"AKC" type registry for reptiles?

Rich Z said:

Uh, I typically have between 300 and 450 clutches per year...... All of them hatching out around the same time. Most people would not believe the stress levels around here at that time. Oh yeah, the Daytona Beach Expo is right in the middle of it. Sure, I can see people standing in front of my tables miffed because I don't have a certificate for each animal there. :headbang:

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Rich, I'm not suggesting that you register clutches. I know how much work you have to do--you dont have time to be running around and loading clutch numbers onto the web.

However, the idea of each big breeder having a "set ID code" makes some sense. For you, Kathy, or Don to enter in all of your clutches would be physically impossible.

I do know what everything you ship out is labeled correctly, with hets and everything else. That is 3/4 of the whole process right there for the buyer, if they were to choose to register it.

As I've said numerous times, we cant expect the big breeders to jump into this. They simply have too many animals to be entering things online---there's no benefit for you guys because your lines are well known, and respected.

However, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people's breeding stock is made up of Serpenco stock, CornUtopia stock, and SMR stock.

It's too bad there couldn't be a barcode system or something of the sort.

Some of Rich's concerns are solvable, but not all...

When I used to breed Persian cats, I just registered the litter. The parents are registered, but there is no photo of the parents or babies on record. I told the CFA how many in the litter, paid a fee, and they sent me that number of registrations to give to the buyers so they could be registered if desired. The buyers did not have to send photos. So of course there is some fraud, but purebred cats and dogs are worth more $$$ than most corns, so there is more incentive to lie. But if a breeder gets caught, I would imagine their CFA or AKC days are over - not really worth it for most. Whatever the amount of fraud, the clubs have been around for a long time, so I guess their system works.

For somebody who produces A LOT, if they wanted to participate, I would assume that they wouldn't bother with all of the litters of normals or low end corns that they just wanted to wholesale anyway. Or maybe just register a few of the best lowend clutches to be sold retail. I don't produce nearly as many as Rich, but still quite a few. If I wanted to participate, I would register my adults in the off-season, then register the clutches of eggs (we would need provision to do it that way, rather than wait until they actually hatch, even though some will not hatch in some cases) during that lull when most are laid, but before they hatch. I would probably offer both registered "pedigreed" babies and regular non-pedigreed babies to see if people would be willing to pay a little more for the extra work. If not, I don't know if I would find the time to keep up with it, as I would be planning to cut the number of babies I produce to make up for the extra work. But even so, it just might not be worth it for somebody like Rich.

However, I don't see that it would let out trade secrets. If a breeder sells their new variety of a super duper pastel gold encrusted pewter, and doesn't want to say more than that it is genetically a charcoal bloodred, then it is registered as a charcoal bloodred and the customers can breed like to like until everybody has super duper... and then they are a new registered selectively bred line just like the original. Obviously the breeder will have to say SOMETHING about what it is genetically if he hopes to sell many at any decent price. So I guess that whatever the breeder says is what we will go by, until such time as it is proven to be false.

kathylove said:

If I wanted to participate, I would register my adults in the off-season, then register the clutches of eggs (we would need provision to do it that way, rather than wait until they actually hatch, even though some will not hatch in some cases) during that lull when most are laid, but before they hatch. I would probably offer both registered "pedigreed" babies and regular non-pedigreed babies to see if people would be willing to pay a little more for the extra work.

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I think that's do-able. If you were able to mark each egg box with a number, and then jump online while they're incubating and enter the parents genetics for that specific clutch, and be done with it. Then if someone orders a snake that fits that genetic makeup, you could just mark the number on the deli cup and ship it out, no?

I dont know if that would be a super amount of work or not, since I've never done it. I'm just throwing ideas out and hope that something sticks.....

I think if this was done only for the purpose of tracking a snakes background for hets possible hets ect. for the idividual owners/breeders benifit then it would be a good idea. The way it is beng described it seems like it would be a way for certan breeders to jack up thier prices well droping the value of other peoples snakes.If others wanted to get even close to the registered breeders prices they are going to have to cough up some cash and pay someone else for thier hard work and invesments. The thing that bugs me the most is that who is to say what the best looking animals are. there is so much individual discretion there and thats part of what makes this hobby fun.Some hobbiests would buy a snake with one look over another because it was registered even if they liked the look of the unregistered snake more simply becauae a few people on a board somewhere decided they looked better. wouldn't that board be a little bit biast in favor of the look of thier own line after all it's the line they chose to work with or even developed.It would also discourage breeders from going in a new direction with projects. New hobbiests would be tricked into believing that the registered snakes where of a higher quality then the unregistered snakes. They also may believe that the registered snakes are more likely to be closer to pure corns wich would not be the case at all . Kathy is alredy refering to some as "mutts" well talking about registering creamcicles almost in the same breath (sorry not trying to give you a hard time with that one kathy just makking a point).

Another potential "plus" for a corn registry...perhaps, once a registry is well-established for a few generations, states, such as New Jersey, will allow herpers to own normal corns that can be proven to be born and bred in captivity for multiple generations via the registry. Just a thought.

Susan said:

Another potential "plus" for a corn registry...perhaps, once a registry is well-established for a few generations, states, such as New Jersey, will allow herpers to own normal corns that can be proven to be born and bred in captivity for multiple generations via the registry. Just a thought.

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Very good point.

A registry is just information. Registered animals are only worth more to people that desire the additional information or information in that format. It depends on who your "audience" is, your buyers' demographic.

You won't stop some people from playing the "mine is better'n yurs cuz it's paper'd" game. However, the benefit I would hope would be more than that. An information storehouse. A record, a lineage. Suppose a trait was noticed in a group of corns. With the records, the line could be looked at to see if it was showing tendencies...etc.

I have to say that Jason's point is the problem I have with a certain way of doing standards for morphs. It's setting someone's will of how a type of snake should look on others. I just think we are way early in the game to set type beyond the most basic for selectively bred morphs. Most morphs right now are defined by their genes. The standards would only reflect that, for now. Telling someone with copper saddled anerys that all anerys should strive for jet black saddles, for example, would be very limiting indeed at this point.

I think "Morph Standards" are something that will eventually be set by whoever sets up judging and showing rules and regs. That's not to say a "healthy snake" standard can't be set...describing clean, shiney scales, etc. etc.

However, this is a totally separate thing from a registry, which is just a record, a living log of geneological info.

There are already situations where the "authorities" disagree with what some of the pet buyers want. Two that come to mind are Siamese cats that have been bred with exceedingly elongated faces and Persian cats that have been bred with extremely flat faces, just to please the judges and win points, because that was what worked at the shows. But a lot of pet buyers don't like the extremes, so some breeders have responded by going back to producing "apple head" Siamese and "dish face" , "doll face", or "peke face" Persians, something to suit every taste - judges and pet owners alike. I haven't kept up on recent developments, but I would guess if both types remain really popular, there would be reason to have standards for more than one type, or even the basis for a new breed.

As to mixed breeds, or mutts: They can make great pets whether cats, dogs, snakes, or whatever. But ponder this: Say you want to breed really super candycanes. You go to a show and find a couple of nice pairs of similar quality. One pair is offered by a dealer who bought them and has no idea what the parents look like. The other is a reputable breeder who assures you that the parents and grandparents, and great grandparents were topnotch, gorgeous animals, perfect examples of candycanes. Although the babies look of similar quality, which ones do you think are a better gamble for your future breeding projects? Now imagine that the breeder is totally unknown, but telling you the same good news about the ancestry. However, there has been a registry in effect for 15 years and his babies have 18 champion candycanes in their pedigree, animals that were judged to be great examples of the written standard for candycanes. Now that unknown breeder can compete with the well known breeders because his bloodlines have been proven over time to produce whatever it is that the cornsnake community has decided makes up a good candycane. And if a significant number of breeders decide that a new type of candycane is getting popular, either the standard can be changed, or a new "breed" can be established, or buyers can just ignore the standard and buy what they like.

As for commanding a higher price, I certainly would (and already did) pay a higher price to know what I am really getting instead of just getting it cheap from a dealer who has no idea what the parents look like. So why wouldn't I pay a little more to somebody who bothered to keep good records and has a pedigree for their snake?

"Now imagine that the breeder is totally unknown, but telling you the same good news about the ancestry. However, there has been a registry in effect for 15 years and his babies have 18 champion candycanes in their pedigree, animals that were judged to be great examples of the written standard for candycanes. Now that unknown breeder can compete with the well known breeders because his bloodlines have been proven over time to produce whatever it is that the cornsnake community has decided makes up a good candycane."

If you didn't have enough trust in the seller before you knew the hatchlings where registered, why would you have trust in him when he tells you they are? You would still be puting your faith in him being honest. Whats to stop someone from telling you that his animals are pegigree when they are not? If he had failed to produce offspring from the his pair of registered breeders and and he was the same dishonest person, Couldn't he just sell you animals that he bought from an add in the local paper? Registered or not you still would have to trust him. a registry wouldn't prove anything.
As far as mutts/hybrids go. Sure they can make great pets, but I don't think we are talking about registering animals to prove they will make great pets. Just for the record are we talking about registering hybrids? If so how can we even know what is and what is not a hybrid. For the sake of newer hobbiests reading this and someone correct me if I'm wrong. Amels have been around since the sixties and the first caramel was found in a petstore with little or no background information.
A family tree type of register could be created for little or no charge to the user By selling add space or even minimal anual fees and would still be subject to good faith. No one would need to make insane amounts of money putting it up. Breeders could do a search on thier own mames and if people were bull sh*ting about where they got the animals breeders/dealers could bust them on it. After a warning or two( people make mistakes) the liars could be baned.

I would say that my interest is directed purely at a project with the goal of creating/maintaining a "family tree" which everyone can access. I am convinced it can be done without costing breeders money or large amounts of time. (If buyers want their animals papered, they pay the fee, not the seller.)

I could personally write programs to enter/track/view such data, and am planning it for our own CCCorns stock anyway. I think it would be easily expandable without any serious effort. Being a programmer, it is no problem updating the app and the format of the database whenever the specifications need to be changed (such as when a new locus is discovered/recognized.)

As far as the shows and breed standards, that's something that is not important in the least to me. I would enjoy the competitions and such and would like to attend and even compete in them if it's practical. But, as a hobbyist, I will always breed exactly what I like, whether or not anyone else will ever want to buy it... standards schmandards.

Jason B. said:

A family tree type of register could be created for little or no charge to the user By selling add space or even minimal anual fees and would still be subject to good faith. No one would need to make insane amounts of money putting it up. Breeders could do a search on thier own mames and if people were bull sh*ting about where they got the animals breeders/dealers could bust them on it. After a warning or two( people make mistakes) the liars could be baned.

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Exactly. It's about keeping the information so we can all access it, instead of it being lost every time it changes hands.

Candycanes sell for what? Amels sell for only 5 bucks less. If someone is enough of a scumbag that they're willing to go to so much effort to deceive someone, there's no system that will stop them. However, they will probably be more likely to be elsewhere, lying about "possible het" BPs or wherever they can actually make some money.

Let's say, as you suggested, they have two pedigreed candycanes and their snakes do not produce that year, and they sell some generic amels as if they belong to those parents. People will then register some of those generic amels under those parents (the seller will only be able to prove they own those parents by producing an actual printed non-photocopied pedigree) and people would be able to see the cruddy quality of amels produced by that person's candycanes and not look for candycanes from that person, even when their good ones DO produce.

it sounds great... theres going to be alot of hard work going in to this ... i really want to go to thaty show in FL... theres going to be some great looking Reps there... if anyone goes plz post some pics.... im 100% behide this.. will make breeding popular in the years to come... hey maybe even on TV

I don't know. Good luck getting this to fly, though.

But I am confused..... The value of the animals is not enough to attract scammers so there won't be fraud. Yet the incentive to some breeders to do this is because it will increase the value of their animals by having a paper trail. Huh?

We already have this problem today with Okeetees that have never been even in the same state as the Okeetee Hunt Club. "Locality" Gray Banded Kings that were hatched in someone's garage and carted out to Texas to be sold out of motel rooms to people out there as "wild caught just last night on Juno Road!".

People will do amazing things to make $5 more in profit.

But even more to the point, many people will ACCEPT amazing compromises to SAVE $5. I see that all of the time at shows. For every one person who may decide to pay more for a paper trail pedigree, 100 others will go to the other guy selling them $5 cheaper without the paper. I remember one year at Expo when some lady was looking over one of Kathy's books on my table. I had it for $10. She didn't buy it, but she did come back later all bubbly that she had found it on another table for $9.95. Or how many times have those of us selling at shows had someone come back to our tables to show us the snake they bought from someone else for $10 cheaper then the ones on our tables? People PRIDE themselves in getting something cheaper.

Sorry to sound so negative, but I have been hearing this registry stuff for YEARS now, and quite honestly, if I thought there was a chance at all that it would work, I would have done it myself long ago. I was THAT close to grabbing the domain names HerpRegistry.com and CornRegistry.com a couple of years ago. But all I saw was an immense workload that would eventually collapse upon itself for a handful of reasons. The major ones of which are that NO ONE WILL do the work needed to be done for free for very long, and NO ONE that produces a large proportion of the animals needed to keep that registry alive would be willing to pay what it would take, and do the labor necessary on their end, to keep it alive.

Darn I hate raining on everyone's parade ........

Rich Z said:

I don't know. Good luck getting this to fly, though.

But I am confused..... The value of the animals is not enough to attract scammers so there won't be fraud. Yet the incentive to some breeders to do this is because it will increase the value of their animals by having a paper trail. Huh?

We already have this problem today with Okeetees that have never been even in the same state as the Okeetee Hunt Club. "Locality" Gray Banded Kings that were hatched in someone's garage and carted out to Texas to be sold out of motel rooms to people out there as "wild caught just last night on Juno Road!".

People will do amazing things to make $5 more in profit.

But even more to the point, many people will ACCEPT amazing compromises to SAVE $5. I see that all of the time at shows. For every one person who may decide to pay more for a paper trail pedigree, 100 others will go to the other guy selling them $5 cheaper without the paper. I remember one year at Expo when some lady was looking over one of Kathy's books on my table. I had it for $10. She didn't buy it, but she did come back later all bubbly that she had found it on another table for $9.95. Or how many times have those of us selling at shows had someone come back to our tables to show us the snake they bought from someone else for $10 cheaper then the ones on our tables? People PRIDE themselves in getting something cheaper.

Sorry to sound so negative, but I have been hearing this registry stuff for YEARS now, and quite honestly, if I thought there was a chance at all that it would work, I would have done it myself long ago. I was THAT close to grabbing the domain names HerpRegistry.com and CornRegistry.com a couple of years ago. But all I saw was an immense workload that would eventually collapse upon itself for a handful of reasons. The major ones of which are that NO ONE WILL do the work needed to be done for free for very long, and NO ONE that produces a large proportion of the animals needed to keep that registry alive would be willing to pay what it would take, and do the labor necessary on their end, to keep it alive.

Darn I hate raining on everyone's parade ........

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I do have to agree with you on this point. If people are thinking of this as a way to have 'proven bloodlines' and charge more money because you've got a paper that proves the bloodline, this isn't going to work.

The general population of people are not very intelligent, in fact, they're downright stupid. The 9.95 versus $10 bit explains that quite well.

That's the problem with shows though. Most of those people are impulse buyers. The same ones that come up and ask, "how many crickets will my cornsnake eat every week?".

The problems with pricing at the show are this. Say you're at Daytona, and my table is right next to yours. My sign says "Joe's Snake Shack", and I'm selling Butter Mots for $100, as are you. Anyone who knows anything about corns is obviously going to buy from you. The only way I'd be able to compete is to sell mine for cheaper. The average impulse buyer doesn't care that your sign says Serpenco, and that you created the line, they just care about the price--and that mine are $10 or $15 cheaper.

The thing is, those impulse buyers wouldn't be the ones really registering anything. I'd like to think that most of the people on this site, for example, have some basic knowledge of corns and arent just the average impulse buyer who sees a sign for "Reptile Show" and runs out and buys something they cant handle.

It seems like most of the people just want this to be somewhat of a "big family tree" bit, or just a way to keep track of things. Perhaps it could modify into something bigger and better as more interest grows, but to start I think we need to keep it simple and not do this as a way to charge a few extra bucks for a certificate saying "My snakes are registered".

Registry ? ? ?

I just perused the thread this morning for the first time. I "sped red" it so I might have missed some points.

Naturally, I have to view this from the same point as Rich. I can't remember the last day I thought to myself, "all caught up. Wonder what I should do next.". It had to be 10 years ago. I'm never caught up. I have to assess my priorities on an hourly basis and I still don't get things done that are important. I agree with the point that much of the "pedigree" work is done by virtue of me keeping track of families. Male GT was bred to female 826 so a male baby from that clutch is GT826M05-4. Hence, at a glance of the serial number of that snake, I see who the parents are, when it hatched and gave it a unique serial number by virtue of the dash number. SO, I guess you could say that much of the groundwork of a system already exists within the breeders' own system. Converting this to a universal system would be no problem, but as Rich and some others have said, I'm NOT going to pay to have those snakes registered and more importantly I don't know where I'd find the time to get it done.

Many think that some corns are priced too high. I see the price of everyday items going up and up every year. The price of snakes goes down and down every year. I pay more for electricity, mice, car repairs, shipping and phone bills each year. My/your costs keep going up, but we keep charging less for corns. Of course, market prices are generally dictated by demand so I'm not pretending it's an artificial process.

As a professional corn snake breeder, I'm in a minority in this industry compared to the part-time breeder. I'm competing with "weekend breeders" that are happy to sell a sunglow motley for $25.00 because they're not certified to ship them. Or because they promised their wife or mother that they'd get rid of those little pinky-eaters at any price just to get them outta the house. It's tough enough competing in this "amateur-driven" market without adding registration fees to the budget. My prices are not based on what my snakes are worth, but more for what the market will allow me to get. I maintain that a higher standard went into the making of SMR snakes and I'd probably stop breeding them when/if I get to the point that I spend more to produce them than I can get for them.

I like the idea of "herd" pricing for registration, but as Rich pointed out, my time is worth more than the dollar value of this registration. If I could get $5.00 more for a snake that's registered and it cost me even as little as $1.00 to register it, I'd probably choose not to register it. It's more about the time to do this than the fee.

Genetics? I have some snakes I'm not even sure what the heck they are. I have some that should be either anery A or anery B, but clearly don't look (or genetically behave) like either. Most are not even worth breeding trials to determine what they actually are, but I suspect some to be a new anery. Ghost? I see some like Terri's that are just plain "other-worldly". Are they hypo aneryA, hypo aneryB, hypolava, hypoX, hypoZ, etc.? What if you buy a 'ghost' that turns out later turns out not to be the hypo you expected? DNA will surely be affordable enough someday that we can look into the roots of some of these animals and I'm positive some will be proven to be something other than were originally reported. Now, all animals down stream of those originators are suddenly counterfeits? And "freud"? You betcha. I see it all the time. People call or write saying Joe Blow sold them this whatchamacallit corn and said he got it from me. "Nope. Never heard of him." Happens all the time.

I'm rambling and I personally don't read long posts so I'll taper off. I'm following this one with what I think is more important and more feasible as a first step towards the goal of this thread.

I think this is a neat idea and would be fun but I can't see it being helpful or productive, partly for the reasons that Rich said, but also..... how can anything be "proven" for blood lines? Even in the AKC you can get unscrupulous people breeding a male that is not the "sire" they put on the registry form after they have an accidental breeding to the wrong male. This happens. Now, granted, for the most part the sire is the one presented on the papers but the people who don't care are out there. So, how would anyone be able to prove that the male and female corn snakes that are "said" to be the parents are indeed the parents? With dogs, most people have only one stud available to them so it is pretty good bet if you go to a persons home to get an AKC dog and they have one male and female adult there that the father is the one stated. BUT with corns (and any snakes) the person can (and usually does) have multiple males and females. And on top of that, the eggs are taken away from the female and put into a container for hatching. So, in my opinion, this would just be an open situation for anyone to "say" what they want about the parentage. I don't think I would ever pay more to a person because they said they had a "paper" trail. Too much of a chance unless I really knew the person as a reputable one, then I wouldn't care since I would believe them of their verbal word of the lineage behind the snake.

Standard Vs Pedigree

I think to run, you must first walk. There is an abyss in the realm of identification in this industry. I think it's more important that we first identify WHAT a corn actually is before we can start registering its progeny.

Another issue that comes up annually is the dreaded STANDARD. The sometimes nilly-willy way we name a newish looking corn is haphazard at best. For instance, I mentioned when anery bloods were "renamed" on this forum that there was already a corn out there named granite. I believe ignoring this will prove to be a problem. I know I personally paid $500.00 each for babies from this line. I got out of it, but I know at least two others that have a substantial investment in theirs and won't be pleased to rename them.

I think first and foremost towards registering animals is standardizing them. Yes, that won't easy for all the reasons stated in this thread. In the absence of affordable DNA testing, what are they genetically? Pure corn or hybrid? Light anery or dark ghost? Recessive hypo or low black normals? And so on.

I believe that a committee should be appointed to set a BROAD standard for the recognized and accepted morphs. Naming and renaming corns is a heated issue. As many have pointed out, after voting, hashing and rehashing the new names for compound morph corns, there are some that still disagree with those results and call them what they want. I'm no different. I have my reasons for accepting or denying 'new' names for old corns. I have customers call me for pink snows, coral snows, bubblegum snows, pink/green snows, strawberry snows and they're usually talking about the same snake. I still get people call or write inquiring about chocolate corns. When I tell them they're the non albino byproduct of the hybrid creamsicle, they usually keep calling breeders 'till someone sells them a 'chocolate' corn. If there was a standard, there'll still be contraversies, but at least a platform upon which new corns can be added.

I know there are stumbling blocks for everything and this would be no different. Probably the first one would be appointing a "jury" to select names. "Here we go again", huh?

my 2 cents

In my opinion, we already HAVE a registry. How many of you sell your animals and then attach the breeders name?? I've seen it over and over and over again...and I do it too. For those people who care (most of us geeks on this forum), the breeders name is the important information and we will purchase corns sometimes based on solely this information. Joe Shmo will purchase an albino corn because it is an albino...not because it came from Rich, Don, Kathy, Joe or any of the other dozens of respectable breeders. They will buy it because they like it. WE will buy it because it came from so and so. In my opinion, very few will buy it because it is registered.

Plus, there is no way I'm paying THAT much money to register my 300 animals. NO WAY. Besides, I wouldn't know how to register some of them....it was just last year that I found out MY lava corns were the same as Joe's Trans-hypos and now we all know they are one in the same with one name. And if I can have a few surprises in my collection....imagine what the big names have!

I know, I know....most of it has already been said...but I thought I'd be a loser and give my two cents. :grin01:

Cheers,
-Jeff

I do have to agree that it would be a lot of work, and that I don't know that it would personally benefit ME in the short term. As many have said, if you have worked a long time to establish a good reputation, that will work better to help sales than any registration will. If anything, it would help the unknown breeder compete better with the known breeders.

As for fraud, it will always be a problem, registry or not. But I have bought quite a few purebred dogs and cats during my life, usually from people I did not know, relying only on the registry systems in place. So far as I know, my pets seemed to be what they were supposed to be and I don't think I ever was defrauded (guess I will never know for sure).

I guess one of the long term benefits that I thought would be good would happen only after a corn registry is well established. That is getting hobbyists involved in the same way that other domestic animals groups are - with shows and public events. I think if EVENTUALLY kids coud have 4H projects with reptiles like they do now with rabbits, and pet owners could participate in shows along with professional breeders, it would add credibility and "normalcy" to our industry as we continue to distance ourselves from the "biker" or other "strange" images that used to follow us. I am not saying that I particularly want to, or have time to, get too involved in this aspect, but I just think it would be good for the hobby as it goes mainstream. Maybe someday when I retire and just breed a few corns for fun ONLY, it might be fun to be involved in those types of projects - or maybe not. I don't know. But I do know I won't be spearheading any project like this. As Don said, with corn prices down and supply prices up, it is enough just trying to keep up with the essentials of staying in business at this time. I just tossed this out because somebody had already started something and I thought maybe somebody else might want to run with it. Sounds like a few people here might be willing to get started with just a corn registry, which would be a good start. So we may have to leave the shows and other trappings to future generations of corn fans. When the time comes, I am sure somebody will decide to do it.

Their is a problem with that particular registry. The founder has been having a lot of customer service issues. She also has named herself the originator of a line that is not hers (the Citrus). If you do a search for Terri on the BOI, you will see a long (46 page) thread about her and that registry. Not many (especially in the Bearded Dragon world) look upon her too well right now. A lot think her registry is a joke. If anyone has already stated this information, sorry for repeating...I didn't go through all the pages of this thread yet...

I also wanted to add...With the incredibly high prices she's charging for this "registry"...Whose pocket do you think that's going into???