What is quality?

:D This is a pastel I would like! Or if possible, even MORE yellow!

http://newenglandreptile.com/cart/pa...14f5-nice.html

I want almost 0% orange if possible! :) A pastel that looks like a firefly!

Because then imagine what a firefly would look like from THAT pastel? ;) I don't want to buy a pastel until I can afford to pay a couple hundred on a SUPER high quality one! :)

As far as other morphs.. I try to go by what I like and what makes that morph unique. I like moderately reduced clowns, but some drips are okay. Some patterns I like to be very symmetrical, some I like to be very aberrant!

I personally like clean patterns for most snakes. I do like some dirty ones. The graphite ivory is pretty sweet!


I also buy based on the parents. If I see it as a baby and it's gorgeous, but it's parents were just as gorgeous as babies and grew up to be ugly...nah.... I'll look for a gorgeous adult and find out what it looked like as a baby.. And I'll buy those :)

I think it seems for me as far as colors go I want the brightest or cleanest. Yellows, pinks, etc. etc. I love the high quality ultramels because I think they make the best adults of all the caramel type balls. When it comes to patterns, I just buy what I like or what has fun patterns. I want to LIKE to look at my breeders! :D So that means I might buy a few that have words in their patterns or hearts..because I like it :D

Normals..I like variety. Dark normals to breed with dark morphs, bright normals to breed with bright morphs, clean low pattern with enchis, aberrant to breed with albinos.

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Originally Posted by purplemuffin

:D This is a pastel I would like! Or if possible, even MORE yellow!

http://newenglandreptile.com/cart/pa...14f5-nice.html

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It looks just like the male I posted lol extremely clean he was a NERD lemon pastel :)

To me quality is very different than a pretty visual. A quality animal is one that has good weight, good body tone/feel(!!), healthy skin with no stuck sheds or other scars/flaws, one that eats very well, and one that has lively awareness with good tongue movement.

I have picked up many snakes at shows that are soft and "under-muscled" in the hand. Not limp, just not a strong, solid feel. Loose skin, poor tone, and of course skin issues and retained eye caps are a big red flag.

A healthy hatchling has a solid look and feel. So does a healthy adult. That is what I am looking for in "quality". And then a great visual on top of that : )

Ball python morphs don't have a "breed standard" like dogs and cats, nor do they have production records like cattle, nor do they have lifetime earnings like horses. Therefore, everyone's idea of a good quality breeder is inherently subjective ... By and large, I don't think that's inherently a "bad" thing at all.

Robyn makes an excellent point that we tend to think of quality strictly as a visual color/pattern thing -- I'm definitely guilty of it too! -- but it's important to consider other aspects of the animal like its feeding habits, attitude and overall health. I have plenty of individuals that, appearance ("quality") wise, I've been on the fence about keeping, and their feeding habits have made the decision for me one way or the other. I don't select breeders solely on feeding habits, but I also don't particularly want to cultivate and propagate picky, sickly feeders in my collection.

I do believe that visual quality is important, but it's also important to remember the non-visual qualities of the animal as well.

I think that PurpleMuffin also raises a good point when she brought up clowns. For me and many others, the ultra-reduced pattern clowns are the way to go. That appearance seems to be largely considered the "pinnacle of quality" for clowns. However, I've also seen plenty of posts from people like PurpleMuffin who prefer clowns to have some dripping/spotting or side pattern, so if we all judged clown "quality" by the most commonly preferred appearance and all bred for super-reduced clowns, those people would be out of luck. So I think that variety, based on what really appeals to YOUR eye, is a good thing.

That said -- sticking with the clown analogy -- I think we can probably (?) all agree that a nice, bright, high-contrast clown is prettier and nicer to look at than a really brown muddy one.

Ditto for pastels -- whether you light the super busy jungle pattern of a good "lemon" pastel or a very smooth, reduced, blushy blond pastel, brighter, lighter colors versus dark and brown both win out.

So basically (after all that, ha), my feeling is similar to angellady's: look at a lot of pictures of a morph and see what you like in that morph. Chances are, if you do that and then pick one that looks like your idea of a really good ____, you'll have picked a quality animal. (I like to do a Google image search for a given morph since that lets you see a whole bunch of that morph next to each other, and you can see right away which ones grab your eye.)

It's definitely subjective, but there are basic qualities that make a morph what it is. For an easy example, what makes a pastel a pastel is the yellow colors. A quality pastel is one with bright yellow coloring, but once you get into the pattern, that's completely subjective.

I definitely think it's in the eye of the beholder. I'm very into the colors of the animals, others are into the patterns. But odds are, if you like a specific trait, someone else likes it too.

A quality example of a morph is when you look at a snake and say WOW! Doesn't matter the price to me but has to have the WOW factor! Of course if you look at known breeders as well, you know you have a good genetic line. I don't like it when people say I bought it because it was cheap. Buy for looks and not for price and you will always pick a quality animal!