatched imports brought over here and sold as hets, of, even worse, soaked in gatorade and sold as a "new morph" of some sort.

People are tired of being ripped off, so they are forgoing the hets in many instances and are buying the actual mutants, now that the prices have gotten low enough to even consider. This new infusion of buyers has (temporarily) bouyed the prices at their current levels. However, in a year or so, I would suspect that many of them will settle down toward the lower end of scale.

As for what I wrote about papers not meaning anything, all I am saying is that, even when you have papers on an animal, you STILL have to be in a position of trusting the person from whom you are buying an animal, because you cannot know whether those animals match up to what has been written about them at all. So, you buy your BP het for albino, anerythrism, and caramel, and it comes with papers for "X" amount of money. Your feed its till its huge over the next two years to be able to breed it, and when the babies come, there are no mutations! Now, you have to ask yourself several questions: 1) Is it just your bad luck, and this animal really IS het for all those things? 2) Is the animal not really het for those genes, but it was an honest mistake and you really CAN trust the breeder? OR 3) Is the breeder a liar, who cannot be trusted?

Depending on how you answer questions number 2 and 3, you may or may not be willing to give that breeder a chance to replace the animal, but that may mean taking another hatchling and starting all over again. In many cases though, the person from whom you bought the animal is long gone, after having sold 1,000 w/c BPs worth $7 each as multi-het CH BPs worth hundreds of dollars each. he made his profit, and you are ought the money and two years' worth of time.

So, like I said, there isn't a piece of paper in the world that is going to place genes in your animal's DNA. If the breeder/seller is trustworthy, that's fine. But put your trust in a person, if you're going to buy hets (which I wouldn't), not in a piece of paper.

 

[Serpwidgets]

This new infusion of buyers has (temporarily) bouyed the prices at their current levels.

That's an interesting twist on the story. Thanks for mentioning that.

So, like I said, there isn't a piece of paper in the world that is going to place genes in your animal's DNA. If the breeder/seller is trustworthy, that's fine. But put your trust in a person, if you're going to buy hets (which I wouldn't), not in a piece of paper.

Agreed 1000%. Also, I've seen people who will send or show the buyer a picture of an albino, or something breeding an albino. This is passed off as "proof" but it still doesn't prove that the hatchling in question came from that pairing. For thousands of dollars, I'd expect some serious documentation:

1- the piece of paper includes a photograph that would make the snake being sold 100% identifiable as itself, AND

2- the piece of paper clearly and legally identifies (address, driver's license, etc) the seller, AND

3- the piece of paper spells out in clear language what the seller says it is "het" for, AND

4- the piece of paper is signed, witnessed, and notorized as a sworn statement (yadda "under penalty of perjury" yadda) so that if the person was lying, they can be easily found and prosecuted for perjury and felony fraud.

... then I might have some trust in the piece of paper.

Without all that, even if you can locate the person, it's simply a matter of he said she said, which is not enough to get a prosecutor involved, and is unlikely to win a civil case unless the seller is a complete idiot in court.

(And Murphy says that some honest guy will then end up with a spontaneous mutation or sperm retention and be prosecuted, LOL.)