Pastel Progression, Come Share

[John1982]

I'm interested to see how your pastels have progressed over the years. I'm especially interested to see the change in exceptional examples after they reach several years of age and close in on their max size. I only have experience with a lone female from hatchling to adult but I'm sharing her story to give ya'll an idea of what I'm after.

I picked up this girl in 2008 at the Daytona expo, she was my first BP morph. I was buying her in a package deal with a spider male. Being the newbie I was, I asked the breeder to help my untrained eyes pick out a good one. She was deep in shed but the breeder assured me she was the best pastel female he had there. The folks over at MorphMakers did right by me and when she shed out she was a very bright yellow.

Here's the earliest picture I have of her. I wasn't picky about lighting and flash back then but even so I think you can tell she's an above average example of the morph. She's probably in the 300-500g range in this picture:


Fast forward a couple of years and here she is during her first year of breeding in 2010, probably in the 1200-1300g range and 2 years of age. Again, not very good pictures but you get a fair idea of her degree of yellow next to a dark spider male. At this point you are seeing her "brown out line" better but she is still very yellow. This picture is also taken with the flash:


Going ahead yet another year to 2011 breedin season and she's closer to the 1400-1600g mark and still very yellow at this size and 3+ years of age. She's being paired with a my fire male. This picture is also taken with a flash:


She kept on growing in the off seasons and her clutch sizes increased as well. Her first clutch was 5 eggs, second clutch shown here is 7 eggs:


Shortly after dropping the above clutch and I finally get wise on outdoor pictures, without flash, in natural lighting(overcast seems to be best). This picture has a bit more sun than I like but still showing her to be a nice, yellow pastel at 4+ years and in the 1700+ gram range but with a well defined "brown out line":




Another picture around the same time, no flash again and with a little less sun - the way I like it:


And now we come to last season. She seems to have maxed out in size at right around 2000g and 5+ years of age - she hasn't put on the size she had the previous 2 seasons after dropping clutches. I had planned on giving her a year off but the lady has such a feeding and breeding drive. Within a couple hours of removing her from a clutch and cleaning her tub the gal has taken a meal and puts weight back on incredibly fast. I could count the number of meals she's refused on 1 hand(not including deep into breeding season). Much of her yellow has faded to a pale cream color that I personally find pleasing but others would probably call browned out. She remains to this day one of my favorite royals. She's currently in shed but I'll get an updated shot when she peels out of that old skin. Until then, here she is with one of her 2012 babies earlier this year:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anybody has similar progression pictures/stories please share. Browning out is a natural progression of the morph but I would like to see how this affects pastels of the higher caliber. We've all seen pictures of browned out babies to adults. Let's see some quality youngsters and their progression to adulthood. I'm especially interested in single gene examples but if your pastel is het for something or other feel free to share too, just include the information por favor.