What is the best example of....

[snake lab]

Good luck with the ball clubs and registry. Look how good the corn snake registry did lol. I have to bow out of this one cause ive said my peace. Now in 8 to 12 months ill revisit this and say i told ya so lol

[DooLittle]

I think it is fun to see what other people see as their ideals. Sometimes it helps me see beauty where I didn't appreciate it before. There have been some amazing morphs discovered by breeders seeing something beautiful where others saw nothing. If we set standards, I'm afraid it could discourage that kind of independent creativity, and make us blind to new ways of appreciating these morphs.

So, with that disclaimer, I'll share some of my favorites. My ideals always seem to have clean or reduced patterns and bright colors.

This Super Pastel Male (from Garrick DeMeyer) seemed so perfect to me, that I bought him even though I'd been looking for a female. I love his reduced pattern, his blushing and his clean yellow color.


This Matrix Blonde Pastel female, unrelated to the male above, is the nicest one I produced for her clean bright color. While there are many different qualities to like or not like about a pastel, I think the most important one is that clean yellow color.


This Hypo Male is one of my favorite snakes with his cool reduced pattern and super clean color. He is my ideal hypo.


I love all the colors of a nice calico. Thick bright gold/orange highlights the chocolate brown, which contrasts with the brilliant white of a nice specimen. This female from Dan Wolfe started my love affair with this morph.


This not great pic of my lemon pastel lesser platinum was taken when she was older, but you can still appreciate her color and pattern. I like the broad blushed bands in her pattern.

For pure pastel lesser platinum beauty, though, I like this citrus pastel lesser with her classic pattern and really clear yellow.


I'm going to finish with a departure from the norm for me. I'm usually not partial to busy patterns, but this citrus pastel yellowbelly (from Amir) is too bright to believe and displays the best traits of both morphs making her my ideal.

Gorgeous super pastel, I love him! Also really like that hulk, nice snakes, thanks for sharing.

[DooLittle]

Dang the auto correct, above should have said hypo! I have a picture I would post, but seem to be technology challenged. Lol. I can get it to Photobucket, but can't seem to link cut&paste from my phone. (Which is my internet).

[Lorgakor]

I really think my lemon blast is a great example of the morph. I prefer blasts that are less busy in pattern, nice faded head, nice and yellow. This girl has very nice stripes, they are a little broken in the middle, but the rest is intact. She is in shed in this picture, so not as bright as she normally is. I like pins with full stripes and reduced pattern as well.

[Scimthar]

I think that trying to pinpoint a best example of a morph is a basically pointless exercise since different owners will have different opinions on the subject.

For example, I believe someone pointed out earlier in this thread that a good Lesser (my favourite one-gene morph besides Piebald) should have a very dark top and creamy sides/great contrast. Well, I disagree! For me, the perfect lesser would be a creamy coloured snake, almost with a yellow glaze over it.

Although I don't believe my Butter (to me, Butter = Lesser) is the absolute best example of the morph. I am extremely happy with it! It has incredible blushing and is very yellow/cream.

The picture is remarkably bad (taken with an iPhone), as he's much lighter than what appears here, anyway...

[snake lab]

Hypo yellow belly female[IMG][/IMG]

Mojave het hypo female
[IMG][/IMG]

Pastel female[IMG][/IMG]

Pewter male
[IMG][/IMG]

Flora fauna calico male
[IMG][/IMG]

Sterling male [IMG][/IMG]

Pied male
[IMG][/IMG]


Just a couple snakes that for me are what i like in each individual morph. Some will agree, some will not. This is why setting standards wont work

[rexrem]

Here's my super pastel at 6 months. I love his blushing


16 months


Vanilla het Red Axanthic


My Mojos

[Rhasputin]

I think that trying to pinpoint a best example of a morph is a basically pointless exercise since different owners will have different opinions on the subject.

This is true for all species of animals. Before standards are set, everyone has different opinions on what is the best. And even after the standards are set, people will have different opinions on what is and is not the best. The standards only show that you can breed a certain type of animal a certain way, and you compete against other people who have the same goals.

I've said before, it won't stop people from breeding animals the way they want, and it won't force people to accept one snake as better than another. Just that when (for argument's sake) a black python is up against another black python, and the standard says the blackest one is prefered, that one gets awarded. People can breed the black pythons to be gray if they want, and even petition the club to get 'gray' approved as a variety.


I think a lot of the problems people are having with accepting a standard, is they seem to think it means that one snake is absolutely better than another (ie black vs gray). When it's not. It's just a goal that is set, and aimed for by people who want to reach the goal.

Even MOUSE breeders disagree, when the standards for mice were written over 100 years ago, and competitive breeding has been going on for upwards of 300 years.

[snake lab]

So your taking your mouse breeding and showing knowledge and trying to apply it to the ball pythons? I understand what your talking about. I understand how you think it will work. But to have a written code or standards to how a certain morph should look again wont work. The only people that will agree on such a standard wre those that like it one way when in fact there so many variants of each color morph.

[Rhasputin]

The only people that will agree on such a standard wre those that like it one way when in fact there so many variants of each color morph.

People don't have to agree. That's what you're missing.
Didn't you say you were leaving the conversation?