Reptile Industry Ethics - Flipping

"Flipping" is a term used in the reptile industry for the act of buying animals for cheap and turning around and immediately selling them for a profit.

In the reptile industry, there is a strong preference for purchasing directly from a breeder instead of from a flipper. Experienced reptile keepers tend to avoid flippers, whether it be in online business or at reptile expos. In my experience, it seems as though flippers prey on newcomers to the hobby who don't know any better and get excited by seeing someone who seemingly has great animals at low prices. Flippers typically offer no health, genetics, or sex guarantee. Once they have their money and the buyer has their animal there is no continued customer service.

How is this blog useful

Other people might find these blog posts useful because I am addressing ethical issues in the reptile industry that many people don't usually bother researching or thinking about. Culling and photo editing are issues that will come up as a reptile breeder and we want everyone to be as prepared as possible in the event of one of these issues coming up for the breeder.

Reptile Industry Ethics - Photo Editing

Photo editing is something that everyone does to some extent. For me and my business, MK Morphs, the most we ever do to our photos is crop and add our logo to the corner of the photos. It is very frustrating for those of us who are honest and don't edit our photos to enhance the appearance of our animals. I constantly see photos that are way over enhanced getting so much attention. It is extra annoying when you see photos of the same animals, in the same photo set, looking completely different! Here is an example. This breeder has a habit of getting carried away when hitting the enhance button.

This is an example of what these animals normally look like. Notice how the striping is orange.

The animal on the left is an animal from the group above. This is the enhanced photo. Notice how the stripe on the back now looks bright yellow instead of orange.

The thing is, it isn't even a subtle difference. You can tell that he is editing these photos to make them look better than they really do. He is making it look like these are the quality of the animals that buyers will receive, but they will be very shocked and disappointed at the difference when they see them in person.

Reptile Industry Ethics - Culling

A topic of conversation and much controversy in the reptile industry is culling. Culling is the process of removing certain animals from the population based on certain criteria. In the reptile world, there are many snakes and lizards that come into this world severely kinked (twisted and deformed skeletal structure) or fused together in unnatural ways. The general rule of thumb is that if the animal is able to eat, shed, and defecate properly, there is no reason to cull the animal and it can be placed in a pet home that would care for it. If there is simply no chance of survival, humanely euthanizing the animal is the best option.

Last breeding season two of my 12 ball python eggs had babies that were severely kinked. One had a missing eye, deformed skull and jaw, and an extremely kinked body. This animal made it out of the egg, but died a few hours later. If it had managed to survive I would have waited to see if it would thrive on its own. If it didn't, I would have made the responsible decision to cull that animal.

The second animal that was very kinked died in the egg. Here are photos that were taken of the body once I removed it from the egg. As you can see, there is no way this individual would have survived. I was glad it passed on its own so that I didn't have to put it down.

There is a lot of controversy revolving around breeding animals that are known to sometimes produce deformed babies, whether breeding scaleless snakes or lizards is okay, and whether or not the common types of housing for these animals are ethical. Even though these things can be discussed endlessly, the general consensus is that as long as the animals are healthy enough to eat on their own, shed on their own, and pass bowel movements, there is no reason for that animal to be culled, but that animal should NOT be allowed to breed.