Is the amount of brown pigment in Pastels really hereditary?

I've always assumed that a Pastel's amount of yellow and brown was hereditary, i.e. a low brown / high yellow pastel would breed and create low brown / high yellow offspring but now I am questioning this. One of my very first BP morphs was a male Pastel that even as an adult was extremely high yellow with low brown coloring. When people saw him most asked if he was a Lemon Pastel which I told them that no, he was just an above average Pastel. I bred this high yellow Pastel to one of my normal girls and got 1.1 Pastels from the clutch. The male came out very bright yellow just like his dad and the female came darker yellowish/orange and now at 6 months she is already showing some brown on her back. To me this clutch seems to suggest that Pastel pigment is kind of like breeding Pieds, where a low white Pied can create high and low white Pied offspring.

What do you guys think? Is the amount of "Yellow vs Brown" in Pastels hereditary or random like the white in Pieds?

(and I'm talking about regular Pastels here, not NERD's Lemon Pastel which I believe is a separate proven genetic line)

You need to remember that BOTH parents add to the genes of the offspring.

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

You need to remember that BOTH parents add to the genes of the offspring.

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So what you are saying is the normal mom passed genetics that caused baby male Pastel to be brighter and his sister to have more brown?
Wouldn't that mean if I bred the high brown Pastel female to a normal it could produce high yellow / low brown babies based on what that normal dad passes?

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Originally Posted by Agent73

So what you are saying is the normal mom passed genetics that caused baby male Pastel to be brighter and his sister to have more brown?
Wouldn't that mean if I bred the high brown Pastel female to a normal it could produce high yellow / low brown babies based on what that normal dad passes?

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Generally speaking yes.

I wouldn't expect a bright yellow baby out of a subpar pastel and a bright normal. but I would bet that some of them might be better looking than the original pastel. Its more selective breeding than just one gene being passed or not. multiple gene effect how a snake looks so its very variable.

but basically if you want a more yellow pastel, pair it with a more yellow looking normal, not a dark one. you have a better chance at producing what you want.

There's a significant difference between genetic breeding (KNOWING you're going to get a pastel or a pied or albino or whatever) and selective breeding for specific looks (ie: reduced pattern, bright pastels that hold their color, etc).

If you have a really bright yellow adult pastel that has held its color well, you increase your chances of throwing similar offspring, but there's no guarantees. It depends just as much on the other parent as well. If your pastel male covers a really light, high blushing normal female, your chances of producing exceptional pastels increases even more. If the female is a typical dark brown normal with little to no blushing, the babies are likely to inherit a similar look.

Never any guarantees with selective breeding...no specific percentages you can count on. But the better the stock, the better your chances of exceptional babies. BE PICKY!! :D

What's funny is the normal female I bred him with was a very light girl I bought from Adam Wysocki‎ (8 Ball Pythons) a few years back that he called a "blurry ball" because of how much blushing she had for a normal.

This is the female that I produced from my high contrast Pastel male and "blurry" ball. Her brother turned out nice and bright just like her dad but she came more orange as you can see in this pic http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/show...mageuser=16263
Now I'm conflicted about raising her and breeding her because I pride my BP buisness on buying and using the best breeding stock and even though she came from a high yellow dad and a high blushing mom she herself turned out darker. What do you guys think, should I risk breeding her?

I wouldn't call it a risk breeding her, but If you want to produce top stock, I think I would pass on her.

Amount of "browning" in pastels is hereditary. It is also very much polygenetic, with plenty of room for drift with two high quality or two low quality parents.

Take a good look at selective breeding for other herps. Carpet pythons, blood pythons, and GTPs come to mind in particular. Selective breeding is a long and hard process, and far from as direct and simple as typical BP morph breeding. There is a lot more guesswork involved, and usually takes many generations to have a project really come to fruition.

I would breed two high yellow pastels together and then you have high chances that the regular pastels that come out will get one of the parents high yellow gene! There is no guarantee with any ball python breeding!

I wouldn't consider it a risk breeding her... more of a gamble really. Just as an example, say you were to breed your bright pastel male to her. As was mentioned earlier, it's more than JUST the pastel gene that makes a nice pastel. There is the chance that some of the offspring could get all the good stuff from the dad as opposed to the not so good stuff from the mom. You won't get very far with improving the line if you don't work with it. I'd say breed her, hold back anything that comes out of it that meets your standards and sell the rest of the clutch. Eventually you'll get to the point where the majority of your animals are carrying the traits you want and will be more likely to produce what you're looking for.

We have to remember that genetics isn't an exact science, there's still a lot that we don't understand.

That being said, it's possible to have a pairing of really browned out parents and get only bright hatchlings and then another pairing of really browned parents and have only browned out hatchlings. The difference would be that the protein that made the brown in the first set of parents was the effect of a different protein reaction than the browning of the second set of parents, and so the proteins created would interact differently when "added" together, if you will.

Like it was already said, both parents contribute. If you breed to a darker normal your pastels will feel the affect, if you breed to lighter normals, same thing.

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Originally Posted by Agent73

This is the female that I produced from my high contrast Pastel male and "blurry" ball. Her brother turned out nice and bright just like her dad but she came more orange as you can see in this pic http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/show...mageuser=16263
Now I'm conflicted about raising her and breeding her because I pride my BP buisness on buying and using the best breeding stock and even though she came from a high yellow dad and a high blushing mom she herself turned out darker. What do you guys think, should I risk breeding her?

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IMO give her a little time to shed and grow up. You said she's six months old? I've got a girl that is about that age and every time she sheds I'm happier and happier that I picked her up. I got her for a really decent price at the Tinley show, I was happy with her, she was a decent graziani, but now I'm totally in love with her.

It's an interesting discussion. I often get the feeling that quite a lot of the people breeding royals don't have 'normal' animal breeding backgrounds. It seems that with snake breeding people get the impression that it's just a matter of putting the right morphs together to get the result that they want without considering the quality of the individual animals. There is also the thing that the price of a python morph is a considered to be a fixed amount by most people, again without consideration of the quality of the animal for sale. OK it is accepted that certain lines of (say) pastels are superior to others but not a lot of consideration is given to how those lines were created in the first place and what they have been bred with outside of the original breeder's control. IMO a good pastel from an unknown line is better than a poor pastel from a good line and consequently worth more. One a morph is established then selective line breeding is the only way to consistently keep and raise quality. I'm sorry if this is a bit garbled but it's Sunday after celebrating my birthday last night...

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Originally Posted by yardy

It's an interesting discussion. I often get the feeling that quite a lot of the people breeding royals don't have 'normal' animal breeding backgrounds. It seems that with snake breeding people get the impression that it's just a matter of putting the right morphs together to get the result that they want without considering the quality of the individual animals. There is also the thing that the price of a python morph is a considered to be a fixed amount by most people, again without consideration of the quality of the animal for sale. OK it is accepted that certain lines of (say) pastels are superior to others but not a lot of consideration is given to how those lines were created in the first place and what they have been bred with outside of the original breeder's control. IMO a good pastel from an unknown line is better than a poor pastel from a good line and consequently worth more. One a morph is established then selective line breeding is the only way to consistently keep and raise quality. I'm sorry if this is a bit garbled but it's Sunday after celebrating my birthday last night...

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Couldn't have said it better myself.

Yup, it takes time & money to produce/purchase quality stock from which to breed a good, well know/respected lineage.

However, most folks tend to admire one breeder's animals & then purchase anothers simply because of a fluxuation in price; it does not occur to them that the youngsters they have purchased are lower in price because they are often from 'lesser' animals (i.e. inconsistent feeding; poor reproduction; lineage un-proven; poor quality colouration/pattern etc).

Nope, often the 'man in the street' considers he has himself a bargain simply because his purchase is financially cheaper - some folks never learn.

Anyway, & to the point.

The female Pastel is not an unattractive animal & it all depends on your own desire to continue working with the lineage as to your final decision re: sell / retain & breed.

However, it would be interesting to see the male sibling for comparision purposes.


Lex

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Originally Posted by SlitherinSisters

Like it was already said, both parents contribute. If you breed to a darker normal your pastels will feel the affect, if you breed to lighter normals, same thing.




IMO give her a little time to shed and grow up. You said she's six months old? I've got a girl that is about that age and every time she sheds I'm happier and happier that I picked her up. I got her for a really decent price at the Tinley show, I was happy with her, she was a decent graziani, but now I'm totally in love with her.

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I totally agree! NERD says he doesn't like to take pics of Pastels until after 5 sheds! My female Pastel(avatar pic) is six months too and she gets better with every shed! She is a Graziani line and is my favorite in my collection!

What Judy said. Pastel brightness/cleanness is a line-bred trait, so it's genetic--but not in the Punnett squares dominant/recessive sense of the term. Clean pastels are more likely to produce clean pastel babies, but there's no statistical certainty like there is with the pastel trait itself.

If you want your pastels to CONSISTENTLY produce bright offspring, you have to produce multiple generations, and hold back the only bright/clean babies for future breeding--the more times you select for BRIGHT pastel trait from parent to offspring to grand-offspring, the better your chances of later generations of bright pastels consistently producing bright pastel babies.

This is more like what is done in dog breeding.

My female lemon got REALLY embarrassingly ugly about six months after I got her. She was well started and had had about 4 sheds or so before i even got her so she looked sooo good. Now, she about 2-3 years old and she looks pretty awesome again. I don't really consider lemons any different than other pastels since the blonde and Grazinis were also bred for specific looks , yet they have as much variety in quality as the Lemons! I just tend to like NERD line animals so lemons are one of my favs. I've seen plenty pastels from unknown lineages that look fabulous and a few are "prettier" than my gal. But she eats like a pig and is such a sweetie, I've never regretted getting her. However I do plan to cross her with BRIGHT, clean males to get as many good looking babies as I can!