Stargazer. To test or not to test?

[scotsman]

@Wilko: Nice attitude to the problem, making public has never harmed anyone

@Deady: I have read the other posts, and yes, I find it was a bit much what was written. Your opinion is worth just as much as mine, and thats what makes a discussion. I may have a different opinion to yours, but I respect your opinion. But as far as I know a discussion is all about pros and contras. Have you ever took the time to thin about the pros and contras of testing, and of not testing? I have, heres what I came up with:
Testing:
Pros
Gene won't be passed on, one less Corn in the Breeding pool with the SG gene
Good conscience when selling Corns that they are Gazer free (as well as possible, 100% will never be achieved)

Contras
quite a few Hatchlings will be euthanised

Not Testing:
Pros
You can sell all your snakes, not caring about what happens in the future

Contras
Gene gets spread even more
Snakes you sell will cause other people to euthanise even more hatchlings

If you have any points to add to this, please feel free to add them, I would be very interested to see if I have forgotten something. I hope you don'T take this as another attempt to change your opinion, I would just like to hear what you think about it.

[Dale-Newby]

@Wilko: Nice attitude to the problem, making public has never harmed anyone

@Deady: I have read the other posts, and yes, I find it was a bit much what was written. Your opinion is worth just as much as mine, and thats what makes a discussion. I may have a different opinion to yours, but I respect your opinion. But as far as I know a discussion is all about pros and contras. Have you ever took the time to thin about the pros and contras of testing, and of not testing? I have, heres what I came up with:
Testing:
Pros
Gene won't be passed on, one less Corn in the Breeding pool with the SG gene
Good conscience when selling Corns that they are Gazer free (as well as possible, 100% will never be achieved)

Contras
quite a few Hatchlings will be euthanised

Not Testing:
Pros

You can sell all your snakes, not caring about what happens in the future

Contras
Gene gets spread even more
Snakes you sell will cause other people to euthanise even more hatchlings

If you have any points to add to this, please feel free to add them, I would be very interested to see if I have forgotten something. I hope you don'T take this as another attempt to change your opinion, I would just like to hear what you think about it.

I Totally Agree.... With the Pros & Cons. And my opinion will still stand towards testing. When i 1st learned about stargazing last year or the year before when i was looking into corn breeding i thought it was awful that breeders bred these purposely knowning there was an outcome of gazers! Untill i searched more into it and saw ther Bigger Picture! I then learnt that they were doing it for the good of the snake and future generations! Breeding the stargazer outta the gene pool. Yeah its ashame lots of gazer hatchlings have to be euthanised. But if its left untouched then down the line there will be more and more gazers.... Im guessing the Saying "You've gotta be Cruel to be kind" works here.

(Think I may have said this further up the post.) Because im now aware of SG i can ask a breeder if there corns are free for SG and if they say yeah there parents were tested then i'd Buy knowing my corns & future generations from them are free and safe from the gene. If the say we haven't tested then a risk must be taken if you want that snake...

I Dnt think stargazer will be fully wipedout the gene pool by testing but its a Start, in much time! there numbers would have decreased and cases Should be very rare.

[Deady]

@Deady: I have read the other posts, and yes, I find it was a bit much what was written. Your opinion is worth just as much as mine, and thats what makes a discussion. I may have a different opinion to yours, but I respect your opinion. But as far as I know a discussion is all about pros and contras. Have you ever took the time to thin about the pros and contras of testing, and of not testing? I have, heres what I came up with:
Testing:
Pros
Gene won't be passed on, one less Corn in the Breeding pool with the SG gene
Good conscience when selling Corns that they are Gazer free (as well as possible, 100% will never be achieved)

Contras
quite a few Hatchlings will be euthanised

Not Testing:
Pros
You can sell all your snakes, not caring about what happens in the future

Contras
Gene gets spread even more
Snakes you sell will cause other people to euthanise even more hatchlings

If you have any points to add to this, please feel free to add them, I would be very interested to see if I have forgotten something. I hope you don'T take this as another attempt to change your opinion, I would just like to hear what you think about it.

This is what i've tried to say all along though, a few breeders here & there isn't going to eradicate the problem, yes it will help but...

Say an aquarium has... Usually 50 snakes for sale, 40 of these are corn snakes, they buy for £5 each & sell for £40-80 that's a massive profit... The people that are going to buy their snake is going to be people who want a first snake, a little beautiful corn snake.... Are these people (maybe a 12 year old girl) going to be aware of a Star gazer?... Who does serious SERIOUS research before buying a snake you stick in a tank with a heat mat & feed it once a week. I read cheap books before i got my 1st corn... about 15 years ago, i've had about 10 snakes since & this snake i have now i bought about 6 weeks ago is the only snake i've had where i've been even aware that star gazing ever existed. I spoke to a bloke that works in the reptile section at my aquarium & asked if he had a clue what SG was, he said no.... Thats Bad. How is anyone else to know if the bloke selling them isn't to know?

All in all, i'm basically thinking, killing loads of snakes on the quiet to find out if YOUR snakes are healthy isn't going to help out the little corner pet shops & aquariums who only think about their own profit, it needs to be more written stuff & theory based tests or whatever than hands on. I mean, corns are the most popular snake there is... Thats a fact & yet they have no studies based on the worst thing that affects them. Yet near enough every land mammal has. Somethings gone a-miss somewhere.

This is my opinion, i've read everything, everyone else has said about me & my opinions, so no need to repeat yourselves & no need to make me out to be dumb just because i think that killing thousands a year is wrong, it is my opinion & my opinion isn't going to change what people do with there own snakes so it is invalid. But i've been asked to tell so i have.

If this is offensive to anyone AT ALL, i apologize in advance, as i seem to have been inadvertently offending quite a few people recently...... for some unknown reason.

[SpecialCorns Niels]

Well we can keep talking about the positive and negative sides of testing or not.
But We won`t be able to eliminate SG without the help off all breeders, especially the bigger ones ofcourse to start with!

After that, we can make ourselves a 2nd question:
If you buy corns (even without a known background leading to Sunkissed) people can consider to only buy corns from people who are testing for SG. Those breeders can provide you from much more background information!

Think atleast 3 times when you pass someone at a event with some beautifull sunkisseds, it ain`t worth it when the line isn't tested!!

[Musharaf]

Yes Niels I agree, we can go on and on about this forever.

As for the problem that people don`t know about this, and there is no information around... that has changed a lot over the last years. Close to everybody has a computer with internet in their house, not like 5-10 years ago.
I doubt I would find so many articles on stargazing for, say 3 years ago.

Its getting out there for snakekeepers to discover, and care.

[eeji]

I don't think stargazing will ever be eradicated, it is becoming too widespread and like people say there are only a handful of breeders doing something to combat it. There will always remain people who either don't know about it or don't care about it as we have already seen with a major breeder in the US.

The bottom line for me is that people who do know and do care will be able to make an informed choice when purchasing sunkissed based morphs and will be able to continue those lines or create their own from proven free stock. 'Hopefully' this will have a snowballing effect as more people start to sell proven gazer free lines and as time goes on there will be less people disappointed that they have a 'wonky' snake and less will need to be euthanised.

There may only be a handful of people currently testing but it has to start somewhere and that somewhere is here and now.

[Wilko92]

I don't think stargazing will ever be eradicated, it is becoming too widespread and like people say there are only a handful of breeders doing something to combat it. There will always remain people who either don't know about it or don't care about it as we have already seen with a major breeder in the US.

The bottom line for me is that people who do know and do care will be able to make an informed choice when purchasing sunkissed based morphs and will be able to continue those lines or create their own from proven free stock. 'Hopefully' this will have a snowballing effect as more people start to sell proven gazer free lines and as time goes on there will be less people disappointed that they have a 'wonky' snake and less will need to be euthanised.

There may only be a handful of people currently testing but it has to start somewhere and that somewhere is here and now.

^^ this ^^

And I think informing as many other keepers as we can will also help with that snowball effect.

[scotsman]

That is the main goal. We need to make this thing as public as possible so that every corn snake owner knows whats going on, and this only works with cooperation. So lets pull all resources together and start making this as public as possible!

[Dale-Newby]

Alot of snake will die either way testing or not. Breeders Testing purposely breed gazers knowing there outcome will likely be gazer offspring and then these have to be euthanised. And Those breeders that dnt care & sell them, the offsprings are most likey dead! sometime down the line. whether its euthanised, Starved due to condition or abandoned.... Yeah alot can lead normal heathly lives & i admire those who successfully care for there gazer snakes but the harsh reality is that many will not live full term lives

@ Deady You make a very good point & your oppinion matters whether people agree with you or not! Im gonna sound hypocritical here but i agree with what you are saying.... But also agree with the other side. I Myself is Open minded about this whole topic, I Do move towards the side of testing and feel more strongly about it, but do understand you and others who are not for testing. To me its a very hard subject to debate while having clashing oppinions

And if my comment that i may have repeated further up the post has Made you seem dumb! It wasn't intended that way. I Just wasn't 100% if i had put it. i did'nt mean to repeat my self its just my main view on the whole debate and it was on my mind. However i could be looking at this --->

so no need to repeat yourselves & no need to make me out to be dumb just because i think that killing thousands a year is wrong

Totally wrong! i do apologize.. either way. lol

[vetdebbie]

Hey deady (can't quote on the iphone)
You raise a good point - quietly testing our own corns is not going to help your local corner shop rep shop. Which is why we are outspoken on here. And you are probably not aware but we provide some of our snakes to reptile shops, and it is highlighted to them. Ok it is only a few shops, but again it is a start- we have plans to expand that.

AND you are correct- there is not enough written info on the actual disease, which is something else we are working on. We are raising our gazers, partly for helping with test breeding but also so that we have animals to study. I need adult gazers to blood test, adult gazers to post mortem, and I've had an offer of free use of an MRI scanner to study them to. Some of these tests have been done on babies but size is an issue so we need do them on bigger animals.

I understand your abhorence of killing lots of snakes, I really do. Believe me it's not my favourite pastime. But for me it is better than selling sick animals.

Just for one moment put yourself in our place. We purchased about 30 het or homo sunkissed animals before realising about the problem. Then we found out about it. Honest question- what would you do? Keeping them as pets is an option.

[Deady]

Hey deady (can't quote on the iphone)
You raise a good point - quietly testing our own corns is not going to help your local corner shop rep shop. Which is why we are outspoken on here. And you are probably not aware but we provide some of our snakes to reptile shops, and it is highlighted to them. Ok it is only a few shops, but again it is a start- we have plans to expand that.

AND you are correct- there is not enough written info on the actual disease, which is something else we are working on. We are raising our gazers, partly for helping with test breeding but also so that we have animals to study. I need adult gazers to blood test, adult gazers to post mortem, and I've had an offer of free use of an MRI scanner to study them to. Some of these tests have been done on babies but size is an issue so we need do them on bigger animals.

I understand your abhorence of killing lots of snakes, I really do. Believe me it's not my favourite pastime. But for me it is better than selling sick animals.

Just for one moment put yourself in our place. We purchased about 30 het or homo sunkissed animals before realising about the problem. Then we found out about it. Honest question- what would you do? Keeping them as pets is an option.

I'd keep them as pets, show pets, if they were healthy of course, if they actually can't lead a normal life then yeah the best thing is to put them out of their misery, but if they can feed, can find heat & cool spots to thermoregulate etc then there would be no need to euthanize. I actually offered i think to Ads to take some of his gazer hatchlings off his hands to save them being euthanized.

I've read the whole topic again, in a fresh sense of mind & i seem to have come across as i don't care about the problem in hand. Fact is, i do care... Severely. I'd love to see SG be completely eradicated i was just posting my opinion from a different light than from the 'Business Breeder' type person.

Thanks.

[SpecialCorns Johan]

The basis of keeping animals has been poorly regulated
Many people think, nice a reptile, but it's completely different than a rabbit or a mouse.
Reptiles are cold blooded and are entirely dependent on carers.
As a result, there are many people who I know including well-known breeders who never take care about that.
Why would they do dwell on SG??

We humans have created what pets are we keep now, and chance them like we want. Not what the animals want. Wild dogs, as previously we don’t have anymore. We have also ruin many basic animal line’s. To create “new” dogs cat’s snake’s who are hybrids by just wrong breeding .
With reptiles, it is no different, everyone should have them as pets, but nobody have to know anything about them!!! Everybody can start……


On SG, we can keep talking, and many will have a different opinion.
And yes keep all the tested animals as pets is a solution if you only want to take care of your own animals. And your own SG problem to solve.
Quite simply keep the tested snakes and keep other less. less SG testing. A very good solution!
But we can’t trust unfortunately the people.
Not about:
Matings
hets
Diseases
Deviations
Care
Money
Because everything turned mostly about money.

After last year we have seen that:
1000’s poss SG snakes have come to Europe
People still lie about SG
People still sel SG.


We decided to fight the SG problem, and not only for our own collection!
We know that we never can win because, there are many who don’t not want to follow us.
Testing is cost a lot of effort, emotion and money.

Why not just for own collection?
Just because we have several good people to help. And we avoid untested animals are offered!

Specialcorns tested this year 18 animals 18 X 15 eggs are 270 eggs. So that means that there are now 270 less animals are on the market with het , ph or homo SG !!

Procorns is the only one that share our opinion unconditionally!!!
the only one in Europe!

So Specialcorns and Procorns and are the only ones NEVER sell untested Sunkissed lines.
Yes and others who are also doing same but(that’s what they said) But in the same time they offerd on the internet het and poss het SG right now. This ruining the hobby more, and only for the money!

Yes there will be 1,000’s animals euthanized because people are unreliable.
Only in this way we try to keep a healthy animal population and to breed.
If we do nothing, than are the corns completely finished in Europe in 10/15 years

We can not really improve this world but to offer a helping hand.

So do nothing , critize, and go on on the same way like the most are doing now, stay with your heads in the sand……..

procorns and Specialcorns will give them just a smile when our collections are tested and we share many tested corns in Europe.
To get money?? Keep dreaming folks, and if you realy understand this all…….

Cheers Johan

[Clancorns]

[quote="SpecialCorns JohanSo Specialcorns and Procorns and are the only ones NEVER sell untested Sunkissed lines.
Yes and others who are also doing same but(that’s what they said) But in the same time they offerd on the internet het and poss het SG right now. This ruining the hobby more, and only for the money!

Cheers Johan[/quote]

I've seen that too, its really sad, especially when they declare otherwise.

[vetdebbie]

I'd keep them as pets, show pets, if they were healthy of course, if they actually can't lead a normal life then yeah the best thing is to put them out of their misery, but if they can feed, can find heat & cool spots to thermoregulate etc then there would be no need to euthanize. I actually offered i think to Ads to take some of his gazer hatchlings off his hands to save them being euthanized.

I've read the whole topic again, in a fresh sense of mind & i seem to have come across as i don't care about the problem in hand. Fact is, i do care... Severely. I'd love to see SG be completely eradicated i was just posting my opinion from a different light than from the 'Business Breeder' type person.

Thanks.

Ok, I respect you would keep them as pets. Just 2 points that you seem to have missed:

1) The snakes I was talking about are sunkissed or het sunkissed with unknown gazer status. No issues with their outward health.
2) We are specifically NOT euthanasing the gazers, as we need them for research. We are euthanasing their 'normal' siblings who are all 66% poss het gazers

To sort of repeat Johan, keeping our own sunkissed and not breeding them was an option, but it is not option that helps with the bigger issue. Not testing our animals does not expand the clean gene pool. It stops us selling substandard snakes. It stops us ever selling any sunkissed morph, which is a shame as they are pretty. And - unless I am misreading your post as you seem to class us as 'Business Breeders' - it reduces our income as we can't sell those snakes.

If we didn't care deeply about this issue we would just carry on regardless, breed gazers, hide them and make a fortune. We were offered £600 for a sunkissed anery last year.

However, we are not 'Business Breeders'. This is our hobby and passion. We are not here to make money (although paying for the food is always nice!). We want to produce healthy, interesting animals and do our little bit to further the hobby. So we are trying to increase the clean gene pool for gazers. We are aiming to produce nonkinking lavenders and strong normally growing dilutes as well. But people know lavenders tend to kink (less so in recent years I have to say), and that dilutes grow slowly, so we don't need to shout about it. People don't know about gazers, so we are shouting about it. This is one of the points of the thread.

People will always disagree with the euthanasia, I don't mind if they can give a good reason to justify their position.

[Wilko92]

Deady, as I've been hopping about putting links together I've been reading all the Stargazing threads, and I'd like to set you straight on something (not in a nasty way, just in a to let you know sort of way). Stargazing isn't manmade - it was a natural mutation that popped up when the Sunkissed morph popped up. People never create new base morphs, genes simply mutate thanks to mother nature, and bam we get another lovely morph to play with. The stargazing gene isn't our fault.
What is our fault is it getting spread so far within the captive cornsnake population. When I say "our" I mean a couple of US breeders who ended up crossing it into everything else when they were crossing sunkissed into everything else. Beyond that I won't point fingers, because Stargazing could have been put down to incubator problems and such at first and it took a long while for someone to prove that it is a recessive gene that causes the genetic Stargazing in cornsnakes.

Now with regards to not breeding ph Stargazing, in principle this is fine, especially if you've only got the odd corn and just wanted to get 1 clutch out of your pets. But if you've got hundreds of corns, that you've hatched and raised and have had for generations, simplying not breeding ph Stargazers would mean losing those bloodlines. [edit] -- I doubt many hobby breeders would be fussed about the money they'd miss out on if they lost their lines, but rather the hard work and effort they put in to breeding the best cornsnakes they could -- [/edit] Testing means that the lines can continue without the Stargazing gene, and will prevent it being inadvertently spread even further.

I know this isn't quite cut and dried as to whether we should test or not but I do think it's information that is pertinent to the issue of Stargazing