What are your thoughts on farm breeding?
It’s hard to find much about it but from what I’ve read it just seems like a large scale captive breeding but in the animals’ native habitat.
If anyone has more detail on it I’d love to hear, I bid on a reptile auction and realized after the animal was farm born but long term raised captive, which from what I can tell seems fine to me.
Farm breeding is usually a lot of reptiles in a small area and usually the animals aren’t cared for properly: Stuck shed, missing toes(from stuck shed), no vet care, disease spread, no fresh water, etc. Sometimes it’s a lot of reptiles in, like you said the native habitat, well cared for but still not spread out with individual habitats. Also it depends what species it is, if it’s like a bearded dragon or leopard gecko then there might be missing toes/limbs and/or stuck shed. If it’s like a crocodile from a gator farm then the gators might be healthy. It all depends on where it came from and what conditions are like in that individual farm. The well ran ones like well set up gator farms are pretty good whereas like lizard/gecko are usually poorly ran. If you win the reptile auction take the reptile to an exotic vet and get it checked for parasites and diseases. If it’s captive raised it should be fine except the genetics of the parents might be weak and there might be inbreeding depending how well ran the farms are.
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Parasites can be an issue. I would treat the animal like an LTC. Also, animals fresh from the “farm” have experienced the stress of importation, usually not under the best conditions. The fact that your animal has been raised in captivity raises more questions. In captivity where? For how long? Many animals labeled LTC have only been in captivity for a few months. Ask the seller as many questions as possible, and be prepared to face some health challenges.
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It really depends on the importer. If you are dealing with someone like Dan or Kam then the farms they use are set up and run on a level approaching any CBB facility here in the US.
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