Is this a Pastel?

I got this ball python under the impression that it was definitely a Pastel, but I've never seen any that have a pattern so similar to a Normal's.

I was talking to a breeder I know and he said that it doesn't look like a Pastel at all to him, but he advised me to post here and get some other opinions.

I planned to eventually breed her and hopefully produce some fireflies, maybe super pastels or bumblebees (any advice on which would be best?), but now I'm not even sure if she'd be capable of it.
Is there any way to know for sure?

Older photos:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...1____10512.jpg

With my Normal (het pied) Male for comparison:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...sc/2_10512.jpghttps://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...sc/1_10512.jpg

Before shed:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...eo1_112212.jpghttps://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...eo2_112212.jpg

After shed (taken last night):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...eo1_112312.jpghttps://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...eo2_112312.jpg

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much!

That is no where near a pastel. Sorry to say it but that's about as normal as they come. Where did you get it that they had you thinking it was definitely a pastel? I've seen plenty on here that are very light blushed out normals with flames that might be able to be passed off as pastels to new people who may not know better, but your snake there is not one of them. It really is a very normal looking normal.

That's pretty disappointing to hear, I traded a 1500g poss het pied female for her, but the person I traded wasn't the breeder of this snake. This is only my third snake, including the 1500g one I traded. Can you explain exactly what confirms that this one is indeed a Normal? She's a lot brighter and more yellow than any other Normal I've seen, but I'm obviously far from an expert.

There are "high golds" but it still a normal. Shes got a nice pattern and looks healthy though :D

yeah she's a normal, not a pastel. No signs of pastel at all, couldn't even stretch to say there is a possibility. Sorry mate.

However she is a very awesome looking normal. Very light and clean pattern, exactly what I would look for in a normal to bred to any light codom morph. Would be perfect for breeding to a light colored codom, lesser, butter, pastel, mojo. Or any pattern morph; spider, pinstripe, etc.

That is disappointing, how long ago did you trade? As far as I'm concerned you've been had. I would start kicking my feet with that breeder personally. The trade was made under false pretenses. The BOI is around for this kind of BS. Any breeder knows the difference between a normal and pastel. They should be held responsible, and deal with the consequences of bad business. Even if it just affects their credibility.

Where did you get her?

I googled "high gold ball python" and could have very nearly mistaken most the results for this snake. Do those usually have the dots under the eye like her, also? I've never seen them on any other normals.
Also, are they worth the same value as any other normal?

I traded a few months ago. I was originally going to trade for this pastel:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/5I...cb5fde16a3.jpg
But the breeder backed out at the last minute.

The guy I got this "pastel" from didn't breed this snake, but he is a breeder (hence wanting the 1500g ball). Heck, I'm not even sure if it's female or not, because I've never successfully popped or probed a snake and I don't really feel comfortable trying.
I'm not sure where he got this one. His name is Aaron, near Sacramento.

Unfortunately I've already gotten pretty attached to her as a pet, put effort into taming her down and whatnot, and the 1500g had a rather unpleasant temper (but only with me, for some reason) so I wouldn't want that one back anyway, though in terms of breeding, I'm pretty much sure I would have been better off trying to prove out the other as het pied now, I even had an offer of another breeder I know who was going to let me breed that one with one of his male piebalds.

I have another friend who's just getting into breeding and he was really excited about potentially breeding her with his male fire for some firefly babies.

Do you think her offspring would be anything special, perhaps if bred to a pastel, spider or a fire, at least?
Or is this just a "the incubator alone would be worth more than the entire clutch" deal?..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dember

I googled "high gold ball python" and could have very nearly mistaken most the results for this snake. Do those usually have the dots under the eye like her, also? I've never seen them on any other normals.
Also, are they worth the same value as any other normal?

I traded a few months ago. I was originally going to trade for this pastel:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/5I...cb5fde16a3.jpg
But the breeder backed out at the last minute.

The guy I got this "pastel" from didn't breed this snake, but he is a breeder (hence wanting the 1500g ball). Heck, I'm not even sure if it's female or not, because I've never successfully popped or probed a snake and I don't really feel comfortable trying.
I'm not sure where he got this one. His name is Aaron, near Sacramento.

Unfortunately I've already gotten pretty attached to her as a pet, put effort into taming her down and whatnot, and the 1500g had a rather unpleasant temper (but only with me, for some reason) so I wouldn't want that one back anyway, though in terms of breeding, I'm pretty much sure I would have been better off trying to prove out the other as het pied now, I even had an offer of another breeder I know who was going to let me breed that one with one of his male piebalds.

I have another friend who's just getting into breeding and he was really excited about potentially breeding her with his male fire for some firefly babies.

Do you think her offspring would be anything special, perhaps if bred to a pastel, spider or a fire, at least?
Or is this just a "the incubator alone would be worth more than the entire clutch" deal?..

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Trade value would be roughly the same. Obviously higher quality animals earn higher price points but essentially you can expect the same for a light normal than you would for a dark normal. Example:

Let's say the market value of a pastel is $100.00. If I produce two pastels this year, one very high quality and one very low quality. I would expect the high quality pastel to sell for $100. I wouldn't expect to get the same money for the low quality pastel, it might sell for 50-75 dollars. The same is not true for normals. A normal is worth about $50 market value now. You'll have an easier time selling a light, clean normal than you would a dark and dirty one, but your not going to get any more for it.

It really depends on what you breed to that normal. If you breed another normal to it and have one clutch this year, than most likely you will not recoup your cost for the incubator. However if you breed, lets say.. a bumblebee to it and get a 4 egg clutch your potentially looking at, 1 bumblebee ($300), 1 spider ($100-125), 1 pastel ($100), and a normal ($50) = $550-$575. The quality of the bumblebee will have an impact on the quality of the offspring. If you have really nice looking babies you can usually expect to pull out market value and the clutch pays off the incubator. This is all hypothetical of course.

The nice looking normal wouldn't count as something special in anything it produces, but higher quality animals generally make higher quality animals. And in a market as saturated as this one, quality is everything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dember

Also, are they worth the same value as any other normal?


Do you think her offspring would be anything special, perhaps if bred to a pastel, spider or a fire, at least?
Or is this just a "the incubator alone would be worth more than the entire clutch" deal?..

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Pretty much the same price as any normal. I picked up a high gold female at a reptile show last year , they had quite a few $20ea.
Sorry to say but I dont think you would see much more positive outcome as if you were to breed your morphs to any other normal. Not to say it wont produce some great looking offsping though. All depends what your pairing it with.

No blushing at all:colbert:
You already know she is not a pastel, are you SURE that she is a she?

Find yourself a really nice pastel male and make your own girls with her if she is sexed right:gj:

Unfortunately no, I'm not; I'm going off of the word of the same person who claimed she was a pastel, so that's iffy at best.
I've tried popping a few times myself, but I don't feel anywhere near comfortable putting enough pressure to do it successfully. I know how badly you can hurt them if you do it wrong, so I think I'll leave it to the professionals.

I'd like to ask my friend to sex her; he's been breeding snakes for a few years now and seems to really know what he's doing, but I can't get in contact with him lately. Hopefully just hectic holidays are to blame.

If she is definitely female at least, what do you think of this male?
Definitely a pastel? And would $80 be a good price for him?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/3M...a3343a18c6.jpg

Thanks for all of the input, everyone.

Not a pastel for sure but she is really pretty. I would throw a lesser or butter to her for sure. atleast you learned your lesson early and fairly cheap so hopefully next time a trade comes up you will come on here or a forum similar and ask the community first.

She's one of the the cleanest normals I've ever seen.
I prefer her over the actual second pastel you posted. The first pastel is good. The second is too dirty looking for my opinion. And $80 for a male is reasonable. When looking at pastels you want to look for one with bright yellows and a really light(blushed) head. The more orange they have as babies, the browner they will be as adults. Pastels can have the same pattern as normals. They're a color mutation, not a pattern.

When breeding, you want to breed the best quality examples of the morphs in order to get good quality babies. A dirty pastel will most likely have dirty babies. That Normal is extremely bright, clean, and reduced patterned. With the right male will produce amazing hatchlings.

All in all, she's a keeper to me.

Are you in the Sac area? I can help sex your snake for you.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

Not a pastel. But a nice normal i would still breeder her.

You know, she'd probably be a good candidate for a High Contrast Albino project if she holds her colour well in the long run.
Sorry that this one turned out to be a bust but finding a good animal to make up for it should be too difficult!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MisterKyte

You know, she'd probably be a good candidate for a High Contrast Albino project if she holds her colour well in the long run.
Sorry that this one turned out to be a bust but finding a good animal to make up for it should be too difficult!

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Bright snakes make low contrast albino's, dark snake make high contrast.
Think albino black pastels, as high contrast as you can get because it comes from a very dark snake ;)

OP, that male pastel is not something you'll want for a breeder.
The "female" you got is a very nice looking female if it's a female but if you can I'd take her back and make them give you you're pos het pied girl back :mad:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by satomi325

She's one of the the cleanest normals I've ever seen.
I prefer her over the actual second pastel you posted. The first pastel is good. The second is too dirty looking for my opinion. And $80 for a male is reasonable. When looking at pastels you want to look for one with bright yellows and a really light(blushed) head. The more orange they have as babies, the browner they will be as adults. Pastels can have the same pattern as normals. They're a color mutation, not a pattern.

When breeding, you want to breed the best quality examples of the morphs in order to get good quality babies. A dirty pastel will most likely have dirty babies. That Normal is extremely bright, clean, and reduced patterned. With the right male will produce amazing hatchlings.

All in all, she's a keeper to me.

Are you in the Sac area? I can help sex your snake for you.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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Wow, would you really? ;u; Yeah, I live out near Cache Creek, about thirty minutes to an hour from Sacramento, we go there about once a month or so. I could give you my number if you'd like?

Also, what do you mean by "dirty looking"? I keep hearing tons of fancy terms, but I have no idea how to distinguish these traits for myself. "Alien heads"? "Blushing"?.. @_@

Do you know of anyone who would be good to buy from? I only know of two breeders around here; Mike in Woodland and Tim in Elk Grove.

Thanks so much everyone. There's no way I'd be able to afford fancy morphs like albinos or anything, but if anyone has any pastels, spiders, or female 100% het pieds in the sacramento area, I'd probably be very interested.

lol i used to live by u and would drive to jackson all the time. Im in arizona now or i would offer to help out. Good luck and as everyone stated i would say its a normal and a nice one as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dember

Wow, would you really? ;u; Yeah, I live out near Cache Creek, about thirty minutes to an hour from Sacramento, we go there about once a month or so. I could give you my number if you'd like?

Also, what do you mean by "dirty looking"? I keep hearing tons of fancy terms, but I have no idea how to distinguish these traits for myself. "Alien heads"? "Blushing"?.. @_@

Do you know of anyone who would be good to buy from? I only know of two breeders around here; Mike in Woodland and Tim in Elk Grove.

Thanks so much everyone. There's no way I'd be able to afford fancy morphs like albinos or anything, but if anyone has any pastels, spiders, or female 100% het pieds in the sacramento area, I'd probably be very interested.

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Check these guides out
http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...-makes-a-morph
they will help you with some (not all) of the terminology. Dirty is usually referring to speckling (brown flecks) inside the yellow pattern area. Or, like with bee's when they are mostly pale/yellow, dirty are brown flecks all over. It looks like they rolled around in dirt ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dember

Wow, would you really? ;u; Yeah, I live out near Cache Creek, about thirty minutes to an hour from Sacramento, we go there about once a month or so. I could give you my number if you'd like?

Also, what do you mean by "dirty looking"? I keep hearing tons of fancy terms, but I have no idea how to distinguish these traits for myself. "Alien heads"? "Blushing"?.. @_@

Do you know of anyone who would be good to buy from? I only know of two breeders around here; Mike in Woodland and Tim in Elk Grove.

Thanks so much everyone. There's no way I'd be able to afford fancy morphs like albinos or anything, but if anyone has any pastels, spiders, or female 100% het pieds in the sacramento area, I'd probably be very interested.

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Yeah. That would be nice. You can PM me. I'm in the Dixon,Davis,Woodland area.
And I can recommend a few breeders to you. They're not on BP.net though. And this year is my first season breeding, so I'm hoping for some babies soon too. If we meet in person, I can point out the traits you listed above on a snake.

This is a Pastel :)
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/11/29/ajypuhes.jpg
Sorry i just had to show my little guy off :D


Follow my Instagram page @Noa_Morphs

I messaged you, thanks so much.


Pretty Pastel, but I prefer them a lot more gold/yellow, myself.
This is the most beautiful one I've ever seen in my opinion, he sired the little female pastel (the real pastel) I posted on the first page:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/43...20583348_n.jpg



Also, on an unrelated note, this is one of my possible het pied males (father was 100% het pied), bred by Mike in woodland. Are these "markers", or not?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...c/2_112212.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...c/5_112212.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...c/8_112212.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dember

I messaged you, thanks so much.


Pretty Pastel, but I prefer them a lot more gold/yellow, myself.
This is the most beautiful one I've ever seen in my opinion, he sired the little female pastel (the real pastel) I posted on the first page:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/43...20583348_n.jpg



Also, on an unrelated note, this is one of my possible het pied males (father was 100% het pied), bred by Mike in woodland. Are these "markers", or not?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...c/2_112212.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...c/5_112212.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10129013/ph...c/8_112212.jpg

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He doesn't have great het pied markers, but that doesn't matter, not all het pieds have them. Also, not all snakes that have the het pied markers are het pied. It's more of a confirmation when looking into het pieds, but not a guarantee. The breeder male you pictured of mine was exceptional to say the least. I regret letting go of him (one of my dumber moves for sure), but it is possible he had something else going on. I am watching his female offspring grow and she definitely looks firefly. Won't know anything until she breeds tho...

Did I read right that the snake you traded may or may not have been a female? If so it would serve him right if your snake was a male.

That being said, I love the look of your "female". I would snatch her up in a heartbeat if I saw her for a good price. With her clean reduced pattern and bright gold coloring that girl just begs to be bred to a lesser, a fire, an enchi, a cinnamon, probably even a spider would be good with her. I would not put a pastel to her unless he was just amazingly yellow and blushed like crazy, just just a wee bit too dark to me to make good pastels.

If you don't mind me tooting my own horn a bit, I'd like to show you a bit of what selective breeding can do.

This is my normal female Akashi:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...s/IMG_0021.jpg

As you can see, she is extremely bright with lots of blushing along her back. So, I knew that when I bred her I wanted a Fire male to add to her traits.

This is my Fire male Osa:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...nakes/Osa2.jpg

Osa is also very light colored and although he doesn't have a lot of blushing, what he does have looks really good. So I paired them together.

This is the result:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...by2-Female.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...es/Baby102.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...umber8-boy.jpg


Can you see how, by picking out two snakes that compliment each other so well, the babies can be even better?

I wish you the best with your girl, she's really a good one.

Gale

The green eyes is what you look for in pastel is it not?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Corey209

The green eyes is what you look for in pastel is it not?

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It is not.. Since many normals can have green eyes too. We look for many traits actually. In combination. Flames, blushing, orange/yellow color, brown-out line, clean/clear belly, green eyes, pattern, etc.