What morphs keep their color into adulthood the best?

Hi. I've decided to dip my feet into the ball python world.

I'm researching and trying to narrow down my morph choices and I was wondering which morphs hold their color best in adulthood? Which brown out the worst?

I figure if I'm going to have it around the next 20 years it had better look good.

Thanks.

Anything hypo keeps colour extremely well into adulthood. Pastels and axanthics are notorious for browning out as they age.

Anything enchi I think

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seven-Thirty

Anything hypo keeps colour extremely well into adulthood. Pastels and axanthics are notorious for browning out as they age.

---

GF is not going to be happy to hear that, she loves the color of our pastels and was hoping she would keep her color.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rikoku

GF is not going to be happy to hear that, she loves the color of our pastels and was hoping she would keep her color.

---

The quality of the Pastel matters A LOT as they age. Here is a thread I created a few months ago showing off my Spinner Blast female who turned 3 last week.

2.5 year old Spinner Blast - Who says they all brown out?

She's absolutely stunning and an phenomenal example of what good looks like when it comes to Pastels and Pastel combos. :cool:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eric Alan

The quality of the Pastel matters A LOT as they age. Here is a thread I created a few months ago showing off my Spinner Blast female who turned 3 last week.

2.5 year old Spinner Blast - Who says they all brown out?

She's absolutely stunning and an phenomenal example of what good looks like when it comes to Pastels and Pastel combos. :cool:

---

Beautiful girl, Im glad to hear that, hopefully ours keeps some of her color.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eric Alan

The quality of the Pastel matters A LOT as they age. Here is a thread I created a few months ago showing off my Spinner Blast female who turned 3 last week.

2.5 year old Spinner Blast - Who says they all brown out?

She's absolutely stunning and an phenomenal example of what good looks like when it comes to Pastels and Pastel combos. :cool:

---

She is a stunner.

and yeah quality is important when it comes to any morph. I should have said that most pastels and axantics brown out. (On average, there are quality versions of both that don't suffer this)

IMO, the morph that looks the best as an adult is desert ghost by far. Check out pastel desert ghost combos. They keep getting brighter as they age!

Lesser Fire stuff, Pieds, quality Cinnamons, and anything in the Coral Glow complex.

Yep, quality produces quality that looks great at any age. :rofl:

So a fairly under rated gene is the yellowbelly gene. They tend to help maintain a nice rich color in combos. Others that tend to do well are Orange Dream, Fire and enchi combos as well. Pastels tend to brown a bit but as seen above, there are exceptions. Just be sure to shop around for quality animals. I've seen a lot of people jump on "good deals" which helps build collections but not necessarily quality collections. Just an opinion.

Several of you mentioned that the quality of animal matters. Does this mean you can with out question pick out a hatchling that will not brown out? If so what do you look for in both axanthic and pastel?

IDK if you can really pick out a hatchling that won't brown out over time as much as it is the selective breeding that's done. The different lines like with Pastel would be the NERD line. The axanthic would be the VPI line. The selective breeding, I think is the key.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AntTheDestroyer

Several of you mentioned that the quality of animal matters. Does this mean you can with out question pick out a hatchling that will not brown out? If so what do you look for in both axanthic and pastel?

---

When looking for a top notch pastel or axanthic you should look at the end of the scales, if you see a black tip on the scales (I call that tipping) then you can anticipate the snake will only get darker with age, if you don't see black tipping then you should hold that snake back as a future breeder. It's real simple hold back your best looking babies then later breed from them. After you've done that for 3 or more generations you will begin to see consistency in the way your babies look.

IF I were you I would add fire, gold blush, vanilla, yellow belly or orange dream to any pastel project, those traits (and there are more) will help to enhance the quality of the yellow scales.

Good luck

Brian

Thank you everyone for your responses! I do appreciate them.

The fire gene does a lot with pastels. Look at an adult firebee and then an adult bumblebee.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by For Goodness Snakes

When looking for a top notch pastel or axanthic you should look at the end of the scales, if you see a black tip on the scales (I call that tipping) then you can anticipate the snake will only get darker with age, if you don't see black tipping then you should hold that snake back as a future breeder. It's real simple hold back your best looking babies then later breed from them. After you've done that for 3 or more generations you will begin to see consistency in the way your babies look.

IF I were you I would add fire, gold blush, vanilla, yellow belly or orange dream to any pastel project, those traits (and there are more) will help to enhance the quality of the yellow scales.

Good luck

Brian

---

Cool 😎 thanks for that info. Do you have a video about the tipping? Id like to see it please 😊

Sent from my E2353 using Tapatalk

Lavender Albinos get better looking as adults. I have a bunch of pictures on my page. Www.facebook.com/chrisdobbsreptiles