Certified reptiles?

Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum

Help Support Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Five years ago I came up with the idea to issue a certificate / pedigree with every snake I pass onto a new owner. It was received with mix reaction; some threw it into a bin whilst others framed it. Over the time I thought maybe I have been wasting time with it but I persevered and kept issuing the cetrificates.

Two weeks ago, a person contacted me to verify the origins of a pair of GTPs that I supposedly bred in 2006. He was reluctant to give me the sellers name and details, so I was unable to track down the transaction. However, I advised him to ask the seller if the two snakes come accompanied with two of my certificates. I believe there was a silence after that.

Why am I bringing this up? Anyone with a black & gold carpet can claim it’s the Krauss line, or GTP Hemens line, etc. There is no real evidence that would lead to the original breeder or the founding animals.

Do you think it would be a good idea if more breeders adopted some sort of pedigree system? Not only pure line locality breeders but also morph breeders. If I was to buy a jag, albino. RP, jungle x diamond …. whatever morph, I would like to know the history on the snake and the names of people involved in such project.
What are your thoughts on that?

Great idea Waterrat I am in the Process of instituting the same type of system.

cheers
Scott
 
I've been in the horse industry (woking my way up from horses woth $1000 in Australia to horses worth $20 000 to $50 000) and knowing their pedigree is pretty much the most important part of breeding. I mean, look at racehorses! If a filly comes from a stallion that's won three melbourne cups, she can be worth six zeros!

Do you microchip your animals water rat?
You can microchip snakes? o_O
 
Yes Michael that is a good idea mate for lots of reasons a lot of them stated here i got into reps for the love of the animals and that hasn,t changed but watching the prices of things droping so rappidly worries me especially for those who have invested large sums of money in a species to breed or develope only to see there monetary value drop to less than ten persent of what you originally paid for the parentage.This happens a lot i feel due to a market being flooded with so called blood lines krauss etc with no way of proveing or back tracking ones perantage so i think what you do michael is a step forward towards the future cheers mick.
 
Yeah i know of a few people who microchip their snakes.... I think mostly for security reasons, I don't see why it couldn't be used to complement the pedigree papers.
 
I'm totally for mico chipping high value animals and have it's number on it's certificate for the same reasons that AUSHERP outlined.
 
Microchipping is good as long as the PIT tag is surgically implanted into the tissue inside the ribs. Subcutaneous PIT tag is highly visible and easy to remove. It's totally inappropriate to use in GTP juveniles.

Pedigree as such is really only useful if there is a national register, an authority, which certifies the validity of the pedigree. Unfortunately, that is a 'mission impossible' in the herp community.
 
Novel idea, but i instantly thought.. What is to stop someone say having 2 GTPs same sex, age etc. 1 from you and 1 from a random. Then they could sell this other one from a random but because they have a piece of paper describing an animal exactly the same, they could claim it to be from your stock and your average Joe wanting a GTP would be none the wiser.
 
i like the idea, it would then also help tom, dick and harry, who are new to breeding, to be able to say "here the parents are from the green effect (or whereever) here are the parents certificates for you to see to prove that the line is pure" etc etc they can then give their own certificate to back up their claims. the buyers can throw them away or keep them as you stated waterrat. so now tom, dick and harry who wish to get a good reputation and not be taken as dodgey breeders (as they don't have a previous history, or much of one).
 
Novel idea, but i instantly thought.. What is to stop someone say having 2 GTPs same sex, age etc. 1 from you and 1 from a random. Then they could sell this other one from a random but because they have a piece of paper describing an animal exactly the same, they could claim it to be from your stock and your average Joe wanting a GTP would be none the wiser.

As I indicated earlier, crooks will always fins a way how to benefit.
On the positive side, if for example I bought a pair of B&W "certified" carpets from Colin and I bred from them, I would then set up my own certificates to go with the babies, stating that the grand-parents (No. xxx) were Colin's stock and I can prove it because I got his signed certificates. In my opinion, there is very little work involved in this, once you set up the template, all you do then is change the details for each hatchling. Everybody has got a printer in these days and white cardboard paper is very cheap.

May I say - certifies reptiles are not superior to the rest.
 
I think this is a great idea, I kept the cards that came with my jungles from southern cross reptiles.
 
Aren't we meant to be doing something similar when we sell reptiles anyway? Up here i'm pretty sure we're required to write a receipt with our sales, this would be essentially the same thing, just a little more organised and a bit more flash looking.
 
No requirement for receipts in Qld but you're right, the Movement Advice, Import / Export permits (in other states) certify any transactions.
In my case, since I started breeding from my 2006 progeny, I am now constructing a tree of descendants. In a few years, it'll be more extensive, like a proper pedigree.
It also states which individual snakes were the parents, etc., whilst the transfer documentation doesn't have that information.
 
I like the idea of it Michael however it holds no real truth once the snake leaves the 'certified' breeders collection. You have to take the sellers word for the animals that they are selling otherwise who is to say that the original animals were not genuine locale specific or pures ect.

Someone mentioned that a licensed W.A taker is doing something similar. Please note I do not know who this is as it is the first time that I have heard of it. Once again, all you are taking is the sellers word as it is obvious that the animals are from W.A or at best a certain area of the state however for die hard locale specific keepers, wild collection in person is the only way to be sure.

For instance if I bought a pair of A. wellsi from the Pilbara, would I be happy? You bet. Would I be positive that they were locale specific? No. The point I am making is that the Pilbara is a lot larger and less specific area then where Jungles come from? Everyone wants a Pure Palmerston and there are die hard keepers that would not breed a Tully with a Palmerston as they want to keep locales pure. Fair enough.

Would these same keepers breed an A. wellsi from North West Cape with an animal from Marble Bar? Even though it is less locale specific then a Tully mated with a Palmerston?????

The points I am making is that at the end of the day, 99% of herpers do not know where their animals came from unless they collected them from the wild in person. Regardless of any certificates issued upon the sale of these animals, you still have to take the breeders word. You are always going to get a person ask where and how you obtained your Green Pythons and how do we know that they are locale specific animals from Iron Range. You yourself have noted how many keepers think that every I.R animal 'has' to have a white dorsal stripe or it is not a pure Aussie Animal. Other people will just accept your word for what it is and be happy with their purchase.


p.s
Krauss was not always jungle Krauss, he would've had to start somewhere as said Tom or perhaps Harry.........

Well actually he was. He was the first person to do any sort of serious line breeding with Jungles and still to this day has Australia's most famous line of Palmerston Jungles. If it was not for Peters early work with Jungles, I doubt that they would be where they are today within the hobby. Every single well known Jungle breeder in Australia have used animals that decend from Peters line in one way or another.
 
I take your point Nick but as I said earlier, the certification is not just about pure lines or locale specific animals. The certificate should explain how the snake you're buying came about. It should be clear whether there was any inbreeding, e.g. progeny to one of the parents, amongst siblings, etc, (whether it matters or not). I would particularly appreciate to know how certain colour morphs were achieved (this would take out the secretive creators lol). Pedigree as such doesn't have to go back to the original wild caught specimens, although it would be good if it would, a record of breeding lines (pedigree) can be started at any time. I tend to look ten or twenty years ahead, not what's on the pedigree at the moment.
Also, I am not preaching that others should follow. It was just an idea I had. I have been doing it for 5 years now and will continue whether the buyers have the cetrificates framed or wipe their bums with it.
 
I think it's a GREAT idea. Not only do people know there animals are of good quality, but it also stops people claiming the animals they are try to pass on are from a perticular breeder.


Will
 
I think individual breeders handing out individual certificates is a good start but we should start to take a leaf from the books of other pet breeders like dogs, cats and horses and look into state and national ''Councils'' for the breeders to be registered with and to have standard state council headers with 3-4 generations of the animals lineage inc microchip nos.
It may not fix all the problems but it will give the buyers the choice between a reputable, registered breeder and a backyard breeder. This entire industry was started by ''backyard breeders'' and at the moment the reputable breeders are only reputable because they say so.
Maybe if we can start to show the authorities that we are becoming organized then they may take a little more notice and not just ignore us.
 
May I say - certifies reptiles are not superior to the rest.

You may say that, but the question is do you believe it? :)
Along with the other points it seems like a good way to maintain higher prices for certified stock than other stock that comes without a certificate, as people with more money then sense (and there are plenty around) will pay a reasonable amount extra for animals that supposedly come from good stock. As mentioned before though, it has just as many holes as the qld lic system in regards to swapped animals and fake breeding.

Other than that, Im guessing lots of people would be happy to 'know' where their animals came from. It may only be the crooks that find the holes....but the hobby is full of crooks...
 
I think you'd find many would abuse this anyway as there is no authority, the certificates are created by the guy selling them so if he was selling them as something they aren't they'd just print that on the certificate too. And not many would try to track down breeders, and when they do, most lines are so many generations captive bred, making it almost impossible to disprove deceptive marketing. Unless they are ID chipped of course, but who has the money for that :D!
 
Bring it on champ, have a shot at me if it makes you feel good.
Every good thread ends up in s*&&%$ when some do-gooder brings the subject of money into it.
 
i think it would be a good idea.
i think it will also help to slow down the flood of reptiles being bred by inexperienced breeders. Not that i am against breeding our animals but a flooded market is not good.

LOL how do inexperienced breeders become experienced other than breeding? Haha, almost says that only the old breeders can still breed. No offence
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top