Is the fire gene really that great?

Ive been working with pastel balls for the last few years. I love the potential for the bright yellows in high quality pastels and I think they are beautiful animals. The one thing that totally turns me off about the pastels is the brown that comes in along the back as they age.

Now I've heard that the fire gene really cleans up the pastels and I've seen young fireflies they look great and extremely clean, but do they stay clean as they age? I want to invest into really cleaning up the look of adult pastels and I think the fire gene may be the best way.

I would like to hear any thoughts on this subject. Do you think the fire gene does more for pastels than if pastel was crossed with say a mojave or lesser?

One thing that does turn me away from the fire gene is the ability to identify it. I know it may be easy for keepers that work with fires, though I feel it may be easily mistaken for a light normal. Are there any ways to characterize and identify this gene such as head or belly markers?

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x...Picture247.jpg

The head marker with the body blushing and its fairly easy to tell. :D

This is my first and only fire and Im not sure im keeping him, i guess IMO Id rather play around with other genes.
The combos with fire dont exactly tickle my fancy.

Why yes, fire really is that great. All of the het black eyed lucy animals are wonderful. Fire, Lemonback, Sulfer, make everything better. Adult firefly's are way better looking than babies. mojave fires are cool, and butter fires (nuclear) is awesome. I cant think of anything out there that fire doesnt make better. Hit up the world of ball pythons and search the morphlist for fire, and see if you dont like what you see.

How old is your fire? Looks very nice!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenj620

How old is your fire? Looks very nice!

---

Thanks for the compliment!
Hes a few months old.

I used to have trouble identifying fires but now I can take one look a fire and know that's what it is. And fireflies are amazing. A fire bumble bee would be hot! ;)

Edit: Well that was not what I had expected. Thought it would look like a bee with a higher yellow but it looks more like a killer bee to me. Still cool just not what I had expected and i'll stick to bumble bees and killer bees.

Take a look at the Vanilla Cream or the Vanilla Scream. Those are just some of the possibilities with the fire gene. IMO opinion the fire is a great gene with many new combos to be made in the future. I would take a nice fire over a nice pastel any day, thats just my opinion though.

If you want your pastels to look like this then you'll need a fire ;)

http://i968.photobucket.com/albums/a...PICT3636-1.jpg
http://i968.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/PICT8672.jpg

Fires are awesome to make combo's with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jball1125

Take a look at the Vanilla Cream or the Vanilla Scream. Those are just some of the possibilities with the fire gene. IMO opinion the fire is a great gene with many new combos to be made in the future. I would take a nice fire over a nice pastel any day, thats just my opinion though.

---

Yeah I get what you mean. I'm not saying that I wouldn't LOVE to have a fire and make some awesome fire combos, but I wouldn't be interested in making bumble bee fires :)

I'd LOVE to have a bumblebee fire female, I can think of a number of males that I could breed to that and make some crazy combos.
My clown alone would make some hot stuff bred to a bumblebee fire.

Everyone has their thing when it comes to morphs, luckily there is plenty of colors and patterns for everyone's taste :)

I would love a fire bee. I hate that pretty bees get ugly after a year or 2. I would rather have a beautiful spider than an ugly bee. Fire takes bees to the next level to make some stunning animals.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

I'd LOVE to have a bumblebee fire female, I can think of a number of males that I could breed to that and make some crazy combos.
My clown alone would make some hot stuff bred to a bumblebee fire.

Everyone has their thing when it comes to morphs, luckily there is plenty of colors and patterns for everyone's taste :)

---

For as many possibilities that they have it would be great. But just for looks I had expected to see some firefly color and they look more like killer bees. For breeding purposes yes they are great.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by evan385

For as many possibilities that they have it would be great. But just for looks I had expected to see some firefly color and they look more like killer bees. For breeding purposes yes they are great.

---

But imagine what the fire killer bees look like!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenj620

But imagine what the fire killer bees look like!

---

Very true, I never thought of that :)

Okay dont wanna produce fire spider pastel crosses because they just look killerbee ish (which I dont agree with anyway look at killerbees and firebees as adults BIG DIFFERENCE) Ne Who check out the Nuclear bee.....http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/nuclear-bee/
The bottom of the line is what fire does to anything with pastel in it may look comparable to a lower end super pastel at birth, look at the two as adults. There is a good reason Super pastels are worth half of what a fire fly is

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7246/img0429g.jpg

I recently hatched this boy can't wait to see him at 200g.


I'm a huge fire fan I love my fire female another morph that gets better with age.
Gotta have fire's!!!!:rolleyes:

Firefly is amazing! I'm sure fire is a must in the collection.

I agree, fire makes everything better. It's my second favorite morph now behind Lesser/Butter. I'm alittle biased, since I'm going pyro over here this season and doing 6-8 Fire pairings. The best part about Fire is that it gets better as it ages, this goes for any combos as well. They get brighter and cleaner looking with each shed, I can't find another morph who does the exact same thing and looks as good in single gene form. My 07 male fire is stunning, with a light cream color, crazy blushing and a crazy head stamp. Can't wait to see the offspring from him and my neon pastel.

I -LOVE- fires and fire combos! Just recently picked up a fire female for my collection, and I'm so excited to see what I can do with her. Eventually I want to get to firefly mojaves, but later on down the road can you imagine what fire axanthic combos would be like?! Again, couldn't be more excited :D

Adult fireflies look way better than babies. I love fire because it's one of the few traits that look better as an adult, and the same goes for it's crosses.

Not to mention the vanilla x fire and super fire are both amazing, especially the super fires with the color coming through along the back..

I absolutely love what the fire does as a combo morph. It really cleans up and brightens whatever morph is it mixed with. The only reason I don't have a fire yet is because I didn't find one I liked at the Tinley show!

That's ok ladies, if you are patient and wait a month or 2 I should have plenty of Fires for everyone. LOL I do agree that my favorite trait is the fact that it lightens everything and gets better with age.

My firefly is definetley getting brighter!!! Nothing works better with the pastel gene in my opinion.
http://i755.photobucket.com/albums/x...n/d48eafd5.png

Is there such thing as a bad fire gene? One that's not as clean?

Fires are a great "clean up" gene. Not to mention some of the unexpected results of combining it with certain genes (vanilla comes to mind). Personally, I feel there are few genes to work with that have the versatility as the fire. I haven't seen a combo of it that I didn't like.
As far as different lines being better or worse, I don't feel qualified to say for sure. I have 1.1 2011 Super Fires from Mike Wilbanks. I can say that they are both great snakes, and I'm very pleased with both of them. From what I can see on his site, his line has the potential to make some killer combos. But there a lot of lines (RDR just this year confirmed his on line). Some produce solid white supers with black eyes, while others seem to produce more heavily yellow marked supers.
I don't think you can really go wrong with any of the fire lines.
At the end of the day, its a matter of opinion and preference.

Pastels or Super Pastels cant look like this.;)

http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...x/P1020116.jpg

http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/...x/P1020123.jpg

Fire is hands down my favorite morph. I think 90% of my future breeding plans involve the fire gene one way or another, I just can't get enough!

Yes it is! Vanilla Scream by German Ebbi Simon:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/fi...scream/003.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brian Fobian

Yes it is! Vanilla Scream by German Ebbi Simon:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/fi...scream/003.jpg

---

Wow now I want this ball so bad!