Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After having read all the negative posts recently about the pastel morph, I wanted to chime in with my personel thoughts on this subject.
Many people who bought their first pastels over the past few years and have just started producing their first pastel offspring this year like myself. The 3 years of raising up, feeding, cleaning, and breeding, incubating eggs, and finally producing offspring makes it hard to hear people say pastels are a "junk" morph not worth breeding.
This is a shame that people equate breeding with the almighty dollar. Although it would be awesome if everything retained their original value but, this is not the way supply and demand works especially in the reptile industry. I feel getting $300- $500 bucks for a snake is great, and now more people can actually afford them therefore pastels will still be in demand, Ball Pythons make great pets and everyone is unique.

Here is one of my best girls I produced this year, she is definately not "Junk" but a keeper.

Just my two cents.

Susan Hardy

The only people complaining about the pastels are the ones trying to make a quick buck. Why are you so focused on what the value of the pastel is when there are so many morphs out there any way. If you dont like the value of the pastel then cross it into something and make something new or different. Regardless of what you say its still worth it to buy at least one pastel. Just my 2cents
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Chris Farmer
Explicit Reptiles
www.explicitreptiles.com

I agree! Awsome snake.
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Jesse Jeffcoat
Gopher Hill Herps

One man's "junk" is another man's treasure.

I'll admit, it kind of irritates me that I spent $550 on my male pastel, and now I see pairs for $650-700...
but my pastel is quite amazing in my eyes, and even if I never breed him...at least I have a snake that none of my friends have.
Haha.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Hopefully this'll make you feel a little better... I spent $800 on my male, and $2500 on my female. The female recently started feeding after being off feed for a few months, but will only take mice. She's just under 1000 grams. The male went off food on 7/22, and finally took a rat pup tonight (YAY!!!). He's about 725 grams (and a little skinny). Got my fingers crossed!

Steve

How can you tell me that this animal was not worth producing?

Pastels make other snakes look a lot more beautiful, IMO.
They will alway be a good looking snake.

Totally agree Pastels are still a key ingrediant to many other great looking ball python morphs, like some of the originals Supers, Bumblebees, killerbees, Pastel hypos, Now Pewters, Pastel Pieds, Pastel Clowns, Pastel Genetic stripes, Pine stripe combos and so on. I know I'm not getting them all. Perhaps the future of Pastels is to work on improving their quality.

Regards,

Michael

PEWTERS

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www.trueimagereptile.com

Pastels are worth breeding. There is something to be said about any snake that has such a variation in color. I believe the market is just now opening up on pastels. Just think how beautiful the designers are when pastels are brought into the picture. I hope to produce pastels het for caramel next year. A caramel pastel should be a very nice looking snake, not to mention a super caramel pastel, It's not just about breeding pastels. It's about breeding very nice selectivly bred pastels to produce top notch quality designer morphs.

Here are a few of my 06 pastels.

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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

Pastels are gorgeous, plain and simple. Anyone that thinks they are junk should just send them my way! I'm planning to eventually replace most of my normal females with Pastels, I think they will eventually become the new 'normal'.
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Nita Hamilton
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Ball Pythons
ballpythonworld.com

I think the pastel will slowly but surely replace many of the normal females in many breeders collections-Ben Siegel

Pastels are still one of my favorites! Really hard to be the nice color of a pastel IMO!

Sunset Male

Hey Amir -

Are those $300 pastels?

LOL - Beautiful!!!
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.34.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.1 Lizards of unknown origin

Citrus pastel calico cross

it's gotta be fake!

Send it to me,so i can take a better look...
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Charles

My corn babies go for around $25!!!

Not to mention how hard it is to sell any normal leopard geckos I produce. But it is still a hobby and I love it.

His problem is that he has dreams of making a career out of breeding a few balls every year. Bad news...that ain't gonna happen. There are a few people who will make a living doing it, but sadly everyone can't.

We need to remember that ball python morphs are not a necessity. So when times get tough (gas prices and such) less money will be spent on snakes. I never produce more snakes than I can house and care for indefinately. I have had times where a litter of snakes sold within days of being ready. I have also had times where it took 2-3 years to sell just 1 litter!!

This has happened with corn snakes, burmese, retics, leopard geckos, and it will happen with ball pythons too. The good news is that ball pythons, unlike retics, are a good pet snake with mass appeal. Morphs such as the albino will be hot sellers once their price falls to pet status. So get ready to stay in for the long haul. If your not then sell your snakes for what you can get and take up golf. Let me warn you though, golf can be frustrating too.

I'm a newbie to the whole ball python morph and breeding thing, and $300 is still pretty steep to me, when I'm used to seeing normals at $30-$50. I would still LOVE to have a pastel, and I know if they were available at the pet store level, even at the current $300 mark, they would all be gone within a week.

It may make me a bit of a price party pooper, but I'm hoping by next year, when I'd really like to get a pastel, their price has dropped even more so that I can afford to get one to add to my little collection.

Pastels are looking to become an affordable morph that beginners can get their feet wet with (like me) and still not be thousands of dollars into the hole.

and there's my two cents!

~jenny
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1.1 normal ball pythons (Cindy and Darwin)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
2.1 betta fishes (Vicious, Killer, and Butters)
3.1 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
2.25 chickens (Jacques the rooster and his harem)

but what I really want is more ball pythons!