What are the differences between a registered and a non-registered zebra? Below we will list the advantages of purchasing a registered zebra, and the advantages or disadvantages of purchasing a non-registered zebra.

IZZZA Registered - Photo Identification of the animal insures that you are purchasing the animal that is claimed to be the animal on the registration. The original photos submitted with the registration application are stamped with the IZZZA corporate stamp and placed on the registration certificate. Those photos are compared to identical photos kept by the Association. If there appears to be any discrepancies in the new photos sent to the registry for transfer of ownership or on the document itself with the original photos supplied by the breeder or original owner who registered the animal, the Association will contact both the BUYER and the SELLER regarding the discrepancy. This is a great protection for each new purchaser of the animal.

Non-Registered - Photo Identification Any animal could be claimed to have been bred, owned, trained, etc., by any breeder or other person, with no way to verify any of the information given about the animal, unless there is photo identification by the person making the claims. Any animal could be claimed as the offspring of any other animal, or the parent of any animal and there is no way to prove otherwise without photo identification.

Without photo identification, the animal can easily be misrepresented as to its, age, breeder, ownership, and production or show history.

IZZZA Registered - Pedigree Information tells you what the breeding ancestry of the animal is, and will tell you the line breeding, in breeding, and out crossing history of the animal. It will tell you if the animal is Foundation Stock (no verified breeding history) or has a verified ancestry.

Non-Registered - Pedigree Information Without registered pedigree identification, the animal can easily be misrepresented as to its, age, breeder, and relationship or non relationship to other zebras. In-breeding is such a big problem with zebras that are privately owned, creating mal-conformation including parrot mouths, long backs, sickle hocks, severe cow hocks, ewe necks, smaller animals, and even severe genetic disabilities such as heart ailments. Babies seldom display any of these faulty physical characteristics, but as they mature, these conformation faults become more and more obvious. It takes up to five years for a zebra to mature. However, a heart problem could possibly be detected by a qualified veterinarian when the foal is young. These conformation faults can be a result of inbreeding or breeding to parents with the same faults. Purchasing from an auction or a breeder who does not know the breeding history of his/her zebras or cannot guarantee the breeding history does not allow you to ascertain what you will end up with in size or conformation or genetic disabilities in the animal.

IZZZA Registered - Breeding History of the animal will tell you how many, what gender, and what years your animal produced offspring.

Non-Registered - Breeding History If an animal is claimed to be a proven mare, or a proven stallion, this could easily be checked through the Asssociation records, as to the offspring of the individual animal, but it is difficult to prove without these records. A new purchaser of an animal would simply have to take the word of the seller. If the seller is not the first seller, he/she may not know the breeding history of the animal at all, so the purchaser could be taking a chance on the truth of the matter as far as the breeding history goes. A stallion or mare may not be proven breeders.

IZZZA Registered - Age Information will help to assure you that you are getting an animal that is the age you are told it is by the seller. Especially with zebras that are not trained, it is often difficult to get close enough to ascertain their age. If their age is recorded at birth and on their registration certificate, you can be certain that you are getting the animal of an age you are expecting.

Non-Registered - Age Information A seller could easily tell an untruth or may simply not know and guess at an animal's age if you don't require a vet to check the teeth. Often close capture and sedation is required to get near a wild zebra in order to check the teeth.

Example: We purchased 3 mares and one stallion from a man in Minnesota. We were told that all the animals were each 7 or 8 years old. The stallion died a few months later, 22 years old. The three mares are from 14 - 22 years of age. BUYER BEWARE PURCHASING UNREGISTERED ANIMALS If these animals had been registered, their age and ownership history would have been apparent.

IZZZA Registered - Ownership Record will give the breeder's name, and all subsequent owners, just like the horse registries do. In this manner the ownership history of the animal will be recorded true. False histories or unknown histories cannot then be given about the animal.

Non-Registered - Ownership Record False histories or unknown histories can be given about the animal, with no way to verify any of the information given, unless each previous owner knew the name of the other. In cases of auction, it is almost impossible to ascertain previous ownership in order to get some history on the animal.

Example: We purchased 3 zebras from Bruce Rendall and Kim Rendall of North Carollina in 2005. They own the Highwater Farms Wildlife Facility, and operate the Been There Hauled That animal transport out of Kipling, NC. Bruce Rendall is also affiliated with the Primate Supply Information Clearinghouse, Washington National Primate Research Center. PSIC. We made the deal over the telephone and by email. Bruce Rendall said the zebras were in his back yard in North Carolina and that he had purchased them from an NC zoo that had excellent breeding records and that they had bred the zebras at their facility. When we asked for some photos, Bruce Rendall said his yard had lots of mud in it, but on our insistance he said he would 'go out' and take some photos. When sent the photos, the veterinarian in Georgia said that he took them at the facility where the zebras actually were in GA.

We will publish this story on a page to itself, but the end result was that Bruce Rendall and Kim Rendall intentionally lied over and over agan to us about these zebras they were actually brokering, saying they owned them and that they were in their backyard in North Carolina, but according to Glenn Goodman of Wild Adventures, and the paperwork, Bruce had had never seen these zebras in person and the zebras were shipped from and owned by this Georgia entertainment park called Wild Adventures.

Bruce Rendall and Kim Rendall arranged the shipping through their own transport company, as one of their businesses is transporting wild and exotic animals, including apes, gorillas, monkeys, and other animals, so the secret of where these zebras really were was well kept by Matt Gaines, their transport driver who worked for them 'regularly'. It was finally through the paperwork, in which much of the GA information had been 'blacked out' with a permanent marker and much more sluething that we were able to trace the history of the zebras. Wild Adventures said they sold the zebras to Matt Gaines, who gave them the money for them.

On top of everything else, one zebra died before they loaded it on the trailer. Bruce Rendall called and told us this, and Bruce Rendall insisted that the zebra colt was not worth very much in the 'package'. A while later when we talked on the telephone he claimed that he had just come in from 'burying' the zebra in his yard. The zebra died in Geogia, not in Bruce Rendall's yard in North Carolina, according to the veterinarian on the scene, and according to Mr. Goodman of Wild Adventures. Another zebra mare was sent to us so ill that she died the next day.We immediately took her to the county pathologist for a necropsy. She had a rare and very contagious airborne respiratory disease, which almost every one of our animals but the other zebra mare that came with her (is this not obvious, she already had the disease and survived it) developed in the next few days to a couple of weeks. It cost us $4000 and an abundance of time, energy, and emotion to get through the illness on the ranch. Our most valued zebra, Zurprize, had to be taken to the animal hospital for treatment.

Bruce Randell refused to give us any of our money back for the dead mare. Glenn Goodman, the animal curator of Wild Adventures has refused to acknowledge that they had sent an animal that was at death's door, given a health certificate for travel from their facility on the day the animals were released for travel, and has refused to work with us. The zebras left their facility and were delivered to us 36 hours later. The mare was skinny, as can be seen in the photos taken for the Health Certificate in GA, which we did not see until we received the papers when she arrived. Dr Tim Thornhill 2411 S Patterson, Valdosta, GA 31602, gave the zebras a clean bill of health to travel across the country, even though this mare was so visibly thin and had to be displaying symptoms of the illness when he saw her. Just her being so thin should have stopped him from giving her a health certificate, even if she wasn't coughing at the moment he looked at her. She died of acute respiratory aspiration, pneumonia, and a disease called mycoplasma felis canis, which she had prior to leaving Georgia, just 36 hours earlier. The body was taken to the pathologist in January when the mare died. The preliminary report showed she died of pneumonia, then later we had the pathologist send samples of all the tissues they saved and in March got the final diagnosis.Necropsy Report Diagnosis

International Zebra-Zorse-Zonkey Association Link