I don't post here very often, but I felt like sharing with you guys one of the highlights of my 2009 breeding season. This project started with a strange female ball python a friend of mine had that was imported around 2002. He knew she was something different when he got her, and he was calling her a weird ghost type (though she is clearly not a hypo). That friend got out of the hobby, and I ended up with this girl around 2005. She was sub-adult size at the time and hard to get on a steady feeding schedule between fasts until last year when she blew up from around 1000g to 1800+g. Anyway, this season was the first time I chose to breed her, and I paired her with my lemon pastel male. Out of 8 good eggs, I got 4 normals, 2 pastels, and 2 pastels that look like a cross (the second being more extreme than the first).

Since she appeared to reproduce herself, I decided to come up with a name. She resembles some which I've seen called "blurry", but as far as I know, none have been proven genetic yet, and I didn't particularly care for that name as it didn't describe her appearance well. I was thinking something more along the lines of "dusty" for a while. Anyway, after a bonfire at a friend's house, I decided I was fond of the name Ashen for the project, after the color of the mother's blushing.

Unfortunately for breeding purposes, both of the ashen pastel babies are females. Considering this, I decided to pair my orange ghost male with her in hopes of seeing if I can reproduce the mother's appearance a second year in a row, and work toward some Ashen ghosts a couple years down the road.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures, and let me know what you guys think! It's pretty hard to capture their colors in the picture, but the ashen pastels have a lighter, more tan look to them, and the reduced eye-stripes and head blushing of their mother. I'm very excited about seeing what I'll get from this project in the future.

Ashen Mother:


Newly hatched Ashen Pastel Females:




Comparison - Ashen Pastel vs. Pastel:


Ashen Pastels Post-Shed:




Thanks for looking!

~Russell Lawson