Line's don't matter??

[mason]

Re-read my post but its been too long to edit.

IT doesn't read quite like it should, I am not trying to say you're wrong simply that, out of all the factors involved, the line of PASTEL (note, i've never said 'line doesn't matter' about anything other than pastels) is the least important of all the factors when purchasing pastels. You should know which line it is, it's useful and people may ask.

Another reason it's not *as* important as other factors is this: There are hundreds of 'lines' of pastel, with dozens of new WC pastels coming in each year not all of these have a "line name" so people shouldn't place *too* much importance on it. There is also further confusion when breeders take another breeders line of pastel and then, through selective breeding produce different looking animals and change the "name" of the line.

This is exactly what hapened in cases like the ruppel/stonewashed line of pastels. The founding animals were graziani which were then selectively bred for different traits and given a whole new name. I guess a better way of phrasing what I was trying ot say would be this: What line a pastel comes from is completely unimportant WHEN COMPARED TO the qualities the individual animal in question has. Things like high blushing, good colour contrast and the shade of colour are much more important than which bloodline the snake originally came from way back when. Greg Graziani produces some of the best super pastels in the world but that is through careful selective breeding over a long period of time. A dark, brown, rubbish "graziani" pastel brought from "Joe Schmo" that was produced with no thought to enhancing or removing certain traits is about as likely to produce those trademark 'super dupers' as I am to get a specter in a bag of ten CF balls. In this example then the tag 'graziani' being applied to the pastel is irrelevant and the actual features and qualites of the snake itself are far more important.

Going back to an earlier point pastel is pretty much the only morph where this is true. the line IS an important consideration when selecting things like which axanthic or hypoto work with. Some hypos are awful (i'd never consider buying a 'green ghost' for example, i've yet to see a good one). Similarly I prefer VPI axanthics to TSK and joliff lines. They tend to look better as adults, i've seen many TSK axanthic (adults) that you can barely tell from a normal or not tell it apoart form a normal at all, i've seen fewer poor adult VPI axanthics therefore I prefer the VPI line. I prefer orange hypo to the other lines (some of which are, again, snakes from other lines like 'orange' that are selectively bred for a slightly different trait then renamed)

[kc261]

What line a pastel comes from is completely unimportant WHEN COMPARED TO the qualities the individual animal in question has.

That says it all right there.

[Turbo Serpent]

I agree most of the time the line doesnt really matter. It is the individual snake that matters to me.

My Pastel is of no apparent line and has very bright orange with faint yellow. I hope he keeps most of his color. I see low end Pastels that look more like normals when they are adults.

You also need to understand that the bright oranges on pastels will ALWAYS brown out. The only colors that stay the same are the yellows.

[mason]

That says it all right there.

That really is the crux of my argument I suppose.

Through careful selective breeding we've taken our lemon pastels far beyond anything the breeder who originally sold him to us has. His focus is to produce numbers, ours is to selectively breed for certain traits and aspects.