"AKC" type registry for reptiles?

[gardenmum]

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 have to agree that getting shows started and such would go a long way in preserving our hobby/industry as it will make it more in the public eye and more a "regulated" industry. And, of course, 4H projects in this would also be beneficial not only to the continuation of the hobby but also bring awareness that snakes are not slimmy, evil creatures to more people to stop the unwarrented "hate/fear" of them.

But I wonder if we need a "registry" to do this?? Would not just having written "rules and guidelines" be enough? I mean, if we want kids to be able to get involved, do they need to have a "pedigreed" corn or couldn't a corn that passes the "qualifications" for said morph be enough? These are just thoughts that are passing through my head and may not work, I don't know. I think if we limit the "showing" of a person's snakes to "just pedigreed" ones, we will be limiting the want and ability to show too much and will therefor have very limited participation. This is only my thoughts & opinions.

I think if we want to start corn shows, then we might want to be careful of how limiting we want involvement since that will predict how successful the venture is. shrug.

Added thought.......Also, if the "larger breeders" decide that it is not worth their time/effort to make up a lineage and register their stock, and since many, many people buy from them, this would highly add to limits of those who might love to get involved in showing but can't.

 

[Serpwidgets]

There is always going to be the possibility of people putting in things that are not true, or misidentifying things. But using the registry to see what parents a particular snake came from, and what offspring it had, will tend to shed some useful light on the subject.

I will not accept "it cannot be done to 100% perfection and eliminate all possible questions or errors" as a reason to not do something. With all of its faults, it's better than the completely useles void of data that exists today.

You know the Ultra Mystery we had? Wouldn't have been a mystery. Not even a little bit.

The current questions about the "cubed" pattern have definite answers. But we are years and years away from such answers, because there is no data to interpret, because nobody has tracked exactly what these have come from or what they have produced. There should be no mystery, at least not on the level of what it is today.

How many more new genes will pop up and be unknown, not because the right crosses were never done, but because nobody ever knows which crosses were done by anyone else or what results they got?

As far as registering hybrids, of course they should be registered. People constantly complain about hybrids because they could end up as space garbage and people could unknowingly get one when that information is lost between generations. The point of a registry is not to say that a snake with a pedigree is superior to one without, but to be able to look at where it came from and base your judgement of its value on those criteria.

I think two of the biggest utilities of such a family tree would be the tracking of hybrids and the tracking of locality animals.

One final note: it doesn't matter who chooses not to participate. I understand the reasons of people with bigger collections to maintain. There are no hard feelings there. But that is not a reason for the rest of us to not collect and compile useful data and use it for what it is worth.

 

[Joejr14]

There is always going to be the possibility of people putting in things that are not true, or misidentifying things. But using the registry to see what parents a particular snake came from, and what offspring it had, will tend to shed some useful light on the subject.

I will not accept "it cannot be done to 100% perfection and eliminate all possible questions or errors" as a reason to not do something. With all of its faults, it's better than the completely useles void of data that exists today.

You know the Ultra Mystery we had? Wouldn't have been a mystery. Not even a little bit.

The current questions about the "cubed" pattern have definite answers. But we are years and years away from such answers, because there is no data to interpret, because nobody has tracked exactly what these have come from or what they have produced. There should be no mystery, at least not on the level of what it is today.

How many more new genes will pop up and be unknown, not because the right crosses were never done, but because nobody ever knows which crosses were done by anyone else or what results they got?

As far as registering hybrids, of course they should be registered. People constantly complain about hybrids because they could end up as space garbage and people could unknowingly get one when that information is lost between generations. The point of a registry is not to say that a snake with a pedigree is superior to one without, but to be able to look at where it came from and base your judgement of its value on those criteria.

I think two of the biggest utilities of such a family tree would be the tracking of hybrids and the tracking of locality animals.

One final note: it doesn't matter who chooses not to participate. I understand the reasons of people with bigger collections to maintain. There are no hard feelings there. But that is not a reason for the rest of us to not collect and compile useful data and use it for what it is worth.

Agree with everything 100%.

Hopefully Joe will get those breeding trials on the cubed pattern done next year, and hopefully I can get some done in the next few years myself.

I think you're right about the registry helping to answer some of the genetic questions from oddballs that everyone has pop up from time to time.

 

[Hurley]

OK, I reworked the old rough cut of a registration form and figured I'd put it up here for anyone interested in looking through it.

This registration form was designed for someone registering a single snake (per entry form) with many blanks optional since info is not always available. The spaces are there, however for people to give as much info as they want to archive for future reference.

It's a rough second cut, but gives areas for locality people to record locality data. There is a section to note the animal as an intergrade/hybrid...this way, every progeny from this animal will also carry the notation and we can help to keep lines straight. The animal can be given a "Registered Name" like they do for the AKC and other registries...many people have their clutches registered with their progeny labled with thier trade name at the beginning. Something like "CCC Victoria" or "CCC 43623463f" or whatever. Or leave the option to the buyer or whatever. Whoever registers the animal, names it. Some dog breeders give the owners the application with their kennel name filled in the first few squares.

Anyway, explore it for what it is worth.

The thought would be that breeders would submit their breeding stock at the beginning (at least an ID of some sort) to get an ACR number for their buyers to register their purchases. With those ACR numbers, breeders can register clutches with as little info as the parents' ACR numbers and eggs in the clutch and date/year. The breeders would then receive a set of stickers with the clutch numbers on them, something like ACR Clutch # XXXX/01, ACR Clutch # XXXX/02, etc for the number of eggs/hatchlings.

If the breeder is a smaller breeder or really gets into geeking on genetics, the clutches may also be submitted with additional info such as phenotype/geneotype and sex...but it can be just as simple as submitting the cross and the number of eggs and getting back a sticker to slap on each deli cup. The buyer would then contact the ACR for a registration form (or the breeder can hand them out) and register their new purchase from there. They would then have access to any information within the database on that snake's family tree.

Well, those are some thoughts, anyway. Here is the form:

 

[Serpwidgets]

Also, if someone was breeding hybrids and wanted to be sure the information stayed with the snakes, they could register each of the offspring themselves and sell the snakes with the printed pedigrees, instead of waiting for the buyer to do so.

 

[Sisuitl]

This is a really interesting thread. I like the idea of corn shows, simply because it sounds like a ton of fun to have that many corn enthusiasts in one place at the same time. :crazy02: Also, I think that Kathy has a really great point about it lending normalcy to our hobby in the eyes of the public. In my homestate every year PETA brings up a bill trying to ban exotic pets like reptiles because they are "dangerous" and are "vectors for disease transmission". Loads of exotic pet owners then have to go in front of the legislature and defend our right to keep them. Anyway, I think that if there was shows with groups like 4H involved, and a formal way of recognizing the various cultivars that set them apart as domesticated creatures, it would go a long way towards showing the general public that they are perfectly all right.

Aside from the whole genetics background thing, I don't really see a need for registration to show. I do chinchilla showing with Empress Chinchilla Breeders Cooperative. All you need to show is have your individual animals tagged. They are judged solely on phenotype. The breeders are solely responsible for record keeping for their own herds. Some of the guys that show chinchillas have over 10,000 chinchillas. You just have to trust that they are being honest and not fudging pedigrees.

They are divided into groups based on color too. All chinchillas that are white based mutations are shown together. This includes silvers, mosiacs, pink white, TOV white, ebony white, violet white, sapphire white, tan white, etc etc etc. The same thing can be done with corns. Have an "amel" category, and "anery" category, a "caramel" category, "lavendar" category, "diffused/bloodred" category, etc. When you get animals with multiple sets of genes, say an amel lavendar, the show organizers would figure out which of the two categories has the least entries and put it in that one. Really common or specialized cultivars like snow or blizzard could be listed separately. A minimun number of entries for each sub-category could be decided on too. That way if there was only 6 amels entered, they would be shown against each other, or if there was 56 entrants with enough of each variety entered, they could be divided into groups like candycane, sunglow, fluorescent, reverse okeetee, etc.

If it is done like that then anybody could enter their corns regardless of whether or not there was any paperwork on them. For documenting, perhaps there could be a designated volunteer who goes around the show tables and photographs all the entrants or something.

I could see the value of individual animals going up, say if it won "best candycane" or something like that, but it shouldn't really affect the overall corn market. It would also give small time breeders a chance to build a reputation for producing really dynamite blood reds or high colored snows or whatever they are good at. Show would require a lot of volunteer work, but it would be a load of fun. I would sure be willing to help with something like that.

 

[Joejr14]

I'm not at all fond of this corn shows idea.

 

[CornCrazy]

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???

Can you give us the full information on which "Terri" you are referring to? I know that there are posts regarding me on the BOI and I definitely don't want anyone confusing me with the Terri you are talking about. Thanks!

OK...I just checked the BOI...is it Terri Sommella you are referring to? I just wanted it to be clear since my name was already mentioned in one of Don's posts (about my ghost).

 

[Traci1]

Yeah, she meant the bearded dragon Terri not you. We all know you are a good girl!

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

O! I'm sorry. I hadn't considered that the Terri's on this forum would be confused with whom I'm speaking of. I'm really sorry! Yes, I was speaking of Terri Sommella of Fire & Ice Dragons.

I think a cornsnake registry would be a really neat idea. I would steer clear of anything involving Fire & Ice though. It's just another money making scam (can you BELIEVE the prices she wants to charge???).

 

[CornCrazy]

Well, I knew you weren't talking about me...but I thought there might be some people on here that didn't know that. Thanks for clearing things up!

 

[Serpwidgets]

Here's a screenshot of the database viewer. Much of the functionality is already in place.

For example, you can navigate to either parent by clicking on the parent. Also, navigate to any offspring by clicking "offspring" and then selecting the offspring from a list of all of the current snake's offspring.

If anyone can think of any other fields that would be useful in such a database, speak up. :wavey:

 

[kathylove]

Glad to see you two tackling it.

A monumental task, if it catches on and gets big. But I can't think of anyone better equipped to deal with it.

 

[ecreipeoj]

I have been watching this thread and it is a very interesting idea. I have Arabians, Mini-Donkeys and Beagles and it is important for them to be registered or they are mutts. There are, and always be followers, of registered breeding stock and unregistered pet quality stock. The Mini Donkey registry is an open one. I am amazed at how many Dog registries there are. The AKC is closed and I don’t see how we could mimic their registry, but is may be possible to follow the guidelines of another. I think that most people here are underestimating the monumental task they are suggesting.

The Snake industry is similar and different in many ways to the horse, dog and other registered breeds. My first impression of a registry for Corns was that it would be like having a registry for Tropical Fish, which in my opinion is the closest thing to our snakes. I breed Koi and there is no registry for them. How could you register 1000’s upon 1000’s of baby Koi? Most of them go into a pet type market like most of our Corns. Breeding Stock Koi, are bought based upon the line they come from and the Breeders reputation, much like our Corns.

Our Snake industry has many players. I love the post by Don S which clearly states the up hill battle that all professional Snake Breeders face.

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.

Several people have made post about what goes on at Snake Shows as well. It is very rare for somebody to pay more for a snake at a show because of the breeder that is selling them, over saving $5 or even 5 cents. Add the enormous Pet Shop/Industry to this equation and their will be very little control possible. There will be very little participation in a Corn Snake registry from these Corn Snake enthusiast. It seems to me that the only people who would participate in a Corn Snake Registry would be serious breeders.

Most bigger breeders keep track of their breedings and have a way to link the offspring back to which stock they came from. I don’t know why they do it, but I do it so, if something pops up in my colony down the line, I will know where it came from and will be able to reproduce it easier. I know that I could supply the data to a Registry or to a buyer that they would need to registry their Corn Snake, without too much extra work, since I am already doing it in a way. It clearly seems to be totally impossible to register all Corns, but it may be possible to register select breeding stock. Why would we want to register Normal Corns, except for wild caught lines such as Hunt Club Okeetees? They are produced in very high numbers. Our select breeding stock of today, may very well be very normal in the future as well, just like tropical fish.

I read in this thread somewhere that it would be necessary for whoever took on a Corn Snake Registry to not have any intent on making money at it. I totally disagree. It could be non-profit, but if it is to be successful, it would have to be worthwhile to everybody involved. Operating cost and wages would have to be covered. There are legal issues that may be a huge hurdle as well. What would be wrong with somebody making their living at maintaining a registry. All other big registries, take in enough money to pay for all expenses including wages. You would not need to charge a great deal of money to register a Corn Snake to produce a lot of income to cover expenses if there was enough participation. $5 X 20,000 or $5 X 100,000 is a lot of money. You could substitute $4,$3 or less and you would still generated a lot of cash flow. The time or wages that somebody would disserve to maintain a project like this should be compensated for and all cost such as the printed Registration papers, postal cost and on and on, would need to be self sustaining or it would certainly fail. The registry would have to be established in a way that it could be past on into others hands in the future, or it would be lost. There would have to be an incentive for future players to get involved. I think a Registry for Corns would have to be taken very seriously and approached as a business or it will certainly fail. I think the amount of work it would take to maintain a registry , is being underestimated by most and would be doomed to failer, if it is attempted as a hobby rather than a non- profit business. You can take in a lot of money and pay for all expenses including wages, and still be within the guidelines of a non-profit entity.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I think, a reptile registry would make more sense on higher stakes animals. An example would be Ball Pythons. Their are so many people advertising het animals that truely aren't what they're advertised as. Het Albino balls go for $1000/pair. Het Piebalds go for $4500/pair. I know how angry I would be if I purchased a pair of $4500 normals. A registry would safe guard purchasers who are interested in making high dollar investments.

I really love this idea...but with cornsnake retail being expanded into all morphs (I saw an Opal at a pet store, I was very surprised)...Don is right in his statements...

Serp, I like your database...I wish I could create something like that...

 

[Joejr14]

I think, a reptile registry would make more sense on higher stakes animals. An example would be Ball Pythons. Their are so many people advertising het animals that truely aren't what they're advertised as. Het Albino balls go for $1000/pair. Het Piebalds go for $4500/pair. I know how angry I would be if I purchased a pair of $4500 normals. A registry would safe guard purchasers who are interested in making high dollar investments.

I really love this idea...but with cornsnake retail being expanded into all morphs (I saw an Opal at a pet store, I was very surprised)...Don is right in his statements...

Serp, I like your database...I wish I could create something like that...

Yeah, I agree. Serp, when's that shareware registry program of yours coming out?

 

[Rich Z]

To give you a further example of what an uphill battle this would be:

Every year at shows, I will have a bunch of heterozygous animals on the tables marked for what they are het for. As an example (using made up prices, as I am not going to look up what I really charge), I will have Amelanistics het Opal for $50, Amelanistics het Butter for $35, Amelanistics het for Butter Motley for $50, and Amelanistics het for Opal Motley for $200. Right next to them will be regular Amelanistics, not marked as being het for anything for maybe $15. Invariably, people will pass over those marked definite het animals and pick up the regular Amelanistics. As they are paying for them, they will ask me "Can you tell me what these are het for?"

If those labels indicating heterozygous traits were to be certificates of authenticity instead, do you think the results would be the same or not?

And as Joe Pierce has pointed out, all of the good intentions in the world aren't going to pay the bills when the reality of the task being proposed finally comes home to roost. Yeah maybe initially the glow of the fun and technical challenge will carry the burden, but a year or two from now the honeymoon will be over, and you will find yourself with a job that doesn't pay for the time and effort you have taken on. What then?

OK suppose the fee is only $5 per animal. I may produce 6,000 babies this year. Perhaps 3,000 of them will be bulked out to wholesalers, leaving me the rest of the stuff composed of keepers and animals to be sold at retail. Do I really want to tack on $15,000 to my overhead for those animals? And heck, everyone realizes that not all of those 3,000 will live. So did I just pay $5 per head for a number of dead snakes as well?

I think anyone considering doing this needs to REALLY sit down and work out a 5 year plan on it and figure out best and worst case scenarios. Figure out what your projected work load is going to be and look at EVERY possible problem you may have to wind up spending your time on to get resolved. Joe's point about lawsuits is worth thinking about. What happens is someone applies for a new cultivar and it gets denied and they follow up with a lawsuit because you just damaged their income earning potential with YOUR decision? This is a VERY REAL possibility not to be taken lightly.

Just make sure you know what you are actually getting into, please. Believe me, this is NOT a new thought you are having.....

 

[Joejr14]

Rich, I think we need to think of the corn snake buying world in two seperate packages.

One are the impulse buyers who dont care about the genetics and probably dont understand what het even stands for.

The other group are the hobbists, small breeders, and big breeders like yourself who have at least knowledge of the hobby, and arent clueless when it comes to genetics and future breeding projects.

I myself was just looking over your updated 2004 list and thinking, I would really love the caramel motleys het for amel. Since I'd like to produce butter motleys, it makes more sense for me to pay the extra $20-30 to buy caramel mots het amel, as opposed to buying a caramel and an amel het motley, or something of the sort.

I totally agree that this is a HUGE task to undertake, and someone does need to sit down and look ahead a few years, at the very least.

The question is whether or not it's worth it to do this just for the hobby-goers, since the impulse buyers dont really care about hets, or a registry.

Who knows, it'll be interesting to see how it works out.

 

[ecreipeoj]

It seems as if the main opposition to a Corn Snake Registry is the added cost to the Breeders and I agree with this completely, but the cost of registration can be set up to be paid for by the buyer. The buyers pays for shipping cost now and it should be the same for any proposed registration with a registry.

I am not completely familiar with all Registries but I am vaguely familiar with some. With some Dog registries you pay a very low fee to register the litters and you receive a certificate for each puppy to be sent in by the new owners to have their dog registered. They pay a fee to obtain the Registration Papers for their puppy which covers the cost of maintaining the registry. This would cost the Breeders up front a little and would cause more work for Corns that may or may not be registered.

The Mini Donkey Registry does not charge a fee to pre-register a foal. A standard form has been made up by the registry to be filed out by the breeder. The breeder fills in the info on the parents who already have a registration number and with their signature, they confirm the info on the form is accurate. The buyer of the foal, fills out the info that applies to them, such as their name and address and a “Name” of the foal and sends in the Breeders Certificate with a fee to have there foal registered. With this system, the entire fee is paid for by the buyer and not by the breeders. The only fee the buyer pays would be in the form of printing out a copy of the Breeders Certificate and the time it takes to fill it out. There would not necessarily be any additional cost if the Breeders Certificate was transferred with the snakes.

A system similar to this one could easily be established and would not require any prior work by the breeders except for maintaining a system of keeping track of his breeders and which offspring were produced by which breeders. This is already being done my most breeders. At the time of sale, if a person express the desire to register their Corn Snake, a Breeders Certificate could be supplied with the Corn Snake to be sent in with a fee to the Registry.

This type of system would work, but it would require a the Breeders to have their breeding stock registered with the Registry to get it started. All Breeders would have to have the same type of system to keep track of their offspring as well as their Breeders so all of the numbers would be compatible in the system. The identification number supplied with the Registration Papers would be the snakes ID # and searches could be done with a system of this type to track the ancestry of Corns.

If the Registry was left open indefinitely, somebody could always Register their Normal or Amel Corn, there just would not be very much history on the Corn. This type of registration may cost more than submitting a Breeders Certificate, due to the initial set up cost. I could see some added value of the a Registered Corn to some prospective buyer depending how deep the lineage goes. I think everybody could see the value of knowing the lineage of a new Corn bought as a breeder. This knowledge does have value to some people as well, even if they do not plan on breeding their Corns. It is like the pride of ownership of a Registered Dog as opposed to a non registered one. It depends on the value of “papers” to each individual buyer.

 

[SODERBERGD]

What about liability?

Yes, another objection. Actually just food for thought. Once you become an element of a transaction via being an data collection entity that said snake is actually what was advertised, you become a potential yaught payment for some attorney. I know it always sounds negative when Rich and I come up with this stuff, but it comes from experience. Anyone in business is in a constant state of education in the school of hard knocks, but the survivors are the ones that learned from those mistakes. Ask McDonald's why they warn you that their coffee is hot.

What if a snake was alleged to be het for this or that and turns out not to be? Now, I don't have dogs so I imagine that the AKC is problably blameless in such matters by virtue of some precedent, but we all know how ambulance chasers are. If they smell blood, they'll go for the throat. Andsually when there's a lawsuit, they don't miss any throats involved. This is probably what Rich was referring to when he advised an evaluation of every possible scenario. I think of the label on the baby stroller that warns you to take the baby out before folding it up for storage. We all know how that warning label came to be. Even if you say the registry entity is blameless in such matters, it can be challenged in court. It will be a judge that decides who all the guilty parties are. Also, is there a legal precedent nullifying an entity's liability if their system is hacked and/or otherwise compromised?

Also, what about herd rates? It doesn't take much longer to process 10 entries than it does one. In the old days of carbon paper and physical filing cabinets, it was understandable that volume discounts were not so applicable, but today with that copy/paste function or one of those awesome programs of Serp's, it shouldn't take that much longer to do multiples. I know breeders that pay their vets herd rates. They promise to bring in X amount of animals for the year and don't pay full price for each visit. An attractively low herd rate might encourage a big breeder to get more involved. Again, it's just as much about time for a big breeder as it is cost.