What happens if you cross a carpet to a woma? (dialup)

[Yasser]

Damn, you can't stop can you? Chop, chop, chop. Ya gotta cut down all the trees around you so you can be the tallest huh? Well, one day, you are going to be the ONLY tree around and you'll be a very sad man.
You keep bringing up this "scientific study" but you have yet to bring any of it to the table.
To answer Seamus and you, my hybrids are doing quite well. Most snakes hybrids have proven themselves to be just as healthy as any other "pure" species if not even moreso (but I understand you don't like to hear that part).

The fact that you cannot make a single post without cutting someone down for their beliefs tells me quite well what kind of person you are. A person I choose not to have an intellectual conversation with about hybrids. I won't waste any more of my time here. You can return to your territorial pissing. I won't try to take your fire hydrant away from you anymore.


-Yasser

[JDouglas]

Well said Yasser. This guy is all talk with no substance. Many crosses do quite well, for example, charpondros, king/corns, milk/corns, jungle/diamonds, bateaters, blood/balls, etc. They are all healthy. This one sentence is more scientific proof than the pages of crap Greg has spewed forth so I am not wasting anymore of my time with this thread either.

[Invictus]

I'm going to share some wisdom I learned a while ago:

Always consider the source - what do you get from an a**hole besides sh*t and hot air?

I've had my fill of this debate too. Yasser, great post. I loved your tree analogy.

[LdyDrgn]

The only bug-eyed snakes I've ever seen were products of too many generations of inbreeding: Leucistic TX rats, bci, Rainbow boas.... None of them were hybrids. *shrug*

I'm not on any side, either.

[Gregg M]

Hmmmm So now I am an *******??? And you are talking about me being the one to call names and so on..... Show me an example of where I spacificly called anyone a name???? All I am doing is calling you out on the BS that hybrids are actually good for the animal and the hobby..... I want facts, not opinions from people that have been doing this for a couple of years...... Yeah, I am pompous because I have an education geared towards the animals we are talking about and can prove my case with study...... Like I have already said twice, do the research yourself and you might find the info.....

I need to do the work for you???? You are all big boys...... It is funny how you all back out without giving any facts..... Just all opinions about me and opinions about hybrids..... No factual info.......

2 years in the hobby and you know all there is to know.....LOL..... My 10 year old nephew has more experiance in the hobby than you do.....LOL..... Now that is funny.....

[Jeff_Favelle]

No surprise that a ssnakess thread would ultimately resort to name calling. Its SNAKES people. Get a grip.

Foal watch? That's awesome man! Do you ever have to intervene? What if the Mom horse got mad and kicked back or something? Do they let you touch the baby? That would be a cool thing to see.

[tHeGiNo]

No surprise that a ssnakess thread would ultimately resort to name calling. Its SNAKES people. Get a grip.

No kidding. Try to keep a limit to the name calling. Infact, avoid it all together, is it really necessary? Science and our understanding of certain concepts does not progress from calling eachother morons and *** holes. Its an informative debate, state your information, your opinion and your claims and let that be it. Why take it to a personal level? We are here to learn from eachother, not to belittle one another based on differences in opinion.

[ravensgait]

Jeff after a couple hours of sleep I'm sort of awake lol well she did the deed , had a nice little colt. Most mares are pretty good about it and don't mind you being there. Yeah I've had to stick my arms in places I don't want to think about lol on horses and cows. usually don't worry to much about them but this mare had a few problems last time so we wanted to keep an eye on her. Everything went fine this time she spit the little sucker out and he was up and moving rather quickly. Had a mare years ago that got so excited about her first foal that she started running around him in the stall and stepped on his ear cliping the tip off. He was fine just lost a inch or so. So much fun staying up so long the wife is in foal lol so it left me to sit there trying to stay awake.

Was just looking at my post from last night lol did I write that!! lol...

[Simon]

Wow
Cute little guys
Congrats on the hatchlings.
Hope that they'll all do well for you.

Not going to go into the hybrid thing.
Just as long as you tell people that they're hybrid when you sell them out (if you even sell them out)

Let the 'buyer' be the one to make up his/her mind in the hybrid debate and hopefully all 'buyers' are responsible enough to mark down whatever they breed that the results are hybrids too~

[Mugwump]

( This post is LLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG)

As I see it, several issues are at play here (keep in mind that I know next to nothing about biology...apologies if I misuse scientific terms):

Gregg's point of view, stated somewhat abrasively at times, is that hybridization of species whose territorial ranges do not overlap is morally inexcusable if it is done in a spirit of experimentation without any specific scientific goals. I guess this could be termed, "tinkering," and might be motivated by pure curiosity: the "hey, I wonder if a woma and a carpet would produce offspring?" sort of thing.

I think in this regard, he is not altogether off-base. Any discussion of morality must factor in some pragmatic, even utilitarian considerations. There might arise some incidental scientific insight into herpetology as an unintended result of NERD's "tinkering," but would such slight broadening of our understanding of snakes in general be enough to justify the death/suffering of the individual animals involved? As far as I can see, there is not much clear-cut, compelling evidence that hybridization of disparate species necessarily results in deformed animals with a higher likelihood of dying prematurely, just as there is nothing particularly clear-cut to support the conclusion that these offspring will be totally free of genetic problems. Again, I don't know much about the biology at work in this discussion, but it would seem that sometimes hybridization causes problems, sometimes not. But do the ideal ends (perfectly healthy offspring) outweigh the worst-case scenario means (experimenting over generations with species, perhaps causing them harm or killing them in the process)?

Thinking this over, I believe my answer would be no--doing so is like a program of eugenics, and that has a nasty resonance for me. The potential benefit of "tinkering," as someone mentioned earlier, is keeping herpetoculture fresh by adding something new and interesting into the mix, but I believe that there are enough species out there to fulfill peoples' desire for the next, new interesting thing for a lifetime without having to resort to hybridization.

I suppose an argument could be made that people have been selectively breeding all kinds of organisms over the entirety of human history, and that, indeed, interdependent evolution, whereby one species' changing needs produce a knock-on change in another species, is an unassailable constant of nature's design. But does precedent justify the perpetuation of a potentially harmful practice, morally speaking? Again, if the explicit aim of the practice is to deepen our understanding of the world, then, imho, yes. If it is merely to satisfy our curiosity, then no.

The problem I have with this debate is that my heart is in conflict with my head. I don't dispute the fact that these hybrids are extremely cool, some of them even awe-inspiring. I nearly went ape**** when I first saw a carpondro. My gut reaction is to love these things and encourage everyone to continue pushing the limits. But when I organize my thoughts into a moral argument, my head tells me that hybridization isn't justifiable on the grounds that it is merely _probably_ not going to hurt the animals. To cause suffering needlessly, even if unintentionally, is something that I think should be avoided wherever possible.

Please don't confuse my ramblings with PETA-style b.s. I love a nice rare steak and, if in the process of figuring out how to cure cancer, medical researchers have to kill a few rats or monkeys, it's a shame, but I'm all for it.

So where do I stand in the end? Well, I certainly don't feel as strongly as Gregg, but it seems that this debate boils down to something like this: "hybridization is neither clearly good, nor clearly bad," but since lives of animals are hanging in the balance, I think it makes more sense to err on the side of resisting the curiosity to mix species.

On the other hand, people are going to continue doing whatever the hell they want to do.

Just had some time and thought I would dip my oar into the waters,

Marc

p.s. It occurs to me that I never mentioned on what I was basing the assumption that hybridization has the potential to harm offspring. I was extrapolating from mules, which are sterile, and some very inbred breeds of dog which are anatomically so screwed up that they endure a great deal of pain throughout their lives. I'm not sure if these examples apply to reptiles in any way, but, well, they seemed relevant to this layman.

[tHeGiNo]

Great post Marc.

[ravensgait]

Nice post Marc your opinion and why you hold it was well stated. The only thing I can disagree with you on is the last paragraph, IE Inbreeding causeing messed up breeds of dogs. Well not to get into a long discussion but Inbreeding didn't cause anything. Inbreeding can quickly bring out or show problems as well as strengths in a breed or line but didn't put them there. Inbreeding is a very useful tool but like all tools use it wrong and you can have a mess.
Randy

[Jeff_Favelle]

ravensgait, no pictures???!! Obviously the baby was healthy and all that. Good to hear!

Man, horses sound like a lot of work! Buddy of mine from high school went to be a rancher in the interior of BC. Even went to school for it in the US. He's always got crazy stories. I think everyone should spend SOME time on a farm or in farm life. City folk have it toooo easy, know what I mean?

Cheers bro.

Gino, thanks for agreeing. I just wish this wasn't the case. Now you see how road rage and all that jazz gets out of hand. People get so frickin' worked up. ARen't there pharmacuticals out there now that stop that sort of behaviour? LOL!

I third Marc's post. Now THAT was well stated.

[greenman1867]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
ARen't there pharmacuticals out there now that stop that sort of behaviour? LOL!

B.C. Bud

[RB420]

Originally posted by Invictus
....and even less reasons to put 2 snakes from 2 separate corners of the globe together for any period of time.

not from this thread, but you said it. yet you argue for hybridization. Hmmmmm