Good grief, the poor guy looks like a balloon molly. I really hope that that deformity somehow makes him sterile so he can't pass that trait on to future generations...
I understand culling bettas whose deformations make it so they have a poor quality of life, but I don't understand people who kill due to imperfections that don't hurt the betta. Don't breed, sure.. why mass kill things that aren't bred perfect? If a pure bred dog or a cat was born slightly imperfect, you would all be up in arms for mills killing them.. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
I understand culling bettas whose deformations make it so they have a poor quality of life, but I don't understand people who kill due to imperfections that don't hurt the betta. Don't breed, sure.. why mass kill things that aren't bred perfect? If a pure bred dog or a cat was born slightly imperfect, you would all be up in arms for mills killing them.. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
the difference is that a litter of cats or dogs is usually ten at the most. a betta can have upwards of 200 fry per spawn, and if you don't either cull some or have a huge operation (that would bleed money like a haemophiliac) keeping all of them out of sympathy would lead to a decrease in the quality of care that you could provide for all the fish. also, deformed fish are very unlikely to find good homes, and would end up being bought for pennies by people who will likely just kill them feeding their cichlids anyway.
Betta spawns can run in the 3-400s and yes the male will naturally cull some. Homegrown Terror forgot to mention that because THIS fish is on aquabid (and I am guessing that it doesn't have a disclaimer on there warning against breeding ), this fish could be bought from the breeder by another unscrupulous breeder or a VERY inexperienced breeder hobbyist thinking "hey, I have a new type of betta! I will breed him!"
And then, we would overnight have a spoon headed betta sensation!
And please don't say "that won't happen, no one is that foolish!"
Just selling it on aquabid will have someone saying that it's all right because it was bred by a true breeder....it gives it validity...
I understand culling bettas whose deformations make it so they have a poor quality of life, but I don't understand people who kill due to imperfections that don't hurt the betta. Don't breed, sure.. why mass kill things that aren't bred perfect? If a pure bred dog or a cat was born slightly imperfect, you would all be up in arms for mills killing them.. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Perfectly healthy and beautiful mice, rats, goldfish etc. are bred to become live food for other animals.
So, who was the breeder of that deformed VT? I never want to give my business to them either!
Registereduser: thank you for pointing that out since I forgot that angle...after all, if I didn't raise perfectly healthy worms for my carnivorous bettas, I'd never be able to breed HEALTHY bettas! Just in case no one sees the connection, I am just pointing out that most things on our planet are food for something else and in the wild, frogs, fish, birds would all make a snack out of deformed baby bettas.
Viva: sorry, but I say: "go for it!!" Those girls are beautiful, although the bottom one isn't to my taste, and bettaakapes is all right to do business with. :)
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