Question about selling etiquette..

[kimhotep]

A question for Rich & other breeders about selling corns - if someday I have some hatchlings to sell, for instance on kingsnake.com classifieds or somewhere, would it be bad manners to list the parents' heritage by breeder, as in:

" '03 Purple Motley hatchlings for sale, mother is '99 Serpenco, father is '01 Love, blah blah blah "

Is that a useful way to provide information, or is that bad manners, & seen as trying to trade on the good name of established breeders?

If people care about genetic diversity when choosing snakes to pair, wouldn't it be useful to list the source of the snakes when possible, whether from a big or small-scale breeder, or is it kind of exploitative?

(It can't be easy being a breeder...every snake you sell means you're competing against your own work, because people can buy & then breed them...I guess the only way to stay ahead is through new projects...?)

-Kimhotep who only has one corn, so unless he decides to split like an amoeba or possibly have a sex change AND immaculate conception, there ain't gonna be no babies!

[Gregg]

I'm not Rich. I'm not even a breeder, but I'll give you my opinion.

I think it is a good idea to let buyers know the history and origin of your breeder snakes, because I believe one should never forget "their source". Otherwise, the implication is that you are the source, when you are not. I think, the way you have listed the source for your breeders in your example is perfectly all right. I see it as being respectful, not abusive. Like myself, the snakes you have were probably bought from Kathy or Rich, for the most part. It's what you do with them after they've become yours that will show others your talent, or lack of talent, right?

If I ever have little ones myself to pass on to other snake lovers, I too, plan on letting them know the background of the ones they buy. Of course, there are some morphs of corn snakes that need no introduction, such as: Hypo-Okeetees, Charcoals, Amelanistic Motleys, Lavenders, and the Caramel off-spring--to name a few. Most people already know who gets the credit for the very first of these. You and I will get into trouble only when we try to tell the world that we were the first to create a new morph, when all we've done is create a variant on an already existing morph.

[Clint Boyer]

Once you've crossed one line with another it becomes 'yours'.

I can't speak for anyone else but in my opinion, I would only refer to the use of others lines to the individual correspondence about the sale of the animals. I would not, for example, put up an add saying: SerpenCo X Loves for sale. I don't think I'd even use other breeders names in the body of the add.
I'm sure Kathy, Rich and Don are used to seeing their names tossed around and probably don't pay much attention to it. It may even help them out in a round about way. BUT, it is their business name and to be used at their discretion.

You are right about selling animals that will compete with you later down the road. When I, or anyone else buy pairs of animals, the breeder surely knows they are for breeding projects. But, what's a guy to do? If I have a new project, I try to be discrete about selling the offspring. I know some breeders keep back eveything for several years on specialty projects. If you are the first in a project, you'll always have the upper hand on improvements. Then again, someone buying from the big breeders just might get lucky and end up with something better then anything the big breeder has. I have been pretty lucky in those situations! ;)

[Darin Chappell]

If I am selling amels, aneries, snows, etc, I don't bother with that type of thing because that is not what people purchasing those animals are looking for. However, If I am selling hypo-bloodreds that are originally from Rich, I WILL advertise those as "Serpenco Line." I believe that this is proper to do for a variety of reasons.

First, it provides a point of reference for how those snakes ought to look to the buyer. We all know of Rich's (Don and/or Kathy could easily go here too) quality, and we all know what we expect when we get something from him. If I am breeding animals that came from him, I will be producing the same thing, and it is fair and honest to advertise that fact.

Second, it allows the buyer to look for bloodlines that are familiar but different from other bloodlines he/she may already have. True, if you buy lavendars, they are all related in some way, but if you get one from Rich, one from me, and one from Kathy, you will not likely get them too closely related.

Third, I believe (perhaps wrongly) that this is one of the benefits of me buying from Rich, Don, or Kathy. As a smaller breeder, I have invested quite a bit of money into my breeding stock. I want quality to be the standard for my animals in every instance. So, I paid more to some of the larger breeders for the priviledge of having their animals AND the name from which they came. If I bought a Picaso, I don't scratch his name out of the painting and scribble my own on there just because I bought it. I am buying the picture, but I am also buying the name attached to it. The name is part of the value of the product.

I am not sure if I would advertise snakes as a Love x Serpenco cross, but I would certainly offer that information if anyone asked. I just believe that it is fine and honest to advertise animals as "South Mountain line" if that is what they truly are.

[Logic-68Squares]

well I think Rich has done the same thing. He tells us where he got his original stock from in his description of each morph in his price list. Even though I dont know who those guys are but I guess u old school Herpers would know better then me. ;)

[kimhotep]

Thanks very much everyone...

I've enjoyed the food for thought you've all provided in your responses, & sometimes I feel, as a newer participant, that learning the attitudes & etiquette of the herp community is almost as interesting/important as learning about the snakes ;)

-Kimhotep

[Rich Z]

This is an interesting discussion, and one that can certainly develop into interesting sidelines.

Personally, I don't see the harm of someone using the source of the breeders when talking about the offspring. Or saying that both parents are from a particular breeder's stock. The gray area might be to determine at what point they are the originator's stock and when they become YOUR stock.

But what about when someone buys offspring from a well known breeder and then offers them for resale, apparently inferring that they are a product of their own efforts? Kind of looking at this situation from a different angle.....

[Gregg]

In bonsai, we have had somewhat the same discussion. If I raise a tree from a seed, graft, cutting, or I have collected it from the wild, and grow it into a beautiful bonsai over ten to forty years, then you could say that the bonsai you see is my creation. But what if I was to buy that beautiful bonsai? Is it mine? On one hand, yes. I bought it. On the other hand, no--it's not my work, but the work of another--or a series of other owners. At what point after buying that bonsai--assuming that I am the one who will do the subsequent work maintaining it--can I say that it is truely mine? One season? Two seasons? More than five seasons? Or must I always refer to it's previous owner, or owners, before pointing out what I did to change it?

Getting back to corn snakes: If I have 1.1 Silver Queen Ghosts--and I do--and I breed them together, then I'm producing a continuation of a SerpenCo line. Personally, I feel that any off-spring from this union Should be sold as Silver Queen Ghosts, since I would be trying to sell descendants from Rich Zuchowski's line. Now: If I have a 1.0 Normal, Het for Ghost/Het for Lavender from Kathy Love and I have another 0.1 Silver Queen Ghost from Rich Zuchowski--both of which I have--and I breed them together, then the resulting off-spring would be something that I created myself using their stock, since it was my idea (albeit probably not an original one) in considering that cross. It would simply be an additional niceness on my part to mention the fact to potential buyers that one came from Kathy and the other from Rich. What I couldn't/shouldn't try to do is pass off any possible ghost off-spring as Silver Queen Ghosts, if I were to get any ghosts. In my book, that would be dead wrong.

Of course, the gray area is a very thin line sometimes (not to say that the following is a good example). What if I was able to create a successful pair of Lavender/Ghost/Motleys from my own stock? Altough my stock may be largely made up of Kathy's and Rich's babies that I bought. Can I call them MY Creations? I think the answer is YES, if I don't try to take credit for being the first person to have created such a critter. Everyone who knows anything at all about snakes would know that I wasn't the first to uncover the Ghost, Lavender, Motley morphs in other snakes, or corns--and, if Ghost/Lavender/Motley corns existed before my publicly offering them, then everyone would know that I wasn't the creator of the compound-morph. I could, nevertheless, claim my Ghost/Lavender/Motleys as my line of Ghost/Lavender/Motleys.

[Clint Boyer]

Even though my snakes are from SerpenCo stock, once I mate them, incubate the eggs and care for young, they become my line. The originating stock is, of course,the fruits of Rich's labors and deserving of the credit, but, all that I have done is to my credit (or discredit). I'm sure Rich would not want scrawny, misshapen, poorly displayed snakes advertised as SerpenCo snakes. Those snakes are my line of snakes with SerpenCo parents. If Rich produced them, they are his line. I'm sure he could also trace his stock back to other breeders or to wild caught, or even pet store snakes!

Selling someone elses snakes without identifying them as such is another issue. I think this is a subject that each individual will feel differently about. There are companies out there like LLL that make a business of buying and reselling. There is usually not much question about whether they produced them or not. Personally, I would feel it's 'almost' misrepresentation for a breeder to resell others snakes without identification. A banner at a table that reads "Joe Shmoe, corn snake breeder" would surely lead me to believe he was the one that bred the snakes. "Joe Shmoe, corn snake breeder and broker" would at least give me a clue that all of the snakes on his table may not be produced by him. Now, if Joe used the first banner and didn't elaborate about buying someone elses surplus and just kept his mouth shut, I'd feel a bit put out if I found out later (especially if Joe were one of the premier breeders). But, as I stated, this is just my opinion. Someone who does this for a living may see it in a different light.

[Rich Z]

Clint brings up an interesting point.

I'm trying to think back to the last time I had bought a pair of snakes from anyone and bred them together to produce offspring. I know I bought a pair of Sunkist's from Kathy at one of the Mid Atlantic Shows, maybe in '96 or '97, but I have NEVER bred them together. Darn, I know I've gotten a few snakes here and there from various people, but the last time I can remember actually breeding animals together obtained from someone else has to be in the mid '80s when I bought baby Blood Reds from Bill Love and grew them up to breed. At least as far as corn snakes are concerned.

I tend to buy animals for breeding stock, but it is to work into my present blood lines for one reason or another. I bought a few animals this year, some of them pairs, but they will not be bred together.

As for the Blood Reds many moons ago, I believe I told anyone interested where I got the adults from. Since Bill was about the only one selling them back then, it would have been hard NOT to tell someone. In most cases, I would think this would be a courtesy in case the purchaser wanted to get another pair or two and wanted to get some that were not directly closely related.

[Mare]

the term "Silver Queen Ghosts".

Is this a special Serpenco only copywrited morph or is this an accepted name for a particular morph? I am a little cornfused LOL!

[Rich Z]

The Silver Queen Ghosts are a particular line of Ghosts that came out of a line of Miami Phase corns. The original animal was one of my founder stock animals that I got back in the late '70s. From this same line came a line of Hypo that I refer to internally as the 'Scarlet' hypos. Also got an unusual amelanistic that gave me the more frosted look Candy Canes. And besides that, I believe the Copperhead looking corns came from that line as well.

I started calling them Silver Queens as an internal reference just so I could identify them when I worked with them in breeding projects. They tend to lack the typical yellow wash that many Ghosts will get, but it's not 100 percent predictable. Of course, there is as much variation in these as there are in all of the cultivars of corns, but the offspring are relatively predictable in appearance.

I felt that I was justified in calling them by a unique name to identify them from the regular Ghosts. Such logic is as valid as applying the name Amelanistic Okeetee or Candy Cane to lines of Amelanistic Corns, I believe. I have also started referring to my line of Ghosts that typically get the pink colored blotches by the original name of the stock I got from Marvin Foulkes: Pastel Ghosts.

I did breed a Silver Queen to a regular Ghost and got all Ghosts, but none of them had the 'Silver Queen' look about them. This indicated to me that it is regular type 'A' Anerythrism and Hypomelanism (which one?) that composes the genetic makeup of the Silver Queen. But there might be another influence that gives them the look that they have. At this point, I am not claiming that there is a new gene involved at all. But the babies coming from this line are pretty consistent in how they appear, with the usual minor variations.

As years go by, I expect there to be many variations in all of the now existing cultivars that will eventually bear their own labels to try to identify them. As well, I expect that eventually variations in the Silver Queens themselves will spawn even more new labels. There will probably never be an end to this process.

Hope this explained the Silver Queens somewhat. Did I leave this all out of my text description on my SerpenCo page?

[Mare]

Originally posted by Rich Z

Hope this explained the Silver Queens somewhat. Did I leave this all out of my text description on my SerpenCo page?

Actually, no, your text description and your answer here pretty much say a lot of the same things, all of which are pretty interesting. I admire the stick-tuitness that is required to work on a long term project such as this.

What I was trying to ask and perhaps didn't get across effectively was whether or not the term "Silver Queen Ghost" applied to only animals you are producing out of your program or has it become an accepted (by the great powers of snakedom lol) name applied to Ghosts with a particular look. In your explanation, you likened the SQG to Pastels. The term Pastel has become more and more widely used to describe (sometimes inaccurately) certain types of ghosts.

Thanks!

[Rich Z]

Although I have never seen anyone else produce Ghosts that look (to me anyway) like most of my Silver Queens, I suppose it's not impossible to have happen. I don't believe we are at the point where we can realistically copyright a name as applied to a certain look of corn snake.

Heck, I see people labeling Amelanistics corns as Candy Canes at nearly every show I attend which would take a REAL LONG stretch of the imagination to be calling them as such. I guess it is up to the buyer to make the determination of whether the name applies to the animal they are considering purchasing.

Basically my attitude about it is if you can't tell the difference, then don't spring for the extra money for them. Not everyone sees colors the same as everyone else. Even discriminating between shades of gray can be difficult for some people. Don't pay for details that you can't see.

As a for instance, I have seen people holding up Durango Mountain King Snakes, oohing and aahing about the nice green background color. I'll be darned if I could see any green in them. So I certainly wouldn't pay extra (when I was into those critters) for a green one compared to a regular one.

BTW Mare, I just pulled your phone message off of the answering machine. I'm only now getting caught up on stuff after getting back from Orlando. Yes, I have a yearling male Snow still available. You can email me about it if you are still interested.

Thanks.