Years ago I got a “female” back from a breeding loan sexed by an experienced breeder. Same story, spent years getting to female breeding size before pairing and then sexing by combat. The sting was I would have loved to have bred HIM much earlier.
One of my 2022 babies popped funny so I sent her shed in to confirm. Very happy with $29 of insurance against a possible repeat of years feeding a male to 1,500 grams.
The current MM policy does indeed state that sex is guaranteed unless an animal is sold with sex unspecified. I buy animals, I sell animals, it’s my responsibility in both cases to be sure of the animal’s sex.
This is an excellent idea. @noodlehaus, you should put it in MM “Feature Requests.” It’s still the buyer’s option, of course, and not everyone would choose to do it for a variety of reasons. Yet having the time extension to do the test makes good sense for everybody.
If you’re a small breeder and you can’t afford to pay 25 bucks an animal to guarantee their sex then imho opinion you shouldn’t be breeding. I do not agree with you that by stating the bps sex the breeder is already stating that they didnt make a mistake. Because if that were the case we wouldn’t have these kind of post pop up now would we? Also you can’t state that the breeder specified the sex on the listing, so there isn’t a mistake in sexing. Then state later in your statement that the breeder can in fact be wrong, its contradictory. Which one is it?
I stand by my final statement 150 percent. I understand buyer responsibility, and I agree, the buyer should bare some responsibility but the majority should fall on the more experienced breeder. Breeders cannot send out improperly sexed animals, that should not be happening, and thats my point.
I agree that mm should have a sex testing policy when purchasing a new animal, to take it a step further it should be the hobby standard imho. About sending the shed sample in, all these animals shed at different times, depending on feeding, environment and so on. It’s hard to settle in on a time frame with so many moving parts. Now imho it shouldn’t even matter when the animal is tested cause the breeder shouldn’t be wrong about the sex of the animal, again that is my point.
Just because a breeder doesn’t have the overhead to pay to have all the animals sexed is not the same as not having the money. Plenty of smaller breeders guarantee sex already without paying, or just sell unsexed animals. You cannot force someone to use a service, and to demand that they do so is rather ridiculous. You’re saying $25 per animal, if you’ve got three clutches and 23 babies hatch, that’s $525 up front. For many, it’s not worth it for their scale to test every hatchling.
This post is about an animal that was purchased two years ago, before testing was widely available/known. Heck, had you even read it properly, you’d have noticed this particular bit:
So even the buyer was wrong here. You don’t have to agree that by stating the sex the breeder is saying they didn’t make a mistake, but it’s a fact that by stating the sex of the animal, the breeder is then held responsible for any error in their own skill by the DSP.
There is a lot that factors into sexing an animal and there can even be genetic defects & conditions that affect the accuracy of sexing. Up until recently, we didn’t even have DNA to fall back on. Ideally, would every animal be sexed properly? Sure. That said, changes take time and you can’t force them. Also, how would MM & breeders weed out fraud? As @eaglereptiles pointed out in the feature request thread I made about changing the DSP, what’s to stop someone from sending in a shed from a different animal and claiming they were sold one that was mis-sexed?
Overall, there has to be balance between what is expected of breeders & buyers. Much like it shouldn’t be majority a buyer’s responsibility, it also shouldn’t be solely on the breeder.
Very few things in life can be certain. I have a very high confidence in the genetic sexing but expect even that could be wrong on some very very rare occasions. I was wondering if there are plans to make test results visible as part of an ad? Maybe it already is (so far I’ve only sold the ones that tested NOT het).
I think the best a buyer can do is weigh how experienced they believe the seller to be at sexing and any available existing test results and if the buyer is willing to test after purchase and how confident they are that the seller will make any possible problems right. All of this against price. Being pretty confident in my ability to sex after purchasing and my willingness to invest in a test if there is any question I might risk buying a cheaper animal from a less experienced breeder. If you have a higher need for up front near certainty you might have to pay more for it.