Orange Dream: Does it age well?

Hello guys,

I'm curious about Orange Dream. I've never seen one in person (only pics) and I've always wondered how well they age. I know that the gene functions to clean up patterns (similar to fire and enchi) and I do like the more reduced pattern they seem to produce, but I'm on the fence regarding how it effects color. Young snakes seem to have increased orange tones, but how well does that hold up with age?

For those that are working with the gene, I'd ask what your thoughts are on how well it stacks up to fire and enchi, how well it combines with those genes, and how well the adults keep their coloration? If you happen to have any pics of adult OD animals you have that would be helpful too.

If you have any other thoughts on the gene, please feel free to share. I know basically nothing (other than what I stated above) so I'd love to learn more.

OD is interesting in that it seems to age well when combined with the right morphs but on its own, at least from what I’ve seen, the orange color does not hold up well. The few adults I’ve seen have had beautiful clean patterns but had lost that bright orange coloring that you see when they are young. As for what morphs help them retain the color, enchi is the best that I’ve seen. I have a OD enchi female that is a sub adult and she is still very orange. I’ll post a picture for example a little later.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...8c9de8874d.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e726c5a757.jpg


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Well, i am just starting out with OD and both individuals are young so i will be interested as well. One is OD yellowbelly and he is very bright. About 6 months old. The female is OD 66% het pied and she is extremely bright. I will post their pics later and she is about the same age as the male (6 mos.). Recently put a fire OD 100% het pied 1.0 on hold who i have only seen pics of, but he has a reduced pattern and looks orangey but nowhere as bright as my female. He is a hatchling. So, i think fire is another gene that adds to the beauty of OD.

ODYB 1.0https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...age_434738.jpg

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

Well, i am just starting out with OD and both individuals are young so i will be interested as well. One is OD yellowbelly and he is very bright. About 6 months old. The female is OD 66% het pied and she is extremely bright. I will post their pics later and she is about the same age as the male (6 mos.). Recently put a fire OD 100% het pied 1.0 on hold who i have only seen pics of, but he has a reduced pattern and looks orangey but nowhere as bright as my female. He is a hatchling. So, i think fire is another gene that adds to the beauty of OD.

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Your going to make some amazing combos!

I agree that fire is another one of the best choices to combine with OD. From my experience it doesn’t help with the orange retention as much as enchi but it keeps the colors very bright and clean. Here is my male OD fire black pastel
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fe54a6ccc5.jpg


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Gotcha ruf! This is my OD 66% het pied 0.1 https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...age_787199.jpg

Thanks for your responses and the great pics! You guys have beautiful animals.

Enchi is one of my favorite genes, as well as fire. My first breeding project is centered around hypo, with a hypo calico female and a hypo enchi pastel kingpin female. I'm trying to figure out what genes I want in a male and OD is on my list... Haven't seen any pics of OD hypos though, so not sure about the combination. I like anything that brightens colors and reduces pattern though, so I'm thinking it might be a good combination.

If you mix it with yellow belly I'd have to say the results could be a mixed bag. Just look at the Highway and Freeway combos, each one seems to have a completely different look even though the only thing in the snake is yellow belly and gravel (or asphalt). I'm thinking that there are many different lines of yellow belly with slight differences. You can hardly tell a yellow belly from a normal when it's on it's own but mixed with the right genes you can clearly tell a difference between different yellow belly lines.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

If you mix it with yellow belly I'd have to say the results could be a mixed bag. Just look at the Highway and Freeway combos, each one seems to have a completely different look even though the only thing in the snake is yellow belly and gravel (or asphalt). I'm thinking that there are many different lines of yellow belly with slight differences. You can hardly tell a yellow belly from a normal when it's on it's own but mixed with the right genes you can clearly tell a difference between different yellow belly lines.

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I think you might be a little confused, the yellow belly is pretty consistent but depending on what you mix it with you can get way different results. The highway for example, all look very similar but then if you use asphalt instead of gravel you get freeway which looks very different from highway but in general most freeways look very similar. So it wouldn’t be different lines of yellow belly that are making the crazy different combos, it’s which morph you add to it that makes the difference.

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Originally Posted by artgecko

Thanks for your responses and the great pics! You guys have beautiful animals.

Enchi is one of my favorite genes, as well as fire. My first breeding project is centered around hypo, with a hypo calico female and a hypo enchi pastel kingpin female. I'm trying to figure out what genes I want in a male and OD is on my list... Haven't seen any pics of OD hypos though, so not sure about the combination. I like anything that brightens colors and reduces pattern though, so I'm thinking it might be a good combination.

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If your looking to make brighter snakes you should be looking into working with desert ghost. It will take any morph you work with to the next level. I eventually plan to make OD desert ghost along with a bunch of other combos. Any morph or combo of morphs will be greatly improved by adding desert ghost, by far the best enhancer morph!

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Originally Posted by rufretic

If your looking to make brighter snakes you should be looking into working with desert ghost. It will take any morph you work with to the next level. I eventually plan to make OD desert ghost along with a bunch of other combos. Any morph or combo of morphs will be greatly improved by adding desert ghost, by far the best enhancer morph!

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I definitely agree with your outlook ruf! I want desert ghost also but for now gonna stick with the OD pied project and super OD for now.

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Originally Posted by rufretic

If your looking to make brighter snakes you should be looking into working with desert ghost. It will take any morph you work with to the next level. I eventually plan to make OD desert ghost along with a bunch of other combos. Any morph or combo of morphs will be greatly improved by adding desert ghost, by far the best enhancer morph!

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I do intend to get into DG eventually... I wanted to grow out my hypo project animals, breed them, and then use those funds to purchase some DG animals. I agree with you about DG, it is the ultimate brightening gene.... Now, if I happen to come across a male DG that happens to be het hypo, well then, I might have to change my plans. :P

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Originally Posted by rufretic

OD is interesting in that it seems to age well when combined with the right morphs but on its own, at least from what I’ve seen, the orange color does not hold up well. The few adults I’ve seen have had beautiful clean patterns but had lost that bright orange coloring that you see when they are young.

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Ruf is correct about the single gene, as they age they mostly end up looking like a really nice clean normal

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Originally Posted by rufretic

As for what morphs help them retain the color, enchi is the best that I’ve seen...

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Enchi is certainly one of the better morphs to combo with to help retain the colour into adulthood but even then the adults I have seen of this combo still end up a bit muted. Your other top candidates are Spider, Fire and anything in the YB group. Also, depending on the mix, Pastel can do some really nice things (the flip side being that in the wrong mix, Pastel swamps out the OD.) As a general rule of thumb, the dark morphs and the hetBluEL group do not go that well with OD, with some exceptions

I have OD Pastel YB (600g), Butter OD Pastel Woma YB (600g) and Butter Enchi OD Pastel YB (1100g) and they are all very bright. And I had an Enchi OD YB that went to live with a friend that was retina-burning

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

You can hardly tell a yellow belly from a normal when it's on it's own

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This is the third or fourth time I have seen this comment from you and I find it odd. YB is an established incomplete-dominant trait and it is not at all difficult to identify

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

I'm thinking that there are many different lines of yellow belly with slight differences.

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That there are multiple lines of YB is an established fact -- RDR's Goblin, NERDs Bling, Seigel's OB, the dozen or so independently imported WCs that come in every year... And yes, each might have a slightly different expression pattern but they are all pretty obviously YBs