The Slither Files and the Impact on US Reptile Husbandry

[groundskeeper24]

In the last month or so, there's been a massive outing of a US reticulated python breeder as a chronic animal abuser. There's an entire Facebook group dedicated to the subject if one cares to see the details. Some of the examples of abuse are quite graphic and frankly unimaginable until seen. The video was released by a provocative rival breeder who got extremely angry when an animal he lent to a colleague somehow wound up at the abuser's facility.which he rightly believed to be the equivalent of a puppy mill for large constrictors

I personally keep one reticulated python. I am not a breeder, but I am loosely familiar with the niche. The outing of the abuser, who owned hundreds of females raised many strictly mathematical questions. Retics can lay 30 plus eggs per year. If someone has 100 females that makes for 3K baby pythons that will be large enough to kill a person. Are there enough people in the US capable of meeting an animal like that's needs to sustain that kind of production? Who feeds that many animals? What happens when they don't sell and become things that cost more and more money to keep alive?

US reptile husbandry has gone from being a passion to being a business with the morph explosion in the late 90's/early 2000's. Lots of investment occurred and keeping became less about finding animals that you genuinely loved keeping and more about breeding tons of animals with as many traits as possible.

I think this event, which has been more impactful than intended, will cause a large degree of change in the US reptile hobby. People will ask questions of themselves and others about why they do what they do and how they can provide the best life for their charges. I personally welcome it. Morph breeding generated interest, but it really homogenized the whole market as basically a ball python hobby rather than a reptile hobby cumulatively.

 

[AGA]

I agree fully with all the points you’ve made. Let me guess, the breeder’s name rhymes with “ Bay”?

Morph breeding has gotten to a truly ridiculous point, with ball pythons like you said, as well as numerous other species.

Have you heard of scaleless snakes. This “morph”(horrifying deformity) produces snakes with little to no scales at all, at least 90% bare skin is considered a good scaleless. Not only is this extremely ugly in my opinion, but it also robs the snakes, which need their ventral scales to move at all, of any semblance of a normal life.

This is a disturbing trend for sure but unfortunately is not limited just to pet reptiles. I keep pet pigeons and there are truly a shocking array of different breeds that have shocking deformities. Bulging eyes, beaks too short to feed their own young, enlarged wattles around the eyes and beak that hinder vision and feeding. It’s disgusting. I think it is so prevalent with reptiles because it’s so much easier for people to collect a ton of fancy snakes or geckos and then neglect them in a tank vs birds or large mammals, but it surely does happen.

Don’t get me started on the equivalent of morph breeding in regards to dogs…

 

[groundskeeper24]

I agree fully with all the points you’ve made. Let me guess, the breeder’s name rhymes with “ Bay”?

Morph breeding has gotten to a truly ridiculous point, with ball pythons like you said, as well as numerous other species.

Have you heard of scaleless snakes. This “morph”(horrifying deformity) produces snakes with little to no scales at all, at least 90% bare skin is considered a good scaleless. Not only is this extremely ugly in my opinion, but it also robs the snakes, which need their ventral scales to move at all, of any semblance of a normal life.

This is a disturbing trend for sure but unfortunately is not limited just to pet reptiles. I keep pet pigeons and there are truly a shocking array of different breeds that have shocking deformities. Bulging eyes, beaks too short to feed their own young, enlarged wattles around the eyes and beak that hinder vision and feeding. It’s disgusting. I think it is so prevalent with reptiles because it’s so much easier for people to collect a ton of fancy snakes or geckos and then neglect them in a tank vs birds or large mammals, but it surely does happen.

Don’t get me started on the equivalent of morph breeding in regards to dogs…

I don't hate morph breeding per se, but it's not my cup of tea. I'll always believed that wild type patterns are the best paint jobs an animal can have. I also view morphs as a bit of a pyramid scheme. Something is new or rare, people buy it, breed it on a large scale, then the value is inevitably driven into the toilet. It's a self-defeating enterprise and it's crappy for the animals. If you don't have big money for initial investment, you're not going to make a living breeding morphs. You're just going to breed a whole lot of mouths to feed.

I know who you're talking about, but this particular instance isn't "Ray". It's a guy named Samson Pruitt. I'm not going to elaborate, but the images and stories are disgusting on many levels. It's also fairly gross on a human level for other reasons.

Reticulated pythons are hardy snakes but not great pet candidates for most people. They definitely aren't great candidates for morph breeding, although their morph patterns are next level compared to ball pythons. Retics can lay 30 eggs at once whereas bps lay 7 or 8. You're not going to have an easy time selling 30 retics to people capable of giving them appropriate care. People were breeding animals that were just never going to sell.

The hobby needs to get back to passion over profit. Money got people invested chasing big dreams that learned the hard way. When I got into reptiles, it was about keeping animals that I thought were fascinating. Money was never a factor or consideration.

 

[CGSwans]

I don’t (currently) keep any reptiles but have always loved them and will get back into it one day,

Reptile breeding has always seemed like a Ponzi scheme to me. The first person with a new morph makes a killing. The second generation breeders make their money back. The third generation are left with animals they can’t sell.

It has never made any business sense to me, when two animals can be used to breed hundreds of offspring. There simply isn’t that many people wanting to keep reptiles.

There also seems to be a fetishisation of bad husbandry, where the more spartan, tiny and enrichment-deprived your set-up, the more ‘professional’ you are. No thanks.

 

[AGA]

There also seems to be a fetishisation of bad husbandry, where the more spartan, tiny and enrichment-deprived your set-up, the more ‘professional’ you are. No thanks.

Exactly. They are reptile mills, really no different than backyard puppy mills.

Another disturbing trend with these mainstream reptile breeders, such as “Ray” and another guy with the initials BHB is that they open up reptile zoos that at least meet the bare minimum of care requirements that an average zoo may have, but behind the scenes their breeding centers have the spartan conditions you’ve described.

I’m not suggesting that the value an animal holds in your business should affect their care and treatment, as they should all be treated as living animals with respect, but you would think these breeders would give at least three sane standard of care to the major money-making animals than random ones on display. Retic Ray for example has a beautiful zoo facility but behind the scenes the reptile-mill breeder reticulateds are housed in the smallest and most barebones enclosures possible.

I truly believe that this trend of opening such public facilities is just to detract from the neglect and downright abuse these animals face in the private breeding facilities. Disgusting.