First, I love all my critters. The law of finite space, however, dictates that I can't keep every animal born in my barn. As for how I butcher a kid or a lamb, I place a bowl of corn on the ground, then shoot them between the ears when they bend down to eat so they'll die thinking that they're getting a treat.
The Ethics of Culling
- Thread starter Stargazer53
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First, I love all my critters. The law of finite space, however, dictates that I can't keep every animal born in my barn. As for how I butcher a kid or a lamb, I place a bowl of corn on the ground, then shoot them between the ears when they bend down to eat so they'll die thinking that they're getting a treat.
Just a thought of mine but keeping deformed life like this is a luxury for humans and human raised life. In the wild something with a defect like this would almost never survive to adulthood. I am not saying you should do one thing over another just making the point that it is a human luxury to even contemplate the concept for the most part. I do agree with needing to keep apart from any chance of breeding. If she has young before you remove her you take the chance on passing the defect if you miss any of the fry as she was missed other than that if she is doing fine I see no reson not o just keep her away from the guys.
I haven't had guppies in decades but back when I did, every time I had one with a hump or other spinal type deformity it was due to an accident or injury. This could very well be the situation in this case and there is no genetic defect at all.
Plus not every genetic problem gets passed on, certainly not to all offspring. And sometimes these "defects" turn out to be linked to very desirable characteristics. You see this in dog breeding all the time, where selecting for one trait like coat color turns out to be linked to Bad Things like hip or intestinal problems which are then exacerbated by the inbreeding required to keep the "good" trait.
In any event the question of this one fish reproducing or not is certainly not going to bring down the species as a whole. If it truly is something genetic, and has no good side effects, the trait will be eliminated eventually, if not in this generation then in the next. I like the out-to-the-pond option myself.
Plus not every genetic problem gets passed on, certainly not to all offspring. And sometimes these "defects" turn out to be linked to very desirable characteristics. You see this in dog breeding all the time, where selecting for one trait like coat color turns out to be linked to Bad Things like hip or intestinal problems which are then exacerbated by the inbreeding required to keep the "good" trait.
In any event the question of this one fish reproducing or not is certainly not going to bring down the species as a whole. If it truly is something genetic, and has no good side effects, the trait will be eliminated eventually, if not in this generation then in the next. I like the out-to-the-pond option myself.
I personally have a female with a bent back. She was a healthy female up until a few months ago. After a drop, I noticed her huddled in a corner, spine severely deformed. I wondered if maybe it was because she just had too many big pregnancies. Anyway, I moved her into a QT tank to keep her away from the pestering males and see if she'd straighten back out with some rest and relaxation. She hasn't straightened out but she's in a tank with another few female guppies who've come to reitrement age. She's a fiesty little thing who always gets her share of the food and seems to enjoy life. I could never put her down just because she's old and misshapen. She's provided me with too many beautiful offspring and I think she deserves to live out her days in the lap of luxury.
The ethics of culling are not easy. I'm a little sleep deprived right now so I'll try to make sense.
Culling generally refers to removing an organism by killing it. Killing the organism is usually the easiest method for preventing it from spreading it's genes to the next generation. However you do not have kill the organism to effectively cull it. Isolation from the opposite sex or sterilization (cats, dogs, steers, etc..) can also be used.
Now the basic ethical issue with culling is determining what criteria to cull by. What makes one trait or group of traits better than another? The final conclusion is it is very subjective and is highly variable from person to person.
I personally think that the double tailed goldfish are ugly and unhealthy. Obviously there are millions of people who disagree with me. Most people seem to think that traits that cause the animal to obviously be in pain or discomfort should be avoided. Contrarily we breed bulldogs (breathing), dachshunds (spine issues), hairless dogs and cats (freezing), poodles (crazy), and many other animals that have severe issues in form and health.
One of the basic facts of keeping any type of plant or animal is that there is a limit to resources available. If you are actively breeding anything you will soon be faced with creating the criteria to cull by. It’s not easy when you first start but it is necessary in order to keep up the health of the population. So if you don’t want to cull you really should let any reproduction happen in your tanks.
I cull my guppies if I see any developmental abnormalities (goldfish's lunch). I also limit the breeding of the guppies to generally 4 or less males at any given time. This is generally two sets of brothers. The other males are isolated and are culled by being sold back the LFS.
Culling generally refers to removing an organism by killing it. Killing the organism is usually the easiest method for preventing it from spreading it's genes to the next generation. However you do not have kill the organism to effectively cull it. Isolation from the opposite sex or sterilization (cats, dogs, steers, etc..) can also be used.
Now the basic ethical issue with culling is determining what criteria to cull by. What makes one trait or group of traits better than another? The final conclusion is it is very subjective and is highly variable from person to person.
I personally think that the double tailed goldfish are ugly and unhealthy. Obviously there are millions of people who disagree with me. Most people seem to think that traits that cause the animal to obviously be in pain or discomfort should be avoided. Contrarily we breed bulldogs (breathing), dachshunds (spine issues), hairless dogs and cats (freezing), poodles (crazy), and many other animals that have severe issues in form and health.
One of the basic facts of keeping any type of plant or animal is that there is a limit to resources available. If you are actively breeding anything you will soon be faced with creating the criteria to cull by. It’s not easy when you first start but it is necessary in order to keep up the health of the population. So if you don’t want to cull you really should let any reproduction happen in your tanks.
I cull my guppies if I see any developmental abnormalities (goldfish's lunch). I also limit the breeding of the guppies to generally 4 or less males at any given time. This is generally two sets of brothers. The other males are isolated and are culled by being sold back the LFS.
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i dont understand what the problem is with a deformed guppy,
does it need to be perfect?,
and culling is easy when you have a large cichlid or two.
does it need to be perfect?,
and culling is easy when you have a large cichlid or two.
:rofl: That made my morning, just toof unny!
As to culling, yes I do it. I do it because I don't want those genes passed on. As fastfly did, you could always set up a "retirement" tank as well. I am fortunate to have several big hungry fish to deal with mine for me.
I cull as well. Not only fish, but snails as well. The snails mainly when there is a shell deformity. I too have fish that enjoy eating the culls, but if I did not, I would euthanize.
I have only culled one guppy out of two batches of fry. The guppy that I culled, was from a moscow blue and she never developed color or a gravid spot. Also, she started to get really mean to the male and she would nip at him and she even tore his tail all the way down to his body.
I ended up dumping her in my soon to be brackish tank thinking either she will be okay in that tank and I won't put any guppies in, or my purple spotted goby would eat her.
I came back to check on her 10 minutes later, she was gone and the goby had a big bulge in his stomach.
If you are breeding fish for looks (like show guppies, moscow guppies etc), I would not keep the guppies with birth defects or that lack the color and fins of the fish I want with the guppies that I want to breed. Show guppies don't seem to breed many times before they die from the stress, so you don't her to be breeding guppies from a male with a serious birth defect.
Right now, any guppies that need to be culled will be put into my baby whale tank (it has A LOT of empty space and they add some life but don't draw attention from the baby whale), fed to my purple spotted goby or taken to a LFS and put into the feeder guppy tank. I wouldn't want to actually kill the guppy unless there was something seriously wrong with it to the point it couldn't live it's life or be fed to another fish.
I ended up dumping her in my soon to be brackish tank thinking either she will be okay in that tank and I won't put any guppies in, or my purple spotted goby would eat her.
I came back to check on her 10 minutes later, she was gone and the goby had a big bulge in his stomach.
If you are breeding fish for looks (like show guppies, moscow guppies etc), I would not keep the guppies with birth defects or that lack the color and fins of the fish I want with the guppies that I want to breed. Show guppies don't seem to breed many times before they die from the stress, so you don't her to be breeding guppies from a male with a serious birth defect.
Right now, any guppies that need to be culled will be put into my baby whale tank (it has A LOT of empty space and they add some life but don't draw attention from the baby whale), fed to my purple spotted goby or taken to a LFS and put into the feeder guppy tank. I wouldn't want to actually kill the guppy unless there was something seriously wrong with it to the point it couldn't live it's life or be fed to another fish.
You could try to start a new species if the fish seems happy and healthy, if u dont want to then just let the fish live out its life in a community tank with no other guppies.
Can we have a pic i want to see this fish.
Can we have a pic i want to see this fish.
