A Pastel at Petco!

[MarkieJ]

I was perusing Petco, and to my utter surprise came across a Pastel Ball Python sitting amongst the normals with their typical stuck sheds. While my cell phone pics aren't too good, I assure you it was a pastel... and not a too bad looking one either. It had a $79.99 sticker price. While overcoming the initial giddyness of coming across a morph in the "wild", I thought better of purchasing it. Mites, quarantine, and the unknown gender crept into my head (I've already got a male pastel that I'm breeding). Here a couple of terrible pics:





Well if Pastels can make it to the most Southwesterly Petco in our country (just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Mexican border), I can probably safely say that BP morphs have officially gone mainstream.

[lance]

lol what a sweet find did you bring him/her home?

lance

[AaronP]

Must be a male, no one in their right mind would sell a female Pastel to Petco.

[creole_89]

I live in lousiana and the petco i go to sell them too but ours are all males for $159.99

[ladywhipple02]

My guess is that you're going to start seeing pastels (at least males) more and more in mainstream petstores. The prices have come down to a point where it's feasible to sell them to places like Petco, and still make a little profit on them.

At $80, petstores aren't really undercutting the industry, either.

[h00blah]

when i got my 1st BP from petco last year-ish, it was around 80

now they're like 25 lol. so if someone sells a pastel at my petco and they try to re-sell it for 25, ohhhh snap =p. not like ima pick it up. i WOULD QT it for a very long time, but i dont have space =].

i LOVE how this is worded:

While overcoming the initial giddyness of coming across a morph in the "wild", I thought better of purchasing it.

[hawaiianice99]

Good find, I have only found one pastel around here and they want $300 for it. Its not at petco its a mom and pop shop that knows nothing about snakes.

[mainbutter]

I've heard about pastels popping up at petcos now and then, I think the first time I heard about it was a little over a year ago.

BP morphs will make their way to petco as supply goes way up, just like corn snake and leopard gecko morphs. You'll see them advertised eventually as "fancy ball pythons".. lol.

[Beardedragon]

Did you ask them about it? A few things ive heard have happened in situations like this. One, they know its a pastel, and when you point it out they tell you its really $300 or something like that. Or two... they let it slip

Also, it may not be wild. I have a friend who works at petco and they said they get all of their reptiles from a breeder ( Not flipper) somewhere in flordia who wholesales to a bunch of petcos. It would seem more likely thats how a pastel got into the bunch.

- Matt

[ladywhipple02]

Did you ask them about it? A few things ive heard have happened in situations like this. One, they know its a pastel, and when you point it out they tell you its really $300 or something like that. Or two... they let it slip

Also, it may not be wild. I have a friend who works at petco and they said they get all of their reptiles from a breeder ( Not flipper) somewhere in flordia who wholesales to a bunch of petcos. It would seem more likely thats how a pastel got into the bunch.

- Matt

I've heard this too. I actually know someone here in Indy that does it. That's why I think you're going to start seeing more of them popping up in the pet trade... as breeders can't sell them as easily in the market, they're going to start wholeselling them to the pet trade to make some money back on them.