Pastel vs Fire

[TheSnakeEye]

Pastels in color ranger anywhere from Orange to Yellow, with black instead of the usual brown.

Fires look like very bright and clean normals. But even with those descriptions your best bet is to analyze them in person and pictures.

[Deltaball]

Didn't see anyone say this yet, so perhaps it is not true.
I was told that pastels will always have green/ish eye color? Whereas fires not.
Also fires will always have a blushed head stamp with a dot in it.
Vanillas are what confuses me. Some look way too much like fires.

[TheSnakeEye]

Didn't see anyone say this yet, so perhaps it is not true.
I was told that pastels will always have green/ish eye color? Whereas fires not.
Also fires will always have a blushed head stamp with a dot in it.
Vanillas are what confuses me. Some look way too much like fires.

That is true about the green eyes! How could I have forgot.

[angllady2]

Yes, but pastels are not the only ones with green eyes. Some normals have green eyes as well. Doesn't that just make it even more fun!

And that is also why I spent so much time looking at snakes sold by reputable breeders so I knew what I was looking at, and not just random "Is this a ______ ?" pictures. While you can look for certain things to distinguish some morphs, like head stamps and fading and so on, if you really can't tell a true head stamp from just a faded head, it isn't going to help you much.
Take vanillas and fires as a great example. No one can seem to tell them apart. I mean, no one. Half say fire, half say vanilla, and a few claim it's just a normal. However, I breed both and I can promise you, seen side by side there is no mistaking one for the other. Not with good examples of the morph. Can I describe to you exactly what to look for to tell them apart? Nope. I could describe them for you until I was blue in the face, and 8 out of 10 times, you still won't be able to tell by looking at a picture.

BUT, if I brought you to my house and showed you my fires babies and my vanilla babies, you'd have no trouble telling them apart. The difference is plain as day. The guy down the street though? You probably couldn't tell which was which, or even if he had what he claimed he did. It takes time, plain and simple. Time spent looking at KNOWN examples of each of the morphs, not guess this morph. Over time, you would begin to see the differences between them, even without someone to tell you which was which. I've been to a reptile show, and seen 6 fires each from a different breeder, each one looked totally different from the others, but I could still tell they were all fires. And I can do that because I have spent literally years looking at fires from every reputable breeder on the internet. I have learned what " the look" for a fire is. But I even if I tried to tell you what it was I could see that told me it was fire, that doesn't mean someone who was not familiar with fires could tell what I was talking about.

Fires always have a head stamp. Usually they have a faded head. The best of them have lots of belly flames and lots of back blushing. As babies, they should be a clear bright yellow, like a dandelion. But guess what? Pastels can have faded heads. They can have lots of blushing and flames. And the best pastel babies are dandelion yellow. So, how does that help you? it doesn't. You still can't tell one from the other. So, how do I do it? Practice, practice, practice. That and patience.

Gale