Duff1

Okay Stav - now here's where we link back to the Revolution thread........... With a couple of posts in this thread, you've proven yourself more ethical than some other boa breeders - namely the ones who tried to get me banned from two forums for posting the same exact information. The ones who were screaming that I was ruining there business and that "there is no such thing as IBD." I always love to hear from someone like yourself who takes proper care of his animals and supports the scientific community when they strive to help and better OUR community. This is about passion and this is about ethics. The big box boa breeders who whined back to the moderators on other boards when I tried to explain what I was learning about IBD are on the other end of the scale. You know, the end that supports making a profit at all costs. Not caring that they may be spreading a disease through collections. To me the worst thing about IDB was having to euthanize two beloved pets. That male tarahumara spp. (Diego) used to wrap himself around my head while I pulled weeds or did other work in the garden. My son used to read to the female (Ana) when he was much younger - convinced that she liked it. To them the worst thing about IBD is that it translates to a loss of business. That's a lack of ethics. That's the difference between caring for an animal and caring for the dollar. ........and that's why I post on the Revolution thread. Sometimes it's nice to be in the company (figuratively) of people who hold dear the same principles.

This is a fairly misunderstood issue - mainly because people tend to think "neurological" or "stargazing" when it comes to IBD. As you are well aware, IBD presents itself in a variety of ways - all of which could be attributable to a host of other ailments. Stomatitis, anorexia, respiratory infections, regurgitation, scale rot, septicemia, subclinical infections and, yes, even star-gazing are not only all symptoms of IBD, but also symptoms of other afflictions. While going through our IBD ordeal, I learned many thing from people dealing with a researching the disease. First and foremost was that this virus is very similar to HIV in that it can lie dormant (asymptomatic) for years and then hit. No one knows for sure what the trigger is or even if there is one. People who have battled the disease and who treat frequently refer to afflicted snakes as going through a complete immune system meltdown - tumors, infections, etc. when it hits full blown. I spoke to a gentleman who lost a 15 year old suriname to cancer of the liver. The necropsy confirmed this. However the necropsy also showed inclusion bodies in the liver, the pancreas and other organs. He then had four other boas in his collection biopsied - all had inlcusion cells. All were asymptomatic. If you get past the crap posted on the forums - anecdotal stuff gleaned from various wikipedia-style summaries from uninformed sources, the fact that animals can be asymptomatic for years and still infect animals that are not asymptomatic (pythons for example) is downright scary. So what's the point of recommending a 6 month quarantine on all boas if the snake can carry the disease well past that time period? Add in that the biopsies are expensive and not 100% accurate - for inclusion cells can be, for example, in the pancreas but not the liver, or in the liver but not the gall bladder - you get the picture. No one knows how prevalent it is because the testing is hit and miss and so damn expensive. Animals die all the time and very few people bother to necropsy. So in the end, we have no idea of the scope, the transmission and no way to screen it. It may not always be a death sentence in boas, but certainly is in pythons and crotalids. On top of it, many of the big breeders here in the States brush it off as inconsequential. In a recent article, on of our foremost researches into IBD, Dr. Eliot Jacobson quietly admonished the reptile community for not assisting researchers in helping with IBD and reminded us of our ethical obligations as breeders and owners. I quote from one of his articles: "Snakes make up approximately 19% of all reptiles kept as pets. Of these, boa constrictors and pythons - especially ball pythons - are bred in large numbers for the pet trade. Because many IBD-infected boid snakes may not show outward signs of the disease, infected snakes considered healthy have been sold. We do not know what percentage of snakes infected with IBD will develop clinical symptoms and how many will remain clinically healthy. It is possible that latent infections can persist for long periods. Thus it is a snake breeders obligation to make sure that quality and healthy animals are being sold. Part of this is making a significant investment in important research efforts to solve the mysteries of this insidious disease and others like it. Bird breeders have done this and there is no reason it cannot be done with reptiles. Ensuring healthy and disease-free animals should be the primary responsibility for those who breed and keep them." So how in the hell do boa breeders who turn their noses at the potential prevalence and even existence of this disease reconcile their ethics with this admonition from a leading researcher? Have they no shame?

Nope Craig I will not challenge you anything or make you change any opinion you have .... for me every one is free to breath , eat or believe anything they want , we are in a free world at least canada and the states ..... You have an opinion on something I might have another one on one subject depending or tow persons experiences . This said , no matter views , opinions , debates etc.... lets say a boa , you dont hybernate or keep at a temperature of 10 celcius ..... do you get what I'm trying to say ? Yep I get you when you talk about people telling you that its impossible and that you hurt sales . I also get you on your other views on that as well ..... A few questions to start with before going any further on the subject : - What kind of vet was it - Did necropsies have been done on those snakes ? - If yes what type of testing ( the whole thing ) was done ? - If yes where did all go for analysis for the inclusion bodies ? - Were the snakes were euthanized while alive or necropsies done after death or even freezed and thawed ? It would be great to start from there .... if you can answer these questions as precissly as possible I would appreciate it ..... more .... if you have the pathologists ( a vet is not a pathologist just if some had the question in their minds ) report scanned this kind of info on a forum is priceless ..... Other than that , IBD Comes from some Venomous snakes and colubrids to begin with , just to inform if some people were asking themselfs . I cant talk for the states , but here in Canada its very rare and only now I heard of some case identified but cant say what kind of reptiles . My Vet never heard of any case before 2006 , I had tests done myself on one occasion , where I also got the info on rates of cases ( I spend from around 500$ to 1500$ a year with my vet .... just because I dont give to myself a simplist answer when a problem occurs or is about to occur no matter the problem .... i think its also the best thing to do to reverse false assomptions on deaseases that occur in reptile collections and things said at large on forums assumed by either the proprietor or an unqualified vet , is to test and treat everything thrue a qualified vet ..... it helps drop the false from truth and the maybes ..... just a litle parenthesis ) So lets start from there if you agree.... Edit *** Forgot again ..... just at large if it helps , IBD is many times missidentified by unqulified vet that dont make proper testing or no less on the subject. IBD is often Put in cause because of this instead of identifing bacteria , parasites , other viruses that cross the brain membrane and have identical signs as IBD . Reptile Vet, Stav. - Live biopsies were done on the liver and the esophogeal tonsils - confirmed IBD in both animals. Necropsies were also performed on the male. - Analysis of the inclusion bodies was done at UC Davis. History: I had a male and female tarahumara locality dwarf boas. Female was 6 years old, male 5. I had had both since they were a couple months old. They were the only boas in my collection. The male began coming down with subclinical infections and anorexia. He began showing acute septicemia and was treated with several rounds of antibiotics. He would go through brief periods of remission and then get a new subclinical infection. He was checked for parasites, OPMV and tumors/growths. He never showed any neurological signs - as a matter of fact, neither snake did. He had full blood and metabolic panels done. We then went for a liver biopsy which was negative. After consultation with other vets at Davis, my vet recommended: (1) a biopsy of the esophogeal tonsils - positive. (2) biopsies on the female boa and all pythons in my collection. The female also came back positive for inclusion cell. All of the pythons came back negative. Both boas were euthanized and I paid for additional necropsies which uncovered inclusion cells in the gall bladder and pacreas. I spent a small fortune in testing my animals. Here's the rub. I had not added a new animal in 11 months. None of the pythons or colubrids ever became sick. Here I sit almost 9 month removed from the ordeal and all of my snakes are healthy. So one of my boas (or possibly both) were asymptomatic carriers in excess of 5 years. After talking to vets and other people who have gone through this, this is not an uncommon occurrence............ Your turn........

Yep the purpose of a forum is infact to invite discution ..... thought when someone will judge me without even knowing anything about me and telling me i do stuff for $$$ or i'm a whore because i have morphs or toothpics it is not an invite to discution on any subject . Its just like if I would say ..... people that keep colubris are a bunch of whores .... Gays are sick ..... Blacks are a lower species etc.... etc.... all this is where it comes too ...do you understand ? Yep I do breed boas but i've also kept a ton of colubrids and some python species too and bred too even on a few generations "ncluding local reptiles" when I was younger , infact thats where I learned by myself most of the basics not only of care but breeding and its not only two three years ago that i'm in this hobby and you also will never see me bragging about it . See where it goes too ? Do you know how I learned about hibernation ? By diging a whole at age 7or 8 in the snow under my moms deck and putting 60-70 garter snakes in it and making sure that they were all covered by many inches of snow after trying one and seen that it was slowing down to eventually stop moving . All this because i've seen a documentary on tv in english and in my childs head didint get it right ... i found out around a hoit day in april or may that they where all dead because my mom gave me a bag of shit because there was something stinking under the deck .... it was the top of the pile that thawd and stinked because where it was the sun penetrated under the deck ..... Do you wanna know what I used to do when i was young with the local snakes I was breeding and returning the babies to their spot ? I was cutting part of their tails to be able to identify them in my spots the years after .... of course i was contient that when i saw many with missing tails that it could be an animal that predated on them or something like that but when you see a cpl of dozens in a summer there,s pretty good chances that some are from the tail cuts .... Do you wanna know how I used to find out what garters , milks and water snakes were eating when I was young ? Probably not but i'll tell you anyways .... I would make them regurge by pushing everything upwards so that I see what was in there ..... and no it was not harmfull and yes they would breed the next season or seasons ..... So do you know what view I have on people that would judge me on what i have or what i've done or what I dont have or didint done or say to me if the only thing I care is $$$ because i have morphs and the passion and ethics that I dont have ??? .... you dont wanna now ..... do you get what I mean ? ................ " worthless speach " and i'll put this on my " big whore breeders website " that I dont have under the " facility " which i also dont have .... for my friend D.Pogue on the other thread i"ve seen before writing this ..... So if you wanna discuss , share your views on something you are welcome .... but you have no right to judge me when you dont know me .... get what I mean ? Now if I was an ass**** that would represent stuff otherwise what they are or if I fuck people for $$$ or misslead anyone to make a $$$ ..... then go for it because then I'm a "whore with the a** streched as wide as possible " for a buck or two ...... I guess not much will be understood because of my english .... if there is anything just let me know and i'll try to explain it better . For the other parts of your message i'll start threads in english to speak about even if there is some in french already made so that people that are interested in : IBD , Inbreeding and other stuff can take part and it will be easier to understand and read with different individual topics .... ( give me some time I have a mac now and i'm slow computer learner .... ) I'll keep this one a bit briefer............ I'd love to refine any discussion on ethics and snake breeding. There is no black and white but alot of gray areas to explore and I am more than up for it. Are you? Unfortunately, I don't see that happening given your penchant for thinking that all of these discussions revolve around you personally. Something may be lost in translation here but I'm getting the feeling that you think that the discussions in the Revolution thread are singling you out. Unless I'm incredibly dense, I'm missing where you've been accused of anything. If you're getting a bit defensive about what's being said because it cuts a little close to home - well, I can't help you there. So I'm still game - but I got better things to do than have an internet screaming match with someone sitting a continent away. Tone it down, make your point and let's go to ethics. Convince me that breeding animals for aesthetics at the cost of preserving locality type and health is acceptable. Convince me that indiscriminate reptile sales for the sake of making a buck is good for anyone other than the breeder. However if all you're interested in doing is berating me for having the temerity to voice my opinions - we've got nothing to discuss. Regards, Craig

Heck - the whole purpose of any forum is to invite discussion. Whether we agree or disagree is moot. The point is to have a logical and (hopefully) educational discussion for all parties involved. Stav, I'm not going to address your long and impassioned post point by point - I'm not here to debate my view versus your view. But I will shed a little bit of light on why threads like "The Revolution" exist and become chaotic lightning rods for some of us. I've perused the Canadian Repitle forums, and I am a member of several American forums (including Fauna Classifieds ). While I strive to share my experiences or ask questions from people wiser than me, the focus in these forums has subtley shifted over the years. No, I am not a taxonomy snob and I certainly don't feel that my opinions should be accepted by all as Truth - because when it comes down to it - I'm a middle aged man who builds roads and bridges for a living not a biologist, herpetologist or even proctologist for that matter. My views account for nothing except to those who are interested in perspective........... But my persepctive is that many forums are heavily sponsored and influenced by breeders - and by default their ideals and their morals. Are all breeders bad? Lord no. But many breeders exist not to better the breed they propagate, but to line their wallets. There are some mighty fine examples of that ilk sponsoring these forums. The problem is that, in my opinion, ethics and husbandry have to go hand and hand or you are no better than a pimp. Is it wrong to sell (or buy for that matter) a color morph of a reptile? No. But it is wrong to inbreed animals to the point where genetic flaws and health issues become accepted as a sacrifice to an aesthetic ideal. Maybe you don't agree with me in that breeders should also have a moral obligation to ensure that their animals go to homes that can properly care for them. Let me pull my index finger out of my belly button at this point and use it instead for emphasis when I say that I have bred reptiles for money, but I have always been selective about what I sell to whom and have always insisted on right of first refusal. So when it became time to debate some of the big box breeders over their husbandry practices (keeping drys and pine snakes in cramped racks), breeding ethics (allowing for neurological issues in regius and morelia morphs because the colors were so damn pretty), or sales ethics (breeding giant constrictor color morphs or even hots and selling them to John Q. Public), their sponsorship of these forums led to the threads being locked down when they complained they were being attacked. These were not BOI-style dog piles but discussions in which some sticky areas of the Hobby were being discussed and it was outright stifled. Apparently, I was not alone in experiencing this as others in the Revolution thread will probably attest to. See Stav, education and logical debate was stifled because some of these breeders don't want any negative light shed on some of their practices. They appear to be afraid to get people thinking about the ethics of husbandry. They sponsor the sites so the threads were locked and the discussion stopped. Period. So the Revolution has become a place where we can vent where we were once edited, censored and silenced. I have been told for years that my subocs, cribos, flavirufas, mussuranas, pits etc. were worthless because they were not anery or axanthic or codom for bleeding ulcers or whatever the flavor of the month was. Herein lies the rub - when the overwhelming majority of people begin to equate an animal's worth with it's aesthetic appeal, we have a problem. If you disagree with that assertion, then you and I will never see eye to eye on this issue. Since the morph industry has placed an emphasis on this fundamentally wrong ideal, they are getting their fair share of hate on the Revolution thread. I shared this via PM with Mr. Pogue and I think it needs repeating. I have been into Australian pythons (aspidites and antaresia) for many years. The Aussies are fairly strict when it comes to classifying their womas and aspidites by locality. In the States, we carelessly called every antaresia a spotted for years - much to the harm of what we now recognize as the four distinct species. Even as we speak, people breeding womas are breeding them for color, wiping out years and years of locality evolution. We are breeding these animals for aesthetic reasons and willfully ignoring that stimsons, womas and blackheads have not only evolved as a species, but have evolved as distinct localities within those species. This Hobby, with alarming frequency, places more emphasis on producing the perfect colored woma rather than producing a woma true to it's locality type. In my very biased opinion, I find that obscene. I find it digusting and I find it indefensible. Do you really want what's being discussed in the Revolution thread spilling out into the boa and python forums here? I have no problem with that. My ego is not on the line here, Stav. I've been told for years I keep worthless (except for the couperi) reptiles. That recurring low opinion of my herpetological tastes hasn't fazed me yet. You breed boas - right? I would love to relate to you my experiences with asymptomatic IBD in my locality boa collection (5+ years). Do you think that a discussion that would include hearing about how some of my Country's foremost IBD researchers are fuming about how the boa community is ignoring this disease would be good for business? Or sharing some nasty e-mails I got from some well-respected boa breeders accusing me of hurting their sales? If so, my hat's off to you. If not, well, let's just say that maybe we are in agreement that the amorphous content of the Revolution thread may be a good thing after all. You asked who "we" were......well, I am just a guy with an opinion. If my opinion offends - debate me and try to change it. I promise I won't take any questioning of my morals and values personally. Regards, Craig

I've reformatted this string so that it reads from top to bottom. Enjoy. -----Original Message----- From: H*****n, Pete Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 1:29 PM To: P******, Craig Subject: Comanche Hey there, As I told you on the phone, I think I'm going to have to give Comanche back. He's been very aggressive and unmanagible. Can you give me a call this weekend to set something up? Thanks, Pete ----- Original Message ----- From: P******, Craig Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 4:54 PM To: H*****, Pete Subject: Re: Comanche Peter: I'll be around Saturday. I would encourage you to keep working with him, however. I think that with a little patience and time you can get him past this behavior. It is not uncommon for cribos to go through a little "adolescent phase" and get a bit sassy. My understanding is that he is striking at you when you try to remove him from his cage.........have you tried hooking him? It is very important for you to not let him get accustomed to intimidating you. Craig ----- Original Message ----- From: H*****n, Pete Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 8:16 AM To: P******, Craig Subject: Re: Comanche Craig, I've made up my mind and I'm not really up to working with him. He's striking the glass frint of the cage when I go near him. I have talked to other breeders and they are positive that his behavior is a result of me feeding him in his cage. Apparently this has made him agressive. I was able to move him to a feeding tub last week, but he bit me twice when I tried moving him back to his cage. He then struck at the glass many time until I finally left the room. I'm wondering that if you can pick him up as I am not really sure I can get him out of his cage. If uyou can do that, I'd be willing to let you keep half of the money I paid for him. P ----- Original Message ----- From: P******, Craig Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 4:31 PM To: H*****, Pete Subject: Re: Comanche Peter: A couple of things: (1) This business about him being aggressive because he was fed in his enclosure is hogwash.........who told you that? Did they seriously recommend that you feed him in a separate enclosure? Did you tell them what type of snake he was? (2) I have no problem picking him up. However, please re-read the contract that you signed when you purchased him. It clearly states that I have the right of first refusal. In short if you can't care for him, I get the first shot at him. I pay you half of the original purchase price if the snake is older than 12 months. This was also verbally explained to you at the time of purchase. So to be clear, his original purchase price was $400.00. He is older than a year. By your offer, I will pay you $100.00 to take him back. This represents the contractually agreed re-purchase price of $200.00 minus your offer for me to come pick him up. Please give me a call at (***) ***-**** at your earliest convenience so that we can set up a mutually acceptable time for me to come by. Craig

There have been calls for years here in the States for people to step up and do what's best for all involved. To close your eyes to the issues the Hobby has inflicted on itself is a recipe for self-destruction. The problem is that money talks. The breeders have been shrill in their demands to have the freedom to sell whatever the hell they want without fear of consequence. The big manufacturers and PIJAC quietly agree that the basis of the proposed legislation is legitimate but the selection of species is largely uninformed and potentially too severe. The problem arises when the manufacturers of reptile related products and PIJAC throw in the towel and don't openly call for compromise. Instead they fall in with the snake-mills and whip up the masses with efforts to halt the legislation. If PIJAC and the businessmen who deal in reptile supplies had joined forces with the educators, dedicated owners and the like, we'd probably be clear of this mess. The problem is that nuances are lost here on a lot of people - it's either complete freedom or piss off and die. A lot of time and effort has been spent on fighting this legislation and even more will be spent as the individual states follow the example of Connecticut. For a fraction of that time - a bargain -we could have hammered out the details for a workable permitting system, educated the legislators and cleaned up quite a bit of this mess we've found ourselves in.

Your post Duff was a very good one, but this part in particular interested me. Some people would in the future hope there will be a “Sharp strain Albino Yellow Tailed Cribo”, and they will be able to sell if for the price of a mid size luxury car. The hobby has gone to shit honestly. The majority kiss ass to the people that run the forums and support the “puppy mill” breeders why? They want to build a name for themselves. Be “well know” on a premier reptile website in the US or Canada and you are guaranteed to sell all your stock of deformities before they’ve even pipped out of the egg. At least that’s what they want you to think. When some dicksmoker from the suburbs that runs an arsewhole of a store is the overlord of the “Reptile Hobby” well for me then it’s time to forget this crap and just sit back and look at my pets, yes they are pets to me. Not some baby crapping money making machine. When I sit back and watch them it makes me feel happy, no joke “happy”. It’s not a male enhancer just an enjoyment of something natural sitting in front of me, my own little piece of wild in my living room. Jeremy Jeremy: Yes, Mr. Sharp is the newest dry fanatic. Sad, really, since he coined the term "investment quality". I used to breed black-tails but got out of it in sheer disgust. I used to make customers sign "a right of first refusal". Basically, if they could not care for the snake or got scared of it (don't laugh - it happens more than some may think with drys), I got the animal back. What I was seeing on an increasing basis was people buying these animals, nodding at my instructions and warnings, and then immeditely running to the forums to post pictures and accounts of their new "tough" snakes. Invariably,the accolades from the other 19 and 20 year olds on the forums will die down, and it hits them that they are now left with a shit-spraying machine with lacerating teeth and a large appetite. Getting hit by a ball python or a boa or a blood is nothing compared to a full grown dry in feeding mode, as most of the people reading this already know. So I got quite a few of them back - many in fairly crappy condition and many so neglected that it took months of handling and work to get them to the point where they regained their condition and got acclimated to routine tasks like cage cleaning and light handling. So when a big box breeder begins working with drys, it's my biased opinion that no good can come out of it. These are not animals for the casual keeper and the idea of selectively breeding drys for coloration and mutations is nauseating. At some point I will dig up some older e-mails from customers that did stupid things with their melanurus and frantically wrote me asking for help - the idiot who tried to feed his cribo in a separate feeding bin comes immediately to mind....

I am a full supporter of a strict permitting system for various species of reptiles. People who can properly afford to house and provide for their animals would have nothing to fear. I find it curious that some of the biggest names in reptile breeding are against a permitting system. You'd think that these reptile experts would have a vested interest in making sure that these animals went to responsible owners.

My old man once told me that in Vietnam, in one engagement near the Laotian border, his CO had to call in a "broken arrow". Basically, what it meant was that their positions were so overrun by North Vietnamese that the only way they could win the fight was to call airstrikes in on their own positions Well, here we sit on the eve of some serious draconian legislation coming down the pipe, HR669 to be exact: an open-ended bitch-slap of an answer to a question our little community sneered at answering for years....a broken-arrow of our own. In the last few weeks, the State of Connecticut outlawed most opistoglyphs and dendrobates (along with rhinos, hippos and face eating chimps) - but keep your chins up ladies: it was posted on a well-known forum that no big name breeders of investment quality snakes are located in Connecticut - whew! However, other States will also follow suit, with or without the passage of the looming federal bill. I remember a time (not so long ago) when the reptile community was not crawling with scammers and money-whores. When the emphasis was on the snakes and education, not the dollar signs. I'm not too old to remember those Norman Rockwell-esque days - and I clearly remember not being worried about one of my neighbors coming home with an albino monocled cobra or a hideous reticulated python morph. Let's take a trip in my time machine to the present, where large varanids, hots and giant pythons have becomed the phallus-enhancers of the reptile world. Feeling a bit insignificant? Well, a large, dangerous exotic reptile will cure that........want to be different and mysterious? I have a nile monitor (along with free leash and harness) that you'll love! Yes, for a quite a few years now, the reptile community has been more concerned with money than with enacting some sort of permit system or self-regulating body that would put some accountability into the "hobby". As a result, any inbred piece of trailer trash can can get on the phone and order himself up a large python or boa with no questions asked. The result? Well, aside from burmese pythons, boa constrictors and nile monitors roaming Florida and eating pet cats, the press has started to notice these people getting killed and injured by their pets. Gaboon viper bites, reticulated pythons attacking toddlers - oh my............ Then there's the whole issue of the well-being of the animals.......how they are abandoned, mistreated and how many go to people without the first idea on how to care for them? How many forums have you seen where these people pop up, run up about 500 posts in a month, grow their collection and then *poof* disappear? While these may be encouraging trends to those who supply the morons with their animals, the rest of us have been rightly concerned. So while cooler heads have been calling for a permit system, meeting with legislators to positively identify the issues and some sort of self-regulation, the big box breeders and their fan boys have been screaming about how the goverment has no right to regulate their hobby, and how the Feds can pry their reptiles out of their cold dead hands.......as a result, the responsible owners have been thrown in with the babbling rabble. Well you jackasses, the crows have come home to roost - and by God if they aren't wearing Brooks Brother's suits and madly writing penal codes to go with their new laws. You never did figure out that the Constitution does not afford you the right to do whatever the hell you want. Your decades of irresponsibility are coming to an end and all of us are going to suffer for it. It's our own "broken arrow" - a series of devastating strikes that are either going to kill us all, or leave the good guys just a bit injured - but able to regroup and rebuild. The big names in reptile breeding are furiously rounding up their sheeple - writing letters and urging them forward into the fight. Yes, fighting so that they can continue to sell their overpriced, inbreed freaks of the animal world without any responsibility whatsoever. I have no reservations whatsover with obtaining the permits required to keep my snakes. I hope the goverment ends up slapping the most stringent of permits on the ownership of large varanids, true hots and large constrictors. I misplaced my faith a long time ago when I saw a *ahem* well "respected" breeder and author pimping retics as a good pet............and that faith went missing when I saw that genetically flawed reptiles were commanding steeper and steeper prices. I finally found my faith, dead and rotting when I saw that one of these snake "puppy" mills was getting into drymarchon..... April 23 is only a few days away - stay tuned.

All those what-ifs are bad for business you mean old fart. Everyone knows that the joy of snake ownership is directly proportional to the amount of money spent on the animal. Any dumb red-neck with a strategically placed piece of siding and a snake hook can go out and get himself an inferior pituophis, masticophis, drymobius, thamnophis, lampropeltis, pantherophis, elaphe, coluber, blah, blah, blah. And what's so cool about those snakes? They are always pooping and biting and hissing and tail rattling. $1200 for a dry that will paint the walls of a giant cage with liquid death twice a week? Ha! You can get a ghost titanium super epileptic bee het for kinked spine ball for that......... Superior animals shit once a week, go on extended fasts for no good reason and curl into a little ball when confronted by anything faintly menacing. If the community in general were to take the time to revel in the beauty of what lives in their own backyards, many of these hacks would be forced to go back to selling car stereos at Wal-Mart. PS - I have to admit, the bald pie morph sounds - er -exciting. PPS - My bad - it was pie bald.

Dear Expert Snake-Breeder: I recently hatched out a clutch of drymobius margaritiferus. One of the neonates is an obvious axanthic. Even though this mutation completely ruins the normal beauty of this species I am ecstatic! He also has extreme skeletal deformities and a spastic cloaca. Instead of having a forked tongue, it is shaped like a trident and cannot be retracted into his mouth. He also has only one tooth - a molar growing through his bottom lip and out of his chin and has two wandering eyes. I have a two part question: What should I call this wonderful new morph and how much should I ask for his offspring? Signed "Jeffy"

The choice to allow bad advice in the name of not scaring away potential customers is a fully conscious one. The choice to rid these forums of people who call them on this crap is an equally deliberate one. Very well said. As a person who is really interested in learning more about snakes in particular, but all reptiles in general, I get tired of reading endless junk about "market value" and "where to buy stuff", but thats what its all about some places. I want to read about real reptiles, not the current prices of man made mutants. If you dare to question or heaven forbid "mock" one of the "experts" who spend all day on those sites promoting their tacky "businesses", you get threatened with a "permanent ban" (me) or maybe you have your password changed without your knowledge.......or maybe you get put into a "can't post, just read" category because your views are considered too dangerous, or in my case "funny" LOL . I myself count the least in the mix because I am not intersted in "buying" loads of snakes, or even breeding them myself. I just like to learn more about the reptiles I love. Apparently no one is permitted to say anything about anything, anywhere on the internet, without first agreeing to agree all the time with the shifty characters who profit from the reptile equivalent of Multi Level Marketing. I bet if we all moved to Japan and started posting our comments on a Japanese site (in Japanese, too!)"someone" would still follow us there to try and control the message or the viewpoint. Whats so dangerous about appreciating nature and disliking the morph mania that some of us think is ruining the hobby? I guess everybody's entitled to an opinion until it challenges the satus quo. steven PS "asinine avatar" PPS "Hey, Morph-Man!! Lookin' good with those gold teeth, Dude er, I mean "Bro" I've never had a password changed, but I have had the "v-chip" slapped on me (all posts held until reviewed by a Moderator) and I've been the target of Moderators locking threads in which I was questioning the common "dogma" of a site. There is one forum in particular, where a Moderator very openly threw down with me on an issue he should have been very knowledgeable on, but sadly, was not. While I was trying my best to politely debate his points, he kept getting in little jabs and cheap shots. His infantile behavior didn't bother me - I've come to expect it from people who close their minds to learning and expanding horizons - be it life or herps. After all, no one is harder to reach than someone who is so convinced he's right that he cannot tolerate the possibility he may be wrong. What bothered me more is that it was an issue that he should have been behind, an issue where he and I should have been on the same page. Unfortunately, having people educated on this issue may have hurt his business - and damned if he was going to allow that. I have been in this hobby for the greater part of twenty five years and there is so much I don't know. I always appreciate an alternative outlook or hearing about a successful approach to something that differs from mine. Having these forums sponsored by mass-producing snake mills and moderated by fan-boys of said mills is akin to having Anheuser-Busch sponsor a sobriety clinic with Liza Minelli, Ted Kennedy, Dean Martin and Hunter S. Thompson as the counselors.

I'm going to come out of the closet.......... ..........so to speak. I, I, er, I , um currently own a few color morphs of my own. On the preceding pages, I posted pictures of my pseudelaphe flavirufa. I noticed that all of you were polite enough to not scream "Anery" at the top of your lungs and run screaming from the building. I also own a ball python morph - a black pastel to be exact....and there's a good reason for it. My children love the snakes, but get frustrated not being able to hold a 6' long drymarchon, or one of my opistoglyphs. The aspidites can be a bit intimidating to a smaller child, and the antaresia can be a bit nippy. The subocellatus are also temperamental buggers and the red ackies have the sense to hide when they hear the pitter patter of little feet. So about a year and a half ago, I built a cage for an acquaintance of mine who breeds, among other things, ball python morphs. I built the cage for free but he insisted on paying me. Having heard my kids bitch about how they don't have a snake of their own - he paid me with a leftover black pastel male. It doesn't reside in the snake house in our back yard, it hangs with my son in his room. Now I could take the coward's way out and claim that it's not my snake - but truth be told, I feed it, clean it's cage, etc. My son and daughter hold him from time to time, and my daughter reads to him. But facts are facts - I own him. There. That feels alot better. I freely own up to the fact that I own one ball python morph - just don't make me post any pictures of him here.

They really should do something about that. Remove the conflict, fine but clean up the bad advice too. That's what makes people frustrated and irritable. Jeremy When you look at some of these forums as purposefully contrived advertisements for paying vendors/breeders, you see why they care little about bad advice and more about cyber-arguments. The claimed emphasis is on providing "advice" in a "welcoming" and "open" atmosphere. It's all about "helping" people new to the hobby. The stress is firmly placed on introducing and pimping new morphs. However, is it really helpful to point some kid with a part-time job at Best Buy towards purchasing a $250 cage and a $120 thermostat all to house a $500.00 inbred snake with neurological and skeletal defects? Or is it more helpful to provide a counterpoint to the conventional wisdom with real experience? You and I know the answer - and frankly so do the moderators of the "other" sites. The problem is that their interests lie heavily into generating business for their paid advertisers. The choice to allow bad advice in the name of not scaring away potential customers is a fully conscious one. The choice to rid these forums of people who call them on this crap is an equally deliberate one.