Culling 'side product' hatchlings

Vinman said:

:sobstory: :sobstory: this is going nowhere I think the point was made posts ago . You aint gona change a animal rights activeist mind untill the world as we know it crumbles and it is every person fo themselfs and watch them kill animals to live. Or put them is a place that they wiil kill anything to surive, what will they kill to eat. This world is not fair get over it some are lucky and some are not and you cant change it.

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This world may not be fair, but we have the intelligence to try to be as fair as possible.

Chris; I do not see breeding hybrids as a scientifically needed project.

Dean; the breeding hybrids/specific morphs/colors and killing pure looking and/or redundant ones was the case the whole discussion started with About the ethics of breeding in general; at least keep the offspring alive so the burden of breeding has not been in vain almost completely... the goal of reproducing is bringing offspring in the world, respect that part of nature with letting it live if it can have a decent life.

tyflier said:

Blutengel--

I don't think Carol's response was directly aimed at you, or intended to "dissuade" you in any way. I think it was merely a clarification on her part, and an attempt to shed more light on the decision-making process.

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Exactly. I was just explaining some shades of grey from my perspective.

Blutengel said:

Would you make these pairings if you had to put the hatchlings down?

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I'm not sure what you mean by that but I can tell you that I would breed corns less if I did not breed kings. I simply could not cull a healthy, eating hatchling and throw in in the garbage.

carol said:

Exactly. I was just explaining some shades of grey from my perspective.


I'm not sure what you mean by that but I can tell you that I would breed corns less if I did not breed kings. I simply could not cull a healthy, eating hatchling and throw in in the garbage.

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Ok, got that.

So in a way you do make it easier for your self to do something you actually feel wrong about, by feeding them to the kings... you do not do it for the kings' benefit. That is the thin line Eremita talked about.

Blutengel said:

Dean; the breeding hybrids/specific morphs/colors and killing pure looking and/or redundant ones was the case the whole discussion started with

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Roll your virtual "eyes" all you want, Barbara. I still believe that humane culling is ok, whether I like it or not. I refuse to judge in situations where I have not yet had to judge...

Blutengel said:

About the ethics of breeding in general; at least keep the offspring alive so the burden of breeding has not been in vain almost completely... the goal of reproducing is bringing offspring in the world, respect that part of nature with letting it live if it can have a decent life.

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What burden of breeding? If I'm willing to kill my breeding female for my narrow goals, you should be excused for having somewhat broader goals? You've bred females. Why did you put them at such FATAL risk?

Blutengel said:

Ok, got that.

So in a way you do make it easier for your self to do something you actually feel wrong about, by feeding them to the kings... you do not do it for the kings' benefit. That is the thin line Eremita talked about.

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I do it for both.

Just one thing to think about How many have times any of you whether you bought it or caught or raised it . Thrown away good food as whole chicken. whole fish, rabbit cause it went bad or defrosted or prekilled a too many rodents to feed to all your herps in your collection or forgot to feed it to your Herp. Same thing right killed for nothing . You can eat vermin and insects and bugs why kill it when you can catch it live and realease it. so what if the whole town has so many rat that we get another plague. Move and let the rats have the town. Kill those rats and not eat them, that is just not right We humans can move away not the poor rat.

Blutengel said:

So in a way you do make it easier for your self to do something you actually feel wrong about, by feeding them to the kings... you do not do it for the kings' benefit. That is the thin line Eremita talked about.

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So does that mean that when I purposely breed more fancy mice than I intend on keeping because I know I will be able to use them as food that I'm just trying to make breeding mice easier for myself and I'm not doing it for the corn's benefit? I'm sorry that just doesn't make sense to me.

You can raise animals for BOTH purposes.

Blutengel wrote:

Chris; I do not see breeding hybrids as a scientifically needed project.

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I do not see value in LOTS of scientifically beneficial projects...doesn't make them any less needed or beneficial.

Up until recently, it was believed that different species of the same genera couldn't interbreed. This was only proven false through inter-species hybridization. So while you, personally, may feel fine with the progression that has taken place so far in herpetoculture, others may not.

I wonder how many poeple told Dr. Bechtel that there simply was no point in trying to prove the recessive relationships of the amel gene in cornsnakes, and, if he had listened to them, where would we be today int his culture?

The bottom line is this...progression requires effort, effort requires experimentation, and experimentation requires failure before success. I think it is a tremendous DISSERVICE to the art and science of herpetoculture to rely on what we already know, and allow the practice to become dormant without making every effort to advance it through trials, errors, and yes...hybridizations. Imagine if breeders that came before us (Think Kathy Love, Dr. Bechtel, Don Soderberg, and our own Rich Zuchowski) relied only on what was already known, and were afraid to experiment and discover something new through trial and error, and "I wonder what happens if I..." questions, where we would be. Just think about it for a moment...

The care and breeding of captive reptiles is VERY YOUNG and in it's infantile stages as regards what we know to be true and what we expect to be true. If everyone took the opinion that "it isn't necessary to experiment", this art and culture that we all know and love WILL stagnate and die, leaving all of us wondering what happened, and why it became so boring and commonplace.

Quite simply...nobody is telling you that you MUST experiment and you MUST cull any offspring for any reason. No one here is trying to change how you feel about the culling of animals(for whatever reasons), and how you feel about hybrids. But you are, quite simply, trying to either change OUR opinions or at least make us feel guilty for what we decide to do. That's not fair. All we ask is the same respect in return.

I personally feel that it is morally and ethically MUCH MORE WRONG to NOT experiment and find new answers to old questions, and yes...even new questions...even at the expense of a few lives...in the pursuit of real knowledge and true advancement to the art of herpetoculture. Not at "any cost"...but at some cost, to be sure...

tyflier said:

Quite simply...nobody is telling you that you MUST experiment and you MUST cull any offspring for any reason. No one here is trying to change how you feel about the culling of animals(for whatever reasons), and how you feel about hybrids. But you are, quite simply, trying to either change OUR opinions or at least make us feel guilty for what we decide to do. That's not fair. All we ask is the same respect in return.

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This is how this discussion is making me feel, that some people are trying to make others feel guilty, and not respecting that there are different ethical and moral standpoints that are equally valid to the people who believe different things.
:-offtopic seems to resemble some co-habitation discussions to me

diamondlil said:

This is how this discussion is making me feel, that some people are trying to make others feel guilty, and not respecting that there are different ethical and moral standpoints that are equally valid to the people who believe different things.
:-offtopic seems to resemble some co-habitation discussions to me

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Well...I'm just glad I am not the only one starting to feel that way.

It seems like the more I try to justify my feelings, the more justifying I need to do, and that doesn't seem fair, to me...

tyflier said:

I completely understand what you're saying.

Let's define this statement though, because I feel there are more "lines" than one, and the definition is important:



What am I trying to create, and what is the definition of "best"? I think those are important distinctions that should be made. Am I creating an entirely new hybrid with the hopes that the offspring will be desireable and saleable, such as my above reposne to Blutengel? Am I breeding an existing morph just so I can have a couple for myself? Am I line-breeding for a "locality look"? Am I breeding a known hybrid and culling only pure-looking offspring?

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Ahh...no. Those distinctions fall under why you are doing it in the first place, not the details of how you attempt to fulfill that purpose. You could just as well want to keep all of the poorest feeders as beloved pets and kill all the others, the determination from an ethical standpoint is the same.

tyflier said:

To be honest...if I am breeding hybrids, than I feel that there does need to be some sort of control over which animals are sellable to the general public, and this criteria *should* use appearance and physical traits as an impacting factor. Also...if I am attempting to put together a NEW hybrid that has never been seen(again, reference my above reply), and the idea is to produce desireable offspring, but the offspring are not sellable for whatever reason, than the justification is in the question...I am seeking the answer to a genetics equation, and the answer may not be what was expected...it's a justifiable loss...once.

But if I am line-breeding Okeetees, I need to be sure I have an outlet for the "lesser" offspring such as a pet store or pet keeper. If I am breeding for a specific morph, I need to be sure that I have an outlet for the offspring that I don't want to keep for myself, or I am being irresponsible.

In other words, the only time I can "condone" the culling of healthy animals is for food, or to protect pureblood from being "polluted" from pure-looking hybrids. I DO believe that culling of pure-looking hybrid offspring is ONE possible solution to the ethical question of hybrids. I am sure there are others, and should I decide to ever breed hybrids, I will certainly TRY to find a different way to deal with pure-looking offspring. However, I do believe it is better to cull pure-looking offspring than it is to allow them to be sold and possibly be bred as purebloods in the future. It is the lesser of two evils, in this instance, and my opinion. Is there a better way to protect the bloodlines? Possibly...but I can't come up with one off the top of my head.

You may wonder how I differentiate these examples, and I will try to explain.

If I am breeding for a specific morph, or I am line-breeding for a specific look, there is no doubt BEFORE BREEDING BEGINS that I will DEFINITELY produce offspring that will not look exactly as I want them to. It is also GUARANTEED that I will produce more offspring than I am capable of keeping for myself. Responsibility dictates that I have an outlet for those offspring(NOT culling), before I begin breeding.

If I am breeding hybrids...even known hybrids...there is only a small CHANCE that I will produce pure-looking offspring, and it is a slim chance at that. Should the pairing produce 1 or 2 pure looking offspring, through no fault of my own, I feel that culling those are a responsible action to protect the bloodlines from possibly being contaminated either through ignorance or dishonesty.

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Your ethics are not coherent to me if you say that some creature who is healthy and not harming other creatures should get the axe more than another. What you are speaking of is eugenics through killing, and the debate on such topics is extensive and goes back a long way. Recently, it was a big deal in WWII.

tyflier said:

Now, you may say, "Than simply don't breed hybrids, and you don't have that chance.", and I agree with you. But hybrids are a viable market, a desireable product, and viable animals. I see no reason why they should be "shunned" because they are unnatural, and I see no reason why the possibility of a very small percentage of the offspring being culled should prevent me from breeding them, just as I don't allow the chance of unhealthy offspring prevent me from breeding purebloods.

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I may, but I wouldn't. My own take on hybrids, which I submitted before you arrived and hence do not expect you to know (even though it was itself in a very heated topic which I'm sure you would have loved), is more aligned with JoeJr's. But the fact is that you can make an ethical choice at every point along the line. If you cannot handle the upkeep of undesirables, whether they are hybrids or normals, then your choice was unethical. Actually, I do not see the ethical problem with selling normal-looking hybrids. I see ethical problems with lying about them, and I see other kinds of problems for the industry with the genes getting completely mixed, but I will not be arguing any about ethical considerations with selling a snake, whatever it's genes may be. I just don't see them (viability questions notwithstanding).

-Sean

Sean--

You'r entire last post is based on interpretation, not definition.

What the goals of the breeding project are is instrumental as to how any necessary culling would be handled, and which animals would be culled and which wouldn't. Therefore, the ethics behind which animals to cull and which to allow to live is absolutely dependant upon the animals that are being bred. Their will be different decisions made, dependant entirely upon the expected outcome of the breeding and the intended goals of the project...both decisions that must be amde before proceeding with the breeding.

Unfortunately, the ONLY way, that I am aware of, to prevent misrepresentation in the future of pure-looking hybrids is to not allow them to enter the market at all. That is the only way to guarantee NO future breeding as pure or misrepresentative sales from ever happening.

The ethics of culling hybrids that look pure are very well defined by the goal of the culling. The sole reason to cull these animals is to prevent pollution of the bloodlines and unscrupulous sales. Therefore, the reason BEHIND the culling is righteous, not selfish, which makes the action ethical, by definition.

You can't have it both ways...if killing mice to feed your snakes is ethical because the mice were bred for food, than killing pure-looking hybrids because the snakes were bred to produce non-pure-looking hybrids should also be considered ethical.

Now...I KNOW that you are not going to agree with that statement...and that's OK. You don't have to. In fact...I'm not even asking you to.

You are asking me to clarify my position, and I feel that my position has been made quite clear throughout, from the beginning of the topic. My position is that frankly...so long as the animals don't suffer, cull however you see fit, and feel comfortable with. IMO...that is the sum and substance of the conversation. It seems to me that the last few pages have taken a turn from debating reasons why one would cull, to trying to convince some of us that we are wrong. Quite simply, there is NO right or wrong answer to the question, as is the case in MOST ethical situations. What I feel morally and ethically comfortable with will most likely be different than what you do...and that's OK...or at least it *should* be ok.

I shouldn't be made to feel guilty or wrong for my opinion on the matter, and I certainly shouldn't have to answer question after question regarding my ethical stand on the issue, when my position hasn't changed since page one.

And to compare what I decide to cull from my own hatchlings with the eugenics of the WWII era is simply ridiculous. I am not talking about killing all animals but one species, or trying to purify a species by killing anything that doesn't fit a quintessential look. I am talking about the difference between controllable outcomes and uncontrollable outcomes of breeding programs, and what to do with the results.

The difference between killing animals in a clutch of morphs that do not fit the morph and killing pure-looking hybrids is exponential. I can control the outcome of morph breeding by being careful in the parents that I choose to breed. I cannot control the random genetic links made between two different species of snake and how those links will create a "look". There is a random, unpredictable nature to the genetics of hybrids that cannot be avoided, and MUST be dealt with. The same is NOT true when dealing with same-species breeding...like morphs.

I'm just noticing that in the poll, the vast majority of votes was to cull the weak, deformed animals that have little chance to live decent healthy lives. That was my vote as well. It's hard to cull, it's hard to euthanize a baby, I've had to do it and I didn't like it but it's still the responsible thing to do. I had a beautiful motley stripe ghost hatch last year, that ate several times, then stopped eating. Culling and euthanizing that snake was perhaps the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my corn keeping experience, but I did it. I have it in my freezer still, I have a hard time feeding something that pretty to my king snake even if it's dead. It's a really difficult issue but if you breed corns and care about the hobby you still have the responsibility to produce healthy animals that will not weaken the gene pool if somebody breeds them. I tried to keep a snake alive through force feeding once, and the lesson I learned is that you can't will something to live no matter how much you want to.
But if a snake is otherwise healthy but 'just a normal' or 'undesirable hybrid' and that's the only reason to cull it, I just couldn't do that. However I guess every breeder is going to do what they are going to do and that is their prerogative. This is one of the reasons I want to keep the number of corns I produce every year down.

Blutengel wrote: Leaving out emotions to be able to reach a breeding goal (I know, that is a harsh shortcut) does not seem right to me, leaving out emotions to be able to help find out who killed someone, is totally different for me.

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Captive breeding programs do not benefit the animals directly, even programs designed to preserve a species for reintroduction to the wild benefit the SPECIES but not the individual animals. We are breeding for human needs and desires, or to correct mistakes that we have made in nature, that seems to be the difference here. It may not be "fair" to cull healthy excess hatchlings, and I fully admit this, but nature is not fair either. Nature can be ugly and cruel by our standards.

When we breed, it is a necessity to dull our emotions. There is no way to breed and be sensitive about everything. I know breeders of other species who carefully select each breeding pair, screen new homes thoroughly, and do everything "right", yet they have more heartache for the effort. Why? Because they have more of their heart and time invested, and doing everything "right" (by our standards) does not mean that babies won't die or have to be euthanized. This also does not prevent health problems from popping up in a line, requiring a responsible breeder to end the line. No amount of care and concern will eliminate the possibility of neglect or abuse in a future home. And hard decisions have to be made. Breeders either learn to desensitize themselves a little, or they quit breeding. The breeders who remain are those who HAVE managed to come to terms with the process of breeding animals. We can only hope that they have good intentions too.

Blutengel wrote: "No, it is not necesary to create a hybrid or better looking animal to begin with."

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It is not necessary, it is human nature to tinker with nature . We may have selfish reasons for doing so, but there are no unselfish reasons for breeding or keeping pets. We may feel selfless when we provide good pets to people who want them, or when we bring our animals out for educational sessions with the public, but these reasons only benefit humans. They are not beneficial to the animals themselves.

diamondlil wrote: This is how this discussion is making me feel, that some people are trying to make others feel guilty, and not respecting that there are different ethical and moral standpoints that are equally valid to the people who believe different things.

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I don't think there is anything to really feel guilty about as long as we are caring for the animals in a humane manner and, when needed, euthanizing them as humanely as possible. For all our faults, animals in our care tend to suffer less, live longer, and more survive to adulthood than nature would dictate. We are humans, we experiment with animal breeding (and have done so since our ancestors were able to understand such things.) Admitting that breeding and keeping animals as pets is a selfish endeavor does not mean that we shouldn't do it. While we tend to benefit more than the animals do in these situations, I think that we would lose too much to simply discard this relationship with animals. All animals, ourselves included, act on selfish motives. We are not Gandhi or Mother Theresa; we are not perfect and it is unreasonable to expect us to be pure and totally selfless creatures.

shed'n my skin wrote: But if a snake is otherwise healthy but 'just a normal' or 'undesirable hybrid' and that's the only reason to cull it, I just couldn't do that.

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I agree - I couldn't cull healthy hatchlings. This is a sentimental reaction and I don't plan to breed enough snakes to NEED to cull healthy hatchlings. I also voted for number one in the poll. But, I don't judge other people who decide to cull on the basis of more than a defect, if that is what they feel is needed for their breeding program. I understand that a large breeding program has different needs than a small program (if I breed one to six clutches a year and someone else breeds 50 clutches, there are going to be differences in how these things are managed.) I don't personally believe in mass(over)-production of animals but I don't breed animals for a living, so I can afford the luxury of more sentimentality than someone whose income does depend on their animals. I appreciate the opinions that have been stated here by everyone involved. This has been a lively and civil discussion that I could not have engaged in on any other animal forum. But my feelings that a snake is not better than its prey, one snake is not better than another, and it has no special right to live (we choose, by our own preference, which animal lives and which dies), is as solid as ever.

shed'n my skin said:

I had a beautiful motley stripe ghost hatch last year, that ate several times, then stopped eating. Culling and euthanizing that snake was perhaps the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my corn keeping experience, but I did it. I tried to keep a snake alive through force feeding once, and the lesson I learned is that you can't will something to live no matter how much you want to.

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I have an 06 1.0 lavender het motley that was a non-feeder. I knew this before I got him; if he hadn't been, I couldn't have afforded him. Every four days, from October 2006 through February 2007, I force fed him after he refused to eat on his own. Finally, on February 15, he ate by himself. He ate sporadically for the next few weeks, but is now eating on his own reliably.

Yes, it was a lot of work. Yes, it was frustrating and there were times I wondered if it was worth it, if he would ever have anything resembling a normal life. IT WAS ALL WORTH IT. I am more bonded to ShoeString than to any of my other snakes. He is a beautiful, sweet natured guy and he is finally thriving. I am proud every time I watch him eat, knowing it was my stubbornness that gave him a chance to reach the point where he could be just a normal, growing boy.

Is that willing him to live? If so, I'd do it again. If any body out there has non-feeders and you don't have the time or inclination to force feed, send them to me. I'll be happy to give it a go and give them a fighting chance.

If we think in terms of what the "customer" would want, it makes sense to cull and not breed non-feeders, because whatever it is that is causing them to BE non-feeders could have a genetic link that might pass on to offspring. And is that really a trait we want to pass on?? :shrugs:

I think culling in any animal related hobby where "spay and neuter" is not an option is the most ethical and responsible thing a breeder can do.

Hypancistrus said:

If we think in terms of what the "customer" would want, it makes sense to cull and not breed non-feeders, because whatever it is that is causing them to BE non-feeders could have a genetic link that might pass on to offspring. And is that really a trait we want to pass on?? :shrugs:

I think culling in any animal related hobby where "spay and neuter" is not an option is the most ethical and responsible thing a breeder can do.

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I totally agree. With Lil, I'm never going to sell or breed her, just in case her non-feeding was due to genetic problems. I'll never get to see if her pretty colours would be passed on, but hopefully get to enjoy having her as a pet for 15 years or so. If I was intending to breed on a decent-sized scale, I would most likely have decided she was redundant and culled her.
To me, culling Lil or keeping her as my pet are equally valid options down to personal circumstances and choice. Either keeps the possibility of non-feeding genes being passed on out of the equation.

tyflier said:

Sean--

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Yes, Chris?

tyflier said:

You'r entire last post is based on interpretation, not definition.

What the goals of the breeding project are is instrumental as to how any necessary culling would be handled, and which animals would be culled and which wouldn't. Therefore, the ethics behind which animals to cull and which to allow to live is absolutely dependant upon the animals that are being bred. Their will be different decisions made, dependant entirely upon the expected outcome of the breeding and the intended goals of the project...both decisions that must be amde (sic) before proceeding with the breeding.

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You apparently do not see that the relevant distinction has already been made. You would not be killing to benefit any living thing – you would be killing to prevent a creature from thriving.

tyflier said:

Unfortunately, the ONLY way, that I am aware of, to prevent misrepresentation in the future of pure-looking hybrids is to not allow them to enter the market at all. That is the only way to guarantee NO future breeding as pure or misrepresentative sales from ever happening.

The ethics of culling hybrids that look pure are very well defined by the goal of the culling. The sole reason to cull these animals is to prevent pollution of the bloodlines and unscrupulous sales. Therefore, the reason BEHIND the culling is righteous, not selfish, which makes the action ethical, by definition.

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You believe or claim that you would be “ethical” because you have some abstract good of fraud-avoidance toward which you are working, but these abstractions do not involve actual, living beings but merely your projections of the future. Worse, they are not even particularly high-minded abstractions because any healthy product of your pairings, whatever the appearance, could potentially have a fulfilling existence. It is for the good of “the Business”, and to rate the convenience of identifying a snake’s genetics visually over the life of those snakes is not ethical. What is a “polluted bloodline” from an ethical standpoint, anyway? How is your polluted snake less viable or worthwhile in the eyes of God or nature? This is neither ethical nor selfish – it is totally arbitrary.

tyflier said:

You can't have it both ways...if killing mice to feed your snakes is ethical because the mice were bred for food, than killing pure-looking hybrids because the snakes were bred to produce non-pure-looking hybrids should also be considered ethical.

Now...I KNOW that you are not going to agree with that statement...and that's OK. You don't have to. In fact...I'm not even asking you to.

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If you do not see any difference between killing for food and killing for aesthetic ends, then we will be at an impasse. I will make the comparison, however, that in the eyes of the law there is a big difference between killing in self-defense and killing for money. Your motives are the key in ethical decisions. And frankly, I just do not understand your ethics. I want to, because then we can identify the fork in our reasoning. But it really seems that anything for which a justification can be found is ethical in your mind.

tyflier said:

You are asking me to clarify my position, and I feel that my position has been made quite clear throughout, from the beginning of the topic. My position is that frankly...so long as the animals don't suffer, cull however you see fit, and feel comfortable with. IMO...that is the sum and substance of the conversation. It seems to me that the last few pages have taken a turn from debating reasons why one would cull, to trying to convince some of us that we are wrong. Quite simply, there is NO right or wrong answer to the question, as is the case in MOST ethical situations. What I feel morally and ethically comfortable with will most likely be different than what you do...and that's OK...or at least it *should* be ok.

I shouldn't be made to feel guilty or wrong for my opinion on the matter, and I certainly shouldn't have to answer question after question regarding my ethical stand on the issue, when my position hasn't changed since page one.

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Frankly, bro’, I am not concerned about you feeling guilty. That was never my motivation. I wanted to illuminate where an ethical standpoint would inform a breeder’s actions. There are various schools of ethics but it is misguided to believe that anyone can just make up their own. You are free to perform unethical yet justifiable actions, just as you are free to perform unethical and unjustifiable (but legal) actions. If I judge, I am not judging in my writing, and feel no responsibility to create guilt or alter behavior of people I do not even know.

tyflier said:

And to compare what I decide to cull from my own hatchlings with the eugenics of the WWII era is simply ridiculous. I am not talking about killing all animals but one species, or trying to purify a species by killing anything that doesn't fit a quintessential look. I am talking about the difference between controllable outcomes and uncontrollable outcomes of breeding programs, and what to do with the results.

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Ha! Godwin's Law. Couldn’t help myself.

tyflier said:

The difference between killing animals in a clutch of morphs that do not fit the morph and killing pure-looking hybrids is exponential. I can control the outcome of morph breeding by being careful in the parents that I choose to breed. I cannot control the random genetic links made between two different species of snake and how those links will create a "look". There is a random, unpredictable nature to the genetics of hybrids that cannot be avoided, and MUST be dealt with. The same is NOT true when dealing with same-species breeding...like morphs.

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Well, I don’t know what an exponential difference is. But it looks like you do draw a line based on intention, but that line makes no sense to me. If you can take a healthy baby and lop its head off not because there is a hungry mouth to feed but because it seems too normal to you, then that I think is where our disconnect occurs. To wit: “I predict that I will get some non-freaks in my freak-producing project, but it’s okay because I will kill them,” does not mesh with ethical systems of which I am aware.

:cheers:
-Sean

I have found out through the years that non-feeders can be turned around by changing the cage to a totally diffrent cage. Setting it up at a diffrent location. I have see it with my own eyes . Stubborn feeders turn around and start to eat. Sometimes a hatchling does not feel confertable where it is living. Once its environment is change a snake can come a aggressive feeder. I have bought non feeders and giving them away only to find out once the whole environment was diffrent they ate fine . Other breeders have had the same experiences

Sean-

First, let's clarify something...ethics in and of itself is ONLY a debateable topic because it is based entirely on personal opinion and how it reflects legalities in any given situation. I cannot break the law and be ethical(in business), but I can be unethical and legal. It is a fact that different perspective and experiences will lead 2 people to form 2 different opinions of the same ethics conundrum, which is exactly what we have going on here. Truthfully...there is no right or wrong, only what each is comfortable with. No matter how hard one tries to always "do the right thing" somebody, somewhere will disagree with what is done, and find an "ethical reacon" why they are "more right" than the other person. It is an inevitability.

The SOLE reason debates like these are too often turned into arguments where one side feels badgered or slandered by the other is because far too often, both sides feel that their opinion is the only right opinion to have. This is usually the result of one side making outrageous comparisons toward the other side's activities and some historical or medical monstrosity(i.e.comparing this to WWII eugenics, or medical experimentation of the 1920's ). Whether intentional or not, your earlier comparison are designed to make one feel guilty about their decisions...otherwise why make the comparison?

So with that in mind...I fully and entirely respect and validate your opinion on the subject, however...I do not agree with you. Same as I said to Blutengel a few pages ago, we will have to agree to disagree...respectfully and pleasantly, to be sure.

I do think you understand me...yes...I feel that so long as what you are doing is not illegal, and does not cause pain or undue stress or suffering to the offspring, it is your personal choice as to which animals live and which die, and your reasoning does NOT matter to me as it relates to ethical value of your actions. And I think THAT is the part that has us "at odds" with each other. While I may not agree with what someone else decides to do, I certainly don't deny them their right to do so, and I CERTAINLY do not judge them for their actions, so long as the animals NEVER SUFFER because of it.

What I might do in a similar situation...might be different than what you would do. I don't think that matters, so long as we both are doing it to ensure something better for the offspring and they never suffer...