With how large of clutches retics/burms/anacondas have, how do you not end up with snakes you can’t sell? How do you find homes for 40 baby giants? Are there other outlets aside from MorphMarket that you use to find homes? It’s always fascinated me how breeders don’t end up with a room full of accidental hold backs
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The unpleasant reality is that a lot of people do end up with a whole bunch of unwanted holdbacks. Some people will drop them to a wholesaler, some people have other, less pleasant, solutions
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Thay do… they just upgrade and call it a “facility” 
eventually snake sales pay for your snakes rent 
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This is really truth!
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In all reality, with the huge number of individuals that are breeding retics now a days I think culling a percentage of animals is honestly a very valid and appropriate thing that breeders need to think about. Its the more humane and logical thing instead of selling these animals to anybody with $80 in their pocket and zero knowledge on the species. I am sure that some will be bothered by this comment but its something all giant snake breeders need to genuinely think about.
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I stand by “don’t produce anything you aren’t willing and able to keep for its whole life”, we don’t produce clutches of animals just to kill the ones that aren’t pretty or valuable. However, if the snakes are used appropriately I don’t think culling is always a bad thing. For example, freezing (after humanely culling) and using it for snake-eating species (like cobras) isn’t terrible.
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This is something that even boa or ball breeders need to consider too. Just not many talk about it.
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Which can be a problem because I have talked to people who are interested in snakes but who don’t actually have any and they think it’s perfectly normal for breeders to cull lower gene snakes and snakes they no longer want. I correct misinformation when I see it but I’m guessing this knowledge is common and I worry that some newer breeders might cull their lower gene/unwanted snakes.
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Which is why instead I think it’s better to educate/gently suggest that people not breed lower end/potentially unwanted snakes. It’s not always well received, but I think it’s better not to breed rather than be faced with the decision to cull.
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My comment 20 days ago was not aimed to make others feel bad for culling unwanted snakes. As t_h_wyman was saying it is just less pleasant to talk about.
I wasnt taking it that way, I just wanted to give my opinion on the subject is all.
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I wasn’t saying that you were. Just wanted to be clear as communicating over the internet can be hard. Sometimes too much is lost as it’s not face to face. We are all good sir!
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That or if you have a large clutch of eggs, only incubate a max of 10 of them? Or however many babies you would be able to care for if they don’t sell. Some people don’t realize they don’t have to incubate the eggs their snake lays.
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I often wonder why more people don’t do this. If I were ever to breed my retics that’s exactly how I would approach it.
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The only reason I can think of is a big breeder mentality of “if I don’t incubate all of them then I might miss a fancy combo” or something like that.
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I’d say you nailed it there
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That is just breeder mentality, not “big” involved there. If your goal is to get a 1:64 combo then you obviously have better odds of hitting it if you incubate all the eggs rather than just a handful. If you hit the combo you wanted, great, but what are you going to do with all that byproduct? The problem comes when people forget that ethical culling is an option after the fact. There is a stigma in the hobby about this but I personally feel it is perfectly ethical to put the byproduct to use for things like king snakes or king cobras or monitors. Again, obviously they would need to be ethically euthanized first.
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See, this I agree with…
There is a huge difference between using them for food and just throwing them away.
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I’m not even sure how I feel about it but, what’s the difference between a rodent life and snake life? They both go toward food and either the prey or predator dies.
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I wanted to say something similar, but it’s a rather touchy subject. A feeder’s life isn’t inherently more valuable than a reptile’s, but life is cheap, literally, for a rodent. If it was more cost effective to raise feeder snakes, perhaps we would feel different about it. As long as people are being ethical with how they euthanize unwanted animals, and they are going to be used for something, I don’t judge anyone.
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