Let me see your ADULT pastels!!

[sho220]

that bumblebee second post 3rd pic looks amazing sho220!

Thanks! She's a female I kept from a clutch I hatched a few years ago.

[CptJack]

I'm making no claims one way or the other about quality (I don't know enough about morphs). To be honest, I don't really care - he's a sweet, docile, snake who eats like a champ and is a great pet. Anyway, about 2 and somewhere around 950 grams - sorry, I don't bother checking when they're eating and shedding well.

[John1982]

Here's a picture from last year of a 2008 pastel with her 2012 pastel daughter:


Same 2012 pastel from above with sibling firefly - both just breaking the 1000g mark:

[Slowcountry Balls]

I bought this 2009 female Pastel and bred her 2 years in a row to my male Orangebelly. She has produced some great looking female Pastels. I am working on getting her Pastel into more of my collection.

2009 Female Pastel, she may look a little thin because she laid about 2 weeks ago and has only taken 1 meal since.



2012 Female Pastel, just a little smaller than her mother, at about 1,500 grams (plan on breeding her back to her Orangebelly father to see if there is something more to him to explain his awesome look), she eats like her father and has earned the nickname "Miss Piggy"



2013 Female Pastel, trying not to be out done by her sister, she has earned the nickname "Miss Piggy 2" since she has passed the 800 gram mark.

[Slowcountry Balls]

I want to see some high quality and low quality!! I'm also curious...does the 'quality' of a pastel pass on to its offspring, or is it like Pied and kinda random? I only ask, because I'm getting a pastel female...and while I can tell the difference from it compared to a normal...I don't know if it's the greatest quality.

When you talk about the "quality" of a Pied, I assume you are talking about the amount of white. While the amount of white in a Pied is random, I would not call that the quality of the Pied. I prefer low white Pieds because I want to add more genes into the mix. If you have a high white Pied with other genes, you don't get to see all the beauty of the other genes. My personal ideal, is between 40% and 50% white. But when talking about Pastels, there is a bit more of an agreed "standard" for a good quality Pastel. The more yellow and blushing, the better the quality (for most people). These 2 traits seem to be much more predictable based on the parents, and can be improved upon with selective breeding. I think that a browned out Pastel is usually agreed to be low quality. Whether you decide color or blushing is more important to you, that is definitely a personal choice.

[TheSnakeEye]

Here's a picture of a 2,000+ gram female Pastel we have. I couldn't believe how bright she was when we first got her.

[RichieBoo]

Here is my male... mom was real ugly...

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[kc261]

Here is my male... mom was real ugly...

That is a single gene male I would definitely use in breeding, or else if I hatched him out, repeat the same pairing to try to get some girls that look like him. But if not, maybe just one clutch, to try to get some girls that look like him, or to get his genes into a multi gene male... but he's beautiful.

[angllady2]

While to a degree, high quality pastels ( ie. high yellow, high blushed ) can produce lower quality pastels, and lower quality pastels can on occasion produce a better quality pastel, by and large you want what YOU feel is the best example of a pastel or any other morph, to what you feel is the best example of any other morph to try and produce babies that surpass the parents.

For example, my fires. I purchased a really stellar example of a normal female, Akashi. This is her:


By her looks, light coloring and high blushing, I knew I wanted to breed her to a fire. So I searched for the best fire male I could find. This is him:


By breeding the two together, I hoped to produce fire babies that were better than either parent. These are some of the offspring:







I think I succeeded. What do you think?

This careful, selective breeding works for any morph, except perhaps pied, because the white on pieds is fairly random. But pastels, cinnamons, mojaves, lessers, yellowbellies, pinstripes, pretty much any morph can benefit from selective breeding. And the great thing about many of these morphs is, it's what YOU see as a good example. My ideal pinstripe has a perfect, unbroken back stripe and as little side patterning as possible. My husband on the other hand, likes the same back stripe but super busy sides. My perfect lesser might look totally different than your perfect lesser. I wish you the best in your search.

Gale

[sho220]

so nice...crazy head pattern.