stupid breeders why cant you just leave things be

[DMong]

CZ is lab created diamonds, They are just industrial type. Not the awesome lab created ones that are more expensive than mined ones occationally. I was just responding to Geralds Diamonds vs CZ argument.. And showing that it is the impurities in mined diamonds that make them so valuable... So it really is a bad argument when coming from someone who wants to prove that pure is better...

Wrong,.......it is NOT the impurities that make natural diamonds more valuable, it's that they are natural and happen to HAVE impurities from being natural and therefore more rare as well as not man-made. Nobody pays more for more impurities in a natural diamond (unless its a rare color variety).

It's that they are natural creations that took nature countless millions of years to produce versus man-made laboratory creations easily made at will with simple technology. Now when a natural diamond has LESS or virtually NO impurities, that makes those worth even far more than ones with impuriries or other flaws.


~Doug

 

[DMong]

Well all that is fine and dandy. But HOW are you going to proactively police people so that they don't create hybrids?

News flash:
YOU CAN'T.

The only way that you can maintain a "pure"(/natural/whatever you want to call it) stock is by only introducing animals into your collection/breeding stock from people that you trust. Why should the rest of the hobby have to bow to your whims if they want to "selfishly" partake in "biological perversion"? Personally, I don't consider it a "biological perversion" if the snakes do it willingly. Now if someone artificially inseminated a snake with the sperm of another species, THAT I would consider a biological perversion, and a bit of a god complex. Just because these species CAN'T meet in the wild doesn't mean that they, if they did happen to run across each other, wouldn't mate.

I think taking a semen sample from a snake would actually be much less perverse than taping their cloacas shut, tricking them with shed skins, and swapping them around at the last second tricking them into "thinking" they are actually breeding with the right type of snake. After all, when a person tricks them into doing something that he/she is totally controlling, that seems to be part of the huge allure of doing it anyway.

It's the .......... "hey!, look what I made them do!!.....see!, it CAN be done!!.....WOO-HOOO!!!!" :dancer:



yeah, .........(cough) um.....wow!


~Doug

 

[Rich Z]

Wrong,.......it is NOT the impurities that make natural diamonds more valuable, it's that they are natural and happen to HAVE impurities from being natural and therefore more rare as well as not man-made. Nobody pays more for more impurities in a natural diamond (unless its a rare color variety).

It's that they are natural creations that took nature countless millions of years to produce versus man-made laboratory creations easily made at will with simple technology. Now when a natural diamond has LESS or virtually NO impurities, that makes those worth even far more than ones with impuriries or other flaws.


~Doug

Hmm, so would a CZ stone that PURPOSELY had impurities introduced then be a "hybrid"? :blowhead:


Seriously, "value" is just arbitrary depending on the eye of the beholder. The appearance affecting the desire to own, which affects "value" is strictly arbitrary, as is the actual SOURCE of that stone. Is a "natural" diamond that requires digging up a mountain of stone in order to uncover it more valuable than one that would simply be found laying in a river bed via erosion? Would a CZ that could be made easily in 15 minutes more or less valuable than one that would take 15 weeks of intensive manufacturing processes?

Has anyone ever heard the phrase "inconsequential differences"? It's an interesting concept......

 

[DMong]

Hmm, so would a CZ stone that PURPOSELY had impurities introduced then be a "hybrid"? :blowhead:


Seriously, "value" is just arbitrary depending on the eye of the beholder. The appearance affecting the desire to own, which affects "value" is strictly arbitrary, as is the actual SOURCE of that stone. Is a "natural" diamond that requires digging up a mountain of stone in order to uncover it more valuable than one that would simply be found laying in a river bed via erosion? Would a CZ that could be made easily in 15 minutes more or less valuable than one that would take 15 weeks of intensive manufacturing processes?

Has anyone ever heard the phrase "inconsequential differences"? It's an interesting concept......

Yes, I fully understand all that as well. Gem stones are different than similar or virtually identical phenotypic man-made crosses getting into countless collections that folks "thought" were authentic. The non-obvious cross by-products are what I am more focused on here actually. Just like the recent post of wanting to cross an amel nelsoni with a hypo tangerine Hondo. What's the point?. If the point is to muck things up further, then by all means, mission accomplished!......*sigh*



~Doug

 

[Carinata]

I don't have a problem with hybrids, I have an issue when they are being sold as pure stock. So I guess I see both sides of it.

 

[DMong]

I don't have a problem with hybrids, I have an issue when they are being sold as pure stock. So I guess I see both sides of it.

That's right. I don't have any problems whatsoever with them either so long as they don't find their way into untainted authentic stock in captive collections of real stuff that other's have worked so hard to produce and maintain for the many that wish to own them. If these breeders kept them or only sold them to people that didn't also breed them to other stuff so haphazardly, then it wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, they inevitably always do find there way in to collections down the line, be it on purpose or inadvertently by ignorance and simply not knowing. And THAT is the very problem. To say this isn't the true dynamics of how it actually works is simply pure denial. That's where the term "pure" applies, not with snakes. Pure is a term for chemicals and manufactured products, not naturally evolving animals as some keep ignorantly mentioning here. Over the countless millenia, all animals have evolved into their own entities from being influenced by many factors to what they ultimately are today.

The so-called "axanthic" Florida kings I saw on a guys table at Daytona were NOT Florida kings. They clearly got their white cross-band phenotype from being crossed with desert phase Black & white Cal. kings. When I pointed this out to this VERY well-known herpetoculturist, and mentioned that it looked like something Davy Vickers would produce and sell,...he almost fell on the floor laufging and said..."HOLY CRAP MAN!, that's EXACTLY where this came from!!"

How many countless examples do I really have to make here for someone to even say, "yeah Doug, that sure does happen all the time".......but all I get is how it never affects other stuff, which is "PURE" (note the term pure here) BS!

People are buying those up thinking they are wicked cool axanthic Florida kings breeding them with their real ones right now as amatter of fact...and doing what?....making more Cal. king x floridana crosses, that's what!.....and on, and on, and on.......................................



~Doug

 

[Gerards]

Hmm, so would a CZ stone that PURPOSELY had impurities introduced then be a "hybrid"? :blowhead:


Seriously, "value" is just arbitrary depending on the eye of the beholder. The appearance affecting the desire to own, which affects "value" is strictly arbitrary, as is the actual SOURCE of that stone. Is a "natural" diamond that requires digging up a mountain of stone in order to uncover it more valuable than one that would simply be found laying in a river bed via erosion? Would a CZ that could be made easily in 15 minutes more or less valuable than one that would take 15 weeks of intensive manufacturing processes?

Has anyone ever heard the phrase "inconsequential differences"? It's an interesting concept......

The diamond analogy was the answer to the question, why I like natural over manmade, nothing more. You guys keep using it, but that's all it was.

 

[Gerards]

I don't have a problem with hybrids, I have an issue when they are being sold as pure stock. So I guess I see both sides of it.

Exactly! It's the byproduct sold off as whatever it looks like.

 

[Gerards]

:-offtopic
That turtle pic looks really awesome on a 32" HD screen. (Actually, all of the pics in this thread look awesome. Hybrid, natural, fish...)

Actually, that is a wc hybrid.

 

[DMong]

Exactly! It's the byproduct sold off as whatever it looks like.

EXACTLY!!........all of these snakes later get sold as whatever the hell they best represent at any given time later on down the way. ....simple as that. BTW, why is that so simple for YOU me, and only a few others here to understand?..

It's because all the others that also know this are not on this corn/hybrid forum arguing that it doesn't.



~Doug

 

[Christen]

I guess I need to reread some stuff. So you are now ok with hybrids as long as they are labeled as such? Which is what everyone has been stating all along in this thread. But you told me that some one can buy my snakes and hybrid them but you won't let that happen to yours. Which sounds to me that you are 100% against it.

 

[JimGERcream]

The so-called "axanthic" Florida kings I saw on a guys table at Daytona were NOT Florida kings. They clearly got their white cross-band phenotype from being crossed with desert phase Black & white Cal. kings. When I pointed this out to this VERY well-known herpetoculturist, and mentioned that it looked like something Davy Vickers would produce and sell,...he almost fell on the floor laufging and said..."HOLY CRAP MAN!, that's EXACTLY where this came from!!"

That is the problem. I do believe everyone here really would label hybrids as such - but what does the buyer, and the buyer from the buyer - and what if a noob buys one of those "corns"? Most animals, neither pure snakes nor hybrids, are sold during a couple of years. I don't know anyone who keeps his snakes until death. Sure, there are some examples in every collection but most snakes stay a while in someone's collection and when they "did their job" they're beeing sold. No problem? I wonder why so few people detect that circumstance.... :shrugs:

Further more, imho the people who shout so loud "pro hybrids" here in this topic have a very subjective perspective. As Dmong (or was it Gerard??) already stated - they mostly debate from the cornsnake keeper perspective. I've read "where is the problem?" in this topic a couple of times. My answer is easy: The problem is, nobody can guarantee his hybrid offspring would never ever beeing sold as pure stock or "just without the label".
Again, I do believe everyone here would label them as such, but during the lifetime of the hybrid pet snake, it will most likely not have just one owner, but 2, 3 or more. I'd bet money that the ultra influence, king influence whatever from the babys of these pets go by the board during their way from owner to owner. Most people here seem to have no problem with it, because they still like the look or whatever...but isn't that kind of unfair for breeders who appreciate purity? As I already said at the beginning of this topic, it's becoming harder and harder to get eg. a butter, amel or whatever which is not ultra related. Of course they look like pure corns, but a Ferrari assembly kit does also look like an original Ferrari - I'm sure there is nobody here who'd pay the original Ferrari price for the assembly kit. Might not be the best example, but I think you get the point. I'd really prefer to choose between nonhybrids and (maybe)hybrids instead of hoping for luck when buying a corn.

I'm a pure cornsnake keeper, I don't have any other animals, so I'm one of these corn snake people. I do believe every breeder has a responsibility, I do understand when breeders hike their shoulders because they label hybrids as such and don't have to have a bad conscience, I do understand the chain of reasoning but I have to agree with Dmong and Gerard, I have the feeling this is not thought far enough. Imho the argument that you can not guarantee anywise these hybrid pet snakes + their offspring won't ever beeing sold without the correct label outweighs. You just need a noob with the wrong snake who also wants some snake babys...

Another example:
I'm sure RichZ didn't ever wanted to sell snakes which bequest a desease. When I bought a Hypo Sunkissed ph Bloodred male from him during his retirement sale, I started several projects with him. In the first f2 from this sire I got stargazers. If something like this can happen to the biggest corn snake breeder, what do you think happens with hybrid snakes, which doesn't look like hybrids, in collections from people who are new to the hobby...? It WILL be spread. Sad but true :shrugs:

 

[dave partington]

From what I can gather
it seems at the end of the last ice age,
the climate changed.
Some places where there were mountians surrounded by grasslands changed into deserts; many species of plants could not adapt to the drier weather, and the grasslands turned into deserts or areas with not enough moisture/rainfall to support the plants which produced food for snakes to feed on. A little higher in elevation, there was more moisture and slightly cooler temperatures. So these species moved up the mountians, and became isolated populations of species which once covered vast areas of the surface. These isolated populations then had no new genetics coming into them, Over the following 10,000 years to the present day, they have been inbreeding with one another for however many generations that is now.

Are they species, subspecies, or strains?

Species
Almost all domestic pet rats and lab rats belong to a single species, the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus). A tiny number of black rats (Rattus rattus) are also kept as pets, but as yet they are extremely rare in the pet trade.

The classic definition of a species is a group of related individuals or populations which are potentially capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatSpecies.htm

Strains of mice and rats:
Isogenic strains
Isogenic strains include inbred strains produced by many generations of brother x sister mating, and the F1 (first generation) offspring of a cross between two inbred strains. They are like immortal clones of genetically identical individuals. The same genotype can be reproduced indefinitely, though over a period of time there may be some genetic drift due to the accumulation of new mutations. Such genetic drift is much slower than that seen in outbred stocks. Even this can be virtually eliminated using frozen embryo banks. A single individual can be genotyped at any locus, and this will serve to genotype all animals of that strain (because all are identical) so that a genetic profile can be developed for each strain. Inbred strains (but not F1 hybrids) are homozygous at all genetic loci, so will breed true, with no "hidden" recessive genes segregating within the population which may confuse experimental results. Genetic homogeneity leads to phenotypic uniformity, which means that smaller numbers of animals are needed to achieve a given level of statistical precision.
http://isogenic.info/html/5__species___strain.html#mice

What is a "Locality Type"?
With the exception of land-locked inbred isolated populations of some of the colubrids, the term itself seems incorrect. If a population of Corns all look like Okeetees, for instance, in a specific area, are they really unique, or is that merely the way the variables have made them look in that area? We humans like to look at patterns and when the pattern is crisply defined, then we call it a "Locality Type". So what if these "Locality Types" are merely the integrations of a variety of colors and patterns all spread across a much larger geographical region. Just because their colors and patterns look to us like well thought out with organized pattern & color, we can then compartmentalize them into being something more specific, or less random. Nevermind what is passed off as a "reverse Okeetee", which may or may not have any true Okeetee Locality Type blood/genes in it at all.

And then there's the Box Turtles in the panhandle of Florida, where a mess of "recognized" subspecies overlap, a wild pandora's box of variability.

Are they any different under the skin? Most of this thread seems to be concerned with colors. Please put on your blindfolds while we pass the snakes around the room and you'll be asked which are hybrids. Later, we'll humanely and surgically remove the skin-deep colors (Elves in our lab make them clear) and you'll be asked again which are hybrids.

-------------

Model Organism (Also called Animal Model)
A creature, like the mouse or the fruit fly, used in the laboratory to study biology. Many genes in humans are found in other species, and biologists study model organisms to learn about how these genes might operate in the human body.
http://alifedecoded.org/genetics101/

-----------------------------------------------

you clearly don't understand our stance at all.
~Doug

I understand your stance, their stance, that other guy's stance, my galpal's stance, and hope to understand the stance dance well enough to dance it to my own tune as well one day. I can only hope we are all able to understand each other's stance. In this instance. So many stances. Are these stances species, locality types, strains, chimeras, paradoxes, hybrids; or new stance types not sufficiently scientifically probed yet to assume conclusive reporting & publishing regarding their unique individual attributes. So many stances, so little time.

Nobody pays more for more impurities in a natural diamond (unless its a rare color variety).
~Doug

Just like snakes then.

I think taking a semen sample from a snake would actually be much less perverse than taping their cloacas shut, tricking them with shed skins, and swapping them around at the last second tricking them into "thinking" they are actually breeding with the right type of snake. After all, when a person tricks them into doing something that he/she is totally controlling, that seems to be part of the huge allure of doing it anyway.

It's the .......... "hey!, look what I made them do!!.....see!, it CAN be done!!.....WOO-HOOO!!!!" :dancer:



yeah, .........(cough) um.....wow!


~Doug

So in instances where obsoleta & quadrivatta have been kept by breeders,
and an accidental toppling of a rack of snakes happens due to a cat interfereing, and a breeding takes place between the two without any human interaction causing the coupling yet living offXspring happen, are these really species, subspecies, or something more closely related?

If I take a pair of wild snakes into my home and breed them, are the offspring natural, or cultural? Because I have chosen to let them breed, they are a product of culture, not nature. Sure, I can construct a playpen for them and load it up with plants from the nursery and pick out a few real pieces of wood from nature and set back and tell myself how natural it looks, but it is all man-made. Taking 2 snakes from the wild and breeding them is not preserving nature.

The only way to really preserve nature is to find a fluffy cuddly keystone species which shares a vast habitat, the kind of cute critter popularized in Disney movies, and then exploiting the public high opinion of that animal to create a preserve. Many hundreds of other species of plants and animals which share the natural habitat also receive some protection from the likes of us taking more of their kind from said geolocation. I will not lie to myself. My snakes were ither born in captivity, or collected from places slated to be bulldozed in the name of progress. They are all pure snakes. But the last 2 links in this post may infer otherwise.

What I mean is in nature there are no natural intergrades of Balls, or AFTs.

So do you mean that the 3 Ball Python "locality types" are different looking inbred populations, which are isolated from one another in their natural environment, at this time on our ever changing 4 billion year old planet Earth?


http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...d=117941249246820370109.00045ceb937282ee46570

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I've been looking at rodent genetics lately.
This site is of great interest:
http://dartmouse.org/FAQs.html

http://lifesci.rutgers.edu/~mcguire...ure Supplements/Strains/Strain Definition.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenic

http://www.research.uci.edu/tmf/breeding.htm#breed


And finally, this is rather mind blowing:
"Genes in humans found in other"...
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp...3&xhr=t&q="genes+in+humans+are+found+in"&fp=1

Or for a deeper look, Synteny: Genes occurring in the same order on chromosomes of different species.
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF.../www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/
and http://alifedecoded.org/genetics101/

Today I learned that humans and fruit flies are hybrids.

 

[DMong]

That is the problem. I do believe everyone here really would label hybrids as such - but what does the buyer, and the buyer from the buyer - and what if a noob buys one of those "corns"? Most animals, neither pure snakes nor hybrids, are sold during a couple of years. I don't know anyone who keeps his snakes until death. Sure, there are some examples in every collection but most snakes stay a while in someone's collection and when they "did their job" they're beeing sold. No problem? I wonder why so few people detect that circumstance.... :shrugs:

Further more, imho the people who shout so loud "pro hybrids" here in this topic have a very subjective perspective. As Dmong (or was it Gerard??) already stated - they mostly debate from the cornsnake keeper perspective. I've read "where is the problem?" in this topic a couple of times. My answer is easy: The problem is, nobody can guarantee his hybrid offspring would never ever beeing sold as pure stock or "just without the label".
Again, I do believe everyone here would label them as such, but during the lifetime of the hybrid pet snake, it will most likely not have just one owner, but 2, 3 or more. I'd bet money that the ultra influence, king influence whatever from the babys of these pets go by the board during their way from owner to owner. Most people here seem to have no problem with it, because they still like the look or whatever...but isn't that kind of unfair for breeders who appreciate purity? As I already said at the beginning of this topic, it's becoming harder and harder to get eg. a butter, amel or whatever which is not ultra related. Of course they look like pure corns, but a Ferrari assembly kit does also look like an original Ferrari - I'm sure there is nobody here who'd pay the original Ferrari price for the assembly kit. Might not be the best example, but I think you get the point. I'd really prefer to choose between nonhybrids and (maybe)hybrids instead of hoping for luck when buying a corn.

I'm a pure cornsnake keeper, I don't have any other animals, so I'm one of these corn snake people. I do believe every breeder has a responsibility, I do understand when breeders hike their shoulders because they label hybrids as such and don't have to have a bad conscience, I do understand the chain of reasoning but I have to agree with Dmong and Gerard, I have the feeling this is not thought far enough. Imho the argument that you can not guarantee anywise these hybrid pet snakes + their offspring won't ever beeing sold without the correct label outweighs. You just need a noob with the wrong snake who also wants some snake babys...

Another example:
I'm sure RichZ didn't ever wanted to sell snakes which bequest a desease. When I bought a Hypo Sunkissed ph Bloodred male from him during his retirement sale, I started several projects with him. In the first f2 from this sire I got stargazers. If something like this can happen to the biggest corn snake breeder, what do you think happens with hybrid snakes, which doesn't look like hybrids, in collections from people who are new to the hobby...? It WILL be spread. Sad but true :shrugs:

That's right. It boils down to not enough people in this hobby caring about what the snakes they themselves produce and also get bred with later on. Sure, nobody can know exactly what their snakes will ultimately get bred with later as they are owned, bred and sold by other folks, and bred again, etc.. But offering animals that certainly will muck things up immediately is surely not the best responsible route. It's important to at least OFFER the people authentic subspecies first off (beit morph or normal, that doesn't matter) at least THOSE will not be immediately confused with something else right out of the gate. If THOSE snakes are goofed up it is because of someone else, not because the producer contributed to it at all.

If I start with a certain type of snakes, 15 years later no matter what breedings I do with them, with any number of mates, the snake's subspecies will always remain intact and the same as I started with. And I will always in turn offer non confusing subspecific babies to the buyers that acquire them so that THEY in turn can also have a good start propagating the very same subspecies down the line as well............


~Doug

 

[dave partington]

The National Geographic documentary on Skin is rather interesting.

 

[DMong]

The National Geographic documentary on Skin is rather interesting.

Meaning what exactly, pigment?, phenotype?.....if so, what about pigment or phenotype?


~Doug

 

[SnakeAround]

Hi Jim, maybe you can tell me why you are so afraid of stained snakes getting into your or other purist/naturalist people's collection if you and they buy only from trusted fellow purists/naturalists? According to Gerards and/or Doug the majority in the snake hobby actually does care, so why would you not be able to maintain the lovely natural/pure collection you prefer all together and just enjoy it? Doug and Gerards actually told us they are not afraid for their collections multiple times. I am pretty sure that others who care as much as they do, are able to keep their collection natural/pure. But yet no answer to the question why they care about the collections and snake population a minority is happily fishing in if they are able to maintain what they like with a majority of people, separated from the mudded population?

I have not denied that mudding does not take place, I have only been trying to tell that for the people fishing in the mudded pool, it is way less important. Avoid them and you do not have to fear mislabeling and such.

Maybe you do understand this question every 'pro-hybrid' memeber in this discussion seems to want to know the answer to, and are able to answer it with a true arguement. Who knows, we might actually find it very reasonable. Talking down from a high horse and calling people who do not agree lazy/greedy/uneducated, say they have low standards did not work for Doug and Gerards, maybe you can 'win' this case for them?

 

[RobbiesCornField]

I apologize in advance if I can't respond immediately. I'm at work, and am not able to spend as much time on here as I like.

I think taking a semen sample from a snake would actually be much less perverse than taping their cloacas shut, tricking them with shed skins, and swapping them around at the last second tricking them into "thinking" they are actually breeding with the right type of snake. After all, when a person tricks them into doing something that he/she is totally controlling, that seems to be part of the huge allure of doing it anyway.

It's the .......... "hey!, look what I made them do!!.....see!, it CAN be done!!.....WOO-HOOO!!!!" :dancer:



yeah, .........(cough) um.....wow!


~Doug

Wow. Sorry, but taping cloacas shut in the name of hybrid breeding is a practice I would never participate in, and neither is the trickery. If they will breed of their own accord, then fine. If they won't, they'll be separated. Simple as that. I don't believe in interspecies "snake rape". I know there are some people that do, but I would never count myself as one of them.

Actually, that is a wc hybrid.

I was just saying that it looks really cool on the screen. Hybrid/pure/wc/cb/natural/abomination. It doesn't have to be one specific thing to look incredible. Many different types of animals, plants, gems, etc. can be beautiful to different people.

 

[Gerards]

Hi Jim, maybe you can tell me why you are so afraid of stained snakes getting into your or other purist/naturalist people's collection if you and they buy only from trusted fellow purists/naturalists? According to Gerards and/or Doug the majority in the snake hobby actually does care, so why would you not be able to maintain the lovely natural/pure collection you prefer all together and just enjoy it? Doug and Gerards actually told us they are not afraid for their collections multiple times. I am pretty sure that others who care as much as they do, are able to keep their collection natural/pure. But yet no answer to the question why they care about the collections and snake population a minority is happily fishing in if they are able to maintain what they like with a majority of people, separated from the mudded population?

I have not denied that mudding does not take place, I have only been trying to tell that for the people fishing in the mudded pool, it is way less important. Avoid them and you do not have to fear mislabeling and such.

Maybe you do understand this question every 'pro-hybrid' memeber in this discussion seems to want to know the answer to, and are able to answer it with a true arguement. Who knows, we might actually find it very reasonable. Talking down from a high horse and calling people who do not agree lazy/greedy/uneducated, say they have low standards did not work for Doug and Gerards, maybe you can 'win' this case for them?

It has been said many times. You are to lazy/greedy/uneducated to care/admit/understand. It's about other people that do not know yet. There was a post earlier where the person found out years later they had hybrids and they were devastated. If it's not a big deal, why do you feel the need to defend it?

 

[Gerards]

I was just saying that it looks really cool on the screen. Hybrid/pure/wc/cb/natural/abomination. It doesn't have to be one specific thing to look incredible. Many different types of animals, plants, gems, etc. can be beautiful to different people.

I thought the offtopic smiley was for the turtle pic. That turtle is from a island in the Bahamas and is a mix of Puerto Rican and Jamaican sliders released a long time ago. Really cool natural turtle.