Accidental love...

[enigma200316]

well yes i see your piont, but the fact is there are garters breed and sold for the food all the time, this I'm sure of so its not like this doesn't happen, and also all animals have to eat so its a cycle no matter what.......unless you are a stricked veggitarian and don't eat any meat the same thing happens for you to eat..........unless of course your living off the land when there also you could be eatting a young animal, I guess what I'm trying to say is, its a cycle it happens, its the way of things......
just thought I'd put my general opinion in there...............

[anji1971]

Okay, I'm probably going to sound like an idiot here, and I'm ready to hear about it, but can I ask why these hybrid snakes are so frowned upon in the first place??
I completely understand from a breeding perspective you wouldn't want to spoil the bloodline.
But, if you keep the hybrids as a separate group, is it such a bad thing??
In many other animal species, people mix breeds all the time, and those mixes are often well sought after. I'm mainly thinking of dogs and cats here, but still...........
There are probably a lot of people who would love to have an unusual looking garter that results from a mix of species. NOT to exploit and make money, just to appreciate it's unique beauty.
As a person who just loves snakes, in all their shapes, sizes and colours, I have to say I just don't completely understand this issue.

[Thamnophis]

im sorry but I think thats really wrong... they are garter snakes just like any other! we here being garter snake people, whether they are hybrids or not, they are still garter snakes and they still deserve to live out their lives! especially feeding them until they are bigger, and THEN giving them to the kingsnakes... that is just not right. I think it is wrong that the babies should have to pay for a human mistake of housing two species together (not pointing any fingers at you, just saying that in general).

That was not what I meant.
They will not be treated as food for something else because they ae hybrids. Only when they are disabled or something like that.

I probably will keep them all myself in one way or another.

[Thamnophis]

Okay, I'm probably going to sound like an idiot here, and I'm ready to hear about it, but can I ask why these hybrid snakes are so frowned upon in the first place??
I completely understand from a breeding perspective you wouldn't want to spoil the bloodline.
But, if you keep the hybrids as a separate group, is it such a bad thing??
In many other animal species, people mix breeds all the time, and those mixes are often well sought after. I'm mainly thinking of dogs and cats here, but still...........
There are probably a lot of people who would love to have an unusual looking garter that results from a mix of species. NOT to exploit and make money, just to appreciate it's unique beauty.
As a person who just loves snakes, in all their shapes, sizes and colours, I have to say I just don't completely understand this issue.

You do not sound like an idiot.

There is nothing wrong when these hybrid snakes are kept as pets.
There could be a problem when I sell them. Suppose I will sell them to you and tell you exactly what kind of snakes they are. What the parents are.

After a year you decide to sell them to someone else and you (by accident or on purpose) do not tell fromwhat parents these snakes are coming.
From that moment nobody knows that they are hybrids. Especially when they look a lot like one of the two parentspecies. If they look very different from the parentspecies the problem is less, but still nobody knows what they exactly are. And then there is a chance that they will be treated like T. s. tetrataenia and used to breed with them. This pollutes the bloodline.
Whether this is a bad thing or not is something where people have different opinions on.

That is why I (most probably) will keep all the young (if there will be young born!) myself. Then there is no problem at all.

[drache]

Anji
some breeders think that playing with genetics is like playing with paints
they do things that are highly unlikely to ever happen in nature
- many of them with questionable results
I don't want to get into issues of good taste in aesthetics either - my mother warned me of that, and also proposed that it may not be a terrible thing that we are not all hot for exactly the same item
anyway
there is something in poor taste simply about playing with nature like that
of course to balance that
there is the purity crowd - ditto
inbreeding has not produced favourable results in the long run
those are extremes though and there's a whole range of in-between

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

i think you misunderstood what I meant. I completely am ok with the fact that animals of all kinds are raised and bred for food. what I said was that I do not think it is fair that they should have to pay for the human error of keeping two different garters together. Singling them out because they are hybrids that only happened because of human error is wrong.

[gregmonsta]

You do not sound like an idiot.

There is nothing wrong when these hybrid snakes are kept as pets.
There could be a problem when I sell them. Suppose I will sell them to you and tell you exactly what kind of snakes they are. What the parents are.

After a year you decide to sell them to someone else and you (by accident or on purpose) do not tell fromwhat parents these snakes are coming.
From that moment nobody knows that they are hybrids. Especially when they look a lot like one of the two parentspecies. If they look very different from the parentspecies the problem is less, but still nobody knows what they exactly are. And then there is a chance that they will be treated like T. s. tetrataenia and used to breed with them. This pollutes the bloodline.
Whether this is a bad thing or not is something where people have different opinions on.

That is why I (most probably) will keep all the young (if there will be young born!) myself. Then there is no problem at all.

Can't we all have one??? we is responsible peoples

[reptileparadise]

Lol

I think it will be very interesting to see what will be born from this cross (that is...IF young are born)

[anji1971]

Okay, I understand where people are coming from now!
I was just a bit concerned because I got the impression that some people just thought the little snakeys would be "useless", so to speak, because they were of mixed parentage.
That wouldn't agree with me at all. But I see now that is not necessarily the case, so I feel better.

[Thamnophis]

i think you misunderstood what I meant. I completely am ok with the fact that animals of all kinds are raised and bred for food. what I said was that I do not think it is fair that they should have to pay for the human error of keeping two different garters together. Singling them out because they are hybrids that only happened because of human error is wrong.

That's what I agree with.