ACR names and registrations

[batwrangler]

True, if it stays around long enough, it may become what it's aiming for. My only issue with it as things stand now, is it's far from there. Some may call me cheap (or a whiner), but honestly, I don't believe in spending money for someone else to profit from something that is really no use to me. Call me crazy or selfish, I guess.

For my current circumstances, it's handy and cost effective and I'll continue to use it until my circumstances change. Since the ACR is completely voluntary, people like me can use it and others who don't find it useful don't need to. If it suits enough people, then it may indeed evolve into something more generally useful in the future.

 

[Susan]

And I never did give my view on the OP's original question about keeping a registered snake's original name. I personally don't like the idea of being able to change the name, but as long as the number remains the same and most of the information can remain unchanged, I guess it's okay. I've purchased several snakes that already had been registered, and all I did was change the ownership, their registered name, including the house initials, remained the same. It would be akin to buying Secretariat and then changing his name to "Thunder".

 

[El Jefe]

I was going to rant ....which I still might do...but it appears some of the replies to the rants I intended to make have already been replied... :spinner:

As a service for tracking lineage, it's no more accurate than trusting the person you're buying from.
D80

AND....

The most insurmountable problem is the fact that any system will be subject to a "garbage in, garbage out" situation. Not only the matter of incorrect data, but cases of blatant lying about the genetic makeup and ancestry. Since there is really no way to VERIFY the provided information, it's value to anyone would be limited only to those people providing the information that you personally trusted.

And that is the big truth! If Snakeman Steve sells you a corn that is supposedly 'het' for orange blaze morph you've got to trust him. If someone sells you a snake with ACR paperwork that claims the snake is 'het' for orange blaze you've got to trust the paperwork. Same scenario.

However, an advantage to the ACR is if the snake is a double or triple het morph it gets a little harder to fake the paperwork....especially if more than the original parents are registered. If you can see great, great grandpa had gene 1 and a grandmother had gene 2 then you can trace the genes through paperwork snakes. Granted, people can still fake the paperwork to show the gene they want but with paperwork going back multiple years AND registered at different times the faking is harder. Snakeman Steve will just tell you I bred it and this is the way it is and if the reputation isn't there, then the sell is much harder.

See Susan's comment as well:

As for the honesty in the genetics listed in the registry being only as good as the honesty of the person doing the registration, that is correct, but that is something people have to deal with with ANY registrations of ANY creature. There is no way other than the breeder's word to verify that this male is the father of that puppy/kitten/horse/cow/sheep/snake/whatever.

New Rant...

So how do you name/number your animals? Do you change names/numbers when you aquire registered animals from other breeders. Why?

As far as the name changing....it will always say in the produced section of the ACR who produced it no matter what the name was changed to. And I do change names of most of the snakes I register that were registered with a different name. Not always....but mostly.

See also:

the ACR will still have the record of who produced it - that doesn't change.

New Rant:

I can distinctly remember having the domain name CornSnakeRegistry.com all ready to register.

Interesting....

Another issue was the problem of workload. Quite frankly, any system that required ANY workload at all, would likely be too much of an additional burden for the people whose input would be most valuable to the system because of the VOLUME of the data THEY could provide. Seriously, when I have 3,000 to 7,000 babies hatching out, the very LAST thing I need is even more work to do. So no matter how valuable (or interesting) such a system might be to some, the time involved and workload needed just will not be available WHEN it is needed. And once the majority of the babies have been sold and some time is then available, what is the sense of doing the record keeping at that late date in the season when most of the babies are now gone?

Correct. Workload is a bugger. The intent of the ACR is so your workload is ALL ACR related. If you change your in house records to reflect the ACR records then the pre-registration stickers for the hatchlings would reflect all needed data from the crosses and you would just slap a sticker on the cage and go for it. In fact, with the ACR you can name your snake using your IN HOUSE name and then ALL the information (your in house info AND ACR info) would be on a preregistration sticker. The biggest workload is the initial transition and match-up of old snakes and names to the new names.

Taking the pictures is another straw on your workload camel's back. There is no easy way around this. Taking pictures to register animals takes time....a lot of time if you have a lot of snakes. Yep....time. However, a plus side is you now have a photo record of every snake you've registered. Might be kind of neat when you look back 10 years from now at some of the breeders you had. Plus...as stated above...although records can be faked...hard to fake a 'het stripe' animal if the parents aren't stripe in their pictures.

New Rant...

Then there is cost. No one would do something like this for free. But even if registration were a minimal $1 per head, assuming the above concerns were not valid, why would anyone producing 3,000+ animals want to spend another $3,000+ on registration, adding to the overhead for snakes where every year buyers seemingly expect the prices to be LOWER than they were last year?

Ah yes...one of the biggest limitations to such a system!!! Several people have indicated that the cost is why they have stopped. I agree. I, too, have resisted registering additional animals due to costs. In fact, last year I registered around $75-100 in snakes but I left off a good number that did not give me good eggs last year or weren't ready to breed. I basically pay to register what is producing that year.

In Rich's example, I totally agree that the cost of registering the babies for that much money would be crazy! That being said, the ACR doesn't expect you to do that. Granted it is a limitation in a sense, but the ACR suggests to pass the information on and the new owner will pay the cost of the registration. That way the breeder does not have to do it. Still doesn't solve the workload issue or the holdback issue but it does stop an initial cost of registration overwhelming a breeder.


And lastly...

Lastly, and perhaps overlooked quite often, is the fact that many people are doing projects that they would really rather not have made public before reaching fruition. Certainly I have several such projects ongoing, so I assume other people do as well. Why would people engaging in such projects want to make it public in a registry? So if they don't, how can ANY of the animals related to those projects be registered with accurate information without tipping their hand on what they are working on? They either have to exclude even the culls from those projects from the registry, or falsify, at least partially, the information they provide about them.

Yep. I have no reply to this. It is an aspect of the registry that is limited. If you want to keep a project secret....a public registry is not the answer. In a case like this, the ACR suggests:

Q- What if I want to register all of my snakes, but I have a secret project and I do not want the genetics of a particular snake to be known?
A- If you wish to register any of your snakes with only an ID number, name, etc, but no genetic information, that is allowed. This will allow the progeny to be traced back to the originator(s) of the bloodline once the "secret ingredients" become known.

I am still currently using the system and still plan to do so in the future. I have yet to see a financial advantage to selling my registered animals or getting more money from registered animals. I have, however, been able to track animals in my collection that go back several years to see where the genes have been hiding. In my case, the dilute gene appears to have popped up and I've been able to find out which female had that. Sure, any records system could do this but it was made easy by the ACR. I could have used my in house records to trace the animals back but when I went to the page where the parents of the dilute animal was produced...it was easy to see the shared great grandmother was het.

I do not think the ACR is the answer for every breeder. I also do not allude that it is an infallible system...it is made by humans who insert data given to them by humans. I am merely offering a different view on a system that works for me just as many of you have said why it does not work for you.

Okay...I'm done.

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[Jrgh17]

True, if it stays around long enough, it may become what it's aiming for. My only issue with it as things stand now, is it's far from there. Some may call me cheap (or a whiner), but honestly, I don't believe in spending money for someone else to profit from something that is really no use to me. Call me crazy or selfish, I guess.

Could you define and explain your use of the word "profit" to me, please?

I personally like having my snakes registered. It gives me proof of ownership. A few years ago, someone stole one of my snakes when they came to see my collection. I had no way of proving it was mine (I was told that just having pics of it wasn't enough) and therefore lost the snake. With the certificates, I do not have to worry about that. It is documented both here and online that the snake belongs to me. That is the main reason I use the registry.

In small claims, very few people consult an attorney. While I agree that pictures aren't enough on their own, and the certificate isn't enough on it's own, TOGETHER they might be worth something. It's also worth something if the defendant says they acquired the snake in June from Bill's herps, and you've had the snake ACR registered since 2005. :shrugs:

I register my snakes because I believe it's worth it. I register in groups of 10 or more whenever possible (as it's cheaper), and I'll be sending in new registrations when the female has fertile eggs on the ground.

As for changing the snakes name: While I understand the feelings of the seller, it is no longer their snake. If they hatched it, they're business and/or name will forever be listed on the snake's page. If they didn't hatch it, why are they looking for credit in the first place?

If you've ever looked through one of those baby name lists for ideas to name your animals, you'll know that there are some BAD names out there. I use my snake's names every day to refer to them both in conversation and for husbandry chores. I don't want to keep having to look at something I don't like.

 

[westexherps]

I register all of my breeders. And, I always wait until I have more than 10 new ones to do so. Up until this year I also did the pre-registration of the babies, but it almost drove me crazy last year. Out of 500-600 babies that I produced the past two years, not one single person registered their snake. So, this year, if someone wishes to do so I can give them the parent's info (#s etc.) at the time of purchase with a form. Trying to keep all those stickers straight made me want to pull out my hair. I don't have a problem with the changing of names, as long as the original breeder is given somewhere....I name all my snakes my number, so I can't fault someone for not wanting to call their snake WestExHerps' 1234.

 

[Duff]

Could you define and explain your use of the word "profit" to me, please?

Do you seriously not know the definition of "profit"? If you don't have a dictionary, try dictionary.com.

 

[Jrgh17]

Do you seriously not know the definition of "profit"? If you don't have a dictionary, try dictionary.com.

The word can be used in MANY different ways. It can be used literally (to mean money), but there are other ways to profit from something.

I asked a completely reasonable and polite question. You DID NOT have to respond in the way you did. I am not by any means unintelligent, please do not treat me as such.

 

[kathylove]

Guess I totally missed this subject.

But better late than never!

I really like the ACR and fully support it! Many of the objections raised are valid though. If I was producing 3,000 and more babies, I doubt I would have the time and energy to keep up with it either. But for those producing less than 1,000, it is very doable. I spend very little time on the pre-registrations. And they are free - no reason to pay to register babies. I only register them when the are getting close to breeding age, and register them all at once. It is not that expensive or time consuming that way.

Of course, it was a HUGE pain to originally register all the adults and photo them. But that was a one time deal. And I never would have made a photo ID for each animal on my own if I wasn't "forced" into it. Right now, the usefulness is limited because I only have one (sometimes two) generations in the database. But I am looking at this for the future, when I (and potential customers) will be able to look at the records and photos of many generations of ancestors of their new pet or breeding prospect. That is when the real value will kick in. Even if I was organized enough to keep photo IDs on every animal for the next 10 years, and to keep them in some sort of order where they can be found again, I am certainly not going to be inclined to dig them out to show every customer or potential customer the 10 year ancestral history of each and every baby. But with the ACR, they can look for themselves.

Yes, it is true that the info is only as good as the person putting it in. But even with the best intentions, memory (and paperwork) tends to fade away with time, and mistakes increase. We lost a lot of records back in the mid '90s when we had employees help us out by writing up new labels and throwing away the old ones containing a lot of info which has been lost for all time now. Info can be faked, but is probably not worthwhile in most cases to do so. And easier to get caught in a lie if it is posted for the world to see, and later gets found out. I doubt that many intentional scammers would go to the trouble of registering corns.

And it is true that very few customers bother to register their babies - YET. But OTOH, MANY customers have availed themselves of the opportunity to look up info on the parents, made easy to access by the pre-reg stickers on the cups. I know, because they have told me so. As time goes on, and customers will be impressed by seeing many generations of info instead of just the parents, I feel more will want to continue the pedigree, and will register their snakes. The price is certainly cheap enough if you just have a couple of pets to register.

Also, I feel this whole idea has to reach a certain "critical mass" before it will suddenly become "the thing to do". Right now it is a new and radical idea for herps. And most people see that the IMMEDIATE benefit is really limited. Not everyone is willing or able to put the effort (or money) into a project that might take a decade to really take root. But I personally feel that it will be a benefit to the hobby, and eventually help give credibility to our hobby / industry. But it is a long time commitment. I realize that people who produce huge numbers, and people who are REALLY good at being organized and are willing to make detailed pedigrees for their customers, and those working on secret projects, may not find the ACR the right thing to meet their needs at this time. But I am really behind it, and believe that within a decade or so, it will be much more accepted and we will wish we had started it sooner.

As far as the renaming question, I can see both sides. I would not rename a snake myself. But since the original producer will still be noted, I don't see it as a big deal.

 

[TandJ]

Kathy mentioned the following...

But OTOH, MANY customers have availed themselves of the opportunity to look up info on the parents, made easy to access by the pre-reg stickers on the cups. I know, because they have told me so.

At the very least Kathy, this has given you a little time back to you, beats getting numerous phone calls asking about genetics.. That indeed has been a good thing for a few people I guess..

Regards.. Tim of T and J