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Ruppel line stonewashed homozygous ball pythons
Super stonewashed pastel ball pythons has this been done or where can I find some pictures?
Brad

This is a Super Stonewashed Pastel (not the Ruppel line)...

Is this from breeding a Stonewashed to a Stonewashed, or Stonewashed to a normal (Bell, SK... Line) Pastel?

Debra
Camlon Reptiles

Both parents were Pastels. I have no idea which (if either) of the parents were Stonewashed.

Before I get a slew of responses saying "If you don't know what the parents are, how can you say that this is a Super Stonewashed", let me explain...

If I buy a Piebald, I personally don't care whether the parents were:
Piebald x Piebald
het. Piebald x Piebald
het. Piebald x het. Piebald
poss. het. Piebald x het. Piebald
etc.

If one or both of the parents were Piebald, I personally don't care whether they were a low-white Piebald, medium-white Piebald, high-white Piebald, etc.

If neither of the parents were Piebald, I personally don't care how much white was in the grandparent(s), great grandparents, etc.

I'm also not particularly worried about clutch size, egg weight, hatch weight, what its favorite movie is, etc.

There are a few things about the animal I am buying that I personally do care about, including:
Would I characterize the animal as a Piebald?
Is the Piebald known to be genetic...or is it an as-yet-unproven Piebald fresh from the wild?
What does the Piebald that I am buying look like?

When I met my wife, the fact that she is a woman, she was born a woman, and that I find her attractive was enough for me. I don't care if her parents were ugly or beautiful. I don't care how much she weighed when she was born. Etc.

While I understand that "pictures of the parents" are very important to many in the reptile field, they are not (usually) particularly important to me. It's actually kind of interesting...we have both purchased animals from and sold animals to some of the top breeders in the USA and Canada. Not ONE TIME when we have sold animals to these folks have they EVER asked to see pictures of the parents. Most just do not care what the parents look like.

We acquired the Super Stonewashed in the picture from an extremely well-established breeder. This breeder is well-known in the herp community and has an excellent reputation. We were in discussions with this breeder that involved us possibly acquiring one or more Super Pastels. The breeder sent us pictures of the Super Pastels that he had available...which all came from Pastel to Pastel breeding. We were particularly attracted to the animal in the picture above, and acquired her.

Pastels are kind of interesting. Originally, there were Pastel Jungles (which are often referred to as "Pastels" ). Pastels were bred together and a Super Pastel was produced. The Super Pastel is visibly different from a Pastel. As time passed, other Pastels surfaced which had a different "look" than the Pastels we were used to seeing. New terms were coined to distinguish the "look" of these Pastels from the "look" of "regular" Pastels. Some of these different looking Pastels are:
Blonde Pastel
Ruppel Pastel
Stonewashed Pastel
etc.

As I understand it (I may be wrong on this one...please feel free to correct me) the Ruppel Pastel is basically the same as the Stonewashed Pastel...the only difference being that the Ruppel Pastels are Stonewashed Pastels that originate from Stan Ruppel.

In the world of ball pythons, it is not unusual to have multiple names for the same thing. The White Smoke Albino, Coral Glow and Banana Ball are all basically the same thing.

When it comes to Pastels and Stonewashed Pastels, there is definitely a visible difference. Sometimes the difference is slight...sometimes the difference is like night and day.

The above explanation is not meant to "dump on" folks who DO like to see pictures of the parents. There is nothing the matter with this. It is just something that I do not believe is particularly relevant (in most cases).

I am now awaiting the almost inevitable onslaught of ridicule from the nitpicking, self-appointed "experts" that troll this forum. Does anyone remember the days when the major movers and shakers in this business regularly came to this forum to play? Top breeders of the caliber of Tracy of VPI, Ralph of RDR and Kevin of NERD (to name a few). They would drop by to answer your questions. They would drop by to share anecdotes. They would drop by to offer you the benefit of their years of experience with their hundreds (or thousands) of animals. Ever wonder why they don't do that today? Nitpicking, self-appointed "experts", that's why. People who the week before were asking "How long after I feed my ball python can I hold him?"...but after one week had gained enough experience and knowledge to chastise the top breeders in this field for "feeding live"...or whatever the hot topic of the day was. Who knows what drives these trolls. Jealousy? Desire to be top dog? Need for attention? Absence of meaningful personal relationship? Inadequate potty training? Or, as "slytherin" recently posted on this forum..."See what happens when you eat paint chips as a child"? Who knows.

I was asked a polite question. I gave what I believe to be a polite, thorough and honest answer. If you want to nitpick, go ahead. If you are not a nitpicker, keep an eye on this forum...you'll soon recognize those who are. When you identify them, thank them from the bottom of your heart. Without them and those like them, you might have seen Tracy, or Ralph, or Kevin post pictures in response to this thread...

I would like to emphasize again that this post is not an attack on folks who prefer to see pictures of the parents of animals they are contemplating purchasing...

Thanks again, Debra...
I hope this all makes sense to you...
See you in Daytona...

I guess this means I'll never be able to show little Sting (my Spider) pictures of his mommy and daddy.

I have to laugh. Last year I had someone inquire about purchasing a normal. I had about 40 normal hatchlings and they insisted that I send pictures of each hatchling and of all the parents and to also describe the disposition of each, including the parents disposition. Yeah! I got right on that. LOL!

You are so right about the big breeders avoiding this forum. It gets pretty pathetic when people with extremely limited experience and one night of reading, start dictating what is right and wrong. Try hatching 100's of hatchlings and housing and feeding hundreds of snakes before you call yourself knowledgable.

When I first got into this 3 1/2 years ago. Most of the big breeders frequented this forum. I have seen them contribute time and time again only to be challenged by some troll out to stir the pot. It's a real shame. I wish they'd come back.

Nice rant Nigel!

By the way...did you ever get a picture of Gail's parents. I bet they were a handsome couple.

Mark
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....

The above explanation is not meant to "dump on" folks who DO like to see pictures of the parents. There is nothing the matter with this. It is just something that I do not believe is particularly relevant (in most cases).

I find it especially relevant when one is buying a 'het ABC'. The breeder should prove they have 'homozygous ABC's' before they offer hets.

I am in the market to buy a pair of het pieds. Would I buy from a guy that cannot prove to me he has pieds?

In short no way.

Now, to send pics of forty babies and all of their parents. Give me a break. If I was to buy a pied, as you say, I could not care less what the ancestors look like.
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AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

NAMED BEST REPTILE STORE IN LOS ANGELES

...that when purchasing het. "ABCs" from an unknown breeder, requesting pictures of the homozygous "ABC" parent(s) is a reasonably wise and prudent thing to do.

Personally, if I were buying a het. Piebald from Ralph Davis, Pete Kahl, Tracy Barker, etc., I would never ask for a picture of the Piebald parent(s)...

I guess it all depends upon who you are buying your hets. from...

There again, there are some people who could absolutely, 100% send me a picture of their homozygous "ABCs"...and I would NEVER purchase a het. "ABC" from them...they are just that untrustworthy...

Remember...just because they show you a picture of a homozygous "ABC", it doesn't mean that they are selling you a het. "ABC"...

In reality, pictures of homozygous "ABCs" may give you a bit of an extra warm and fuzzy feeling, but they're not a guarantee...

Thousands of years of animal husbandry have taught us that your best chance for superior offspring is from superior parents. Of course the most important thing is that the animal you are actually purchasing is what you are looking for but with hatchlings there may not be much of a track record for things you can't see. If records show that its mom produced a huge clutch then the baby is probably a little more likely than others to be a good feeder and grow into a large snake. Perhaps the amount of white in a pied is the exception and not something you could line breed for. However, there is a reason that the best bulls and stud racehorses are in high demand - most everything is genetic.

I like the way ballpython.com is using a database to show ancestral lines of their for sale offspring. I'm sure it's a lot of work to do this and their db appears to have some holes and doesn't always go that far back but it's a start. Once you get the basic infrastructure in place you should be able to build on it nicely. Ralph Davis also provides information on all of his clutches in a year-by-year format.

The big well known breeders probably don't need to go to the lengths of providing lots of background information to sell their babies. I'm sure they are very busy and their reputations precede them - you just assume that you are getting top-notch genetics. However I'm glad to see that some are making the effort so those customers who are interested in more documentation can gravitate to them.

Now, I need to go figure out how to write my web page to interface to a database

PS: I also lament the departure of the big breeders from this forum. Again, I think they are probably very busy and putting up with a few trolls here would be just another unpleasantry that they don’t need. They have grown to the point that they don’t need the exposure and risk of looking bad in one of our daily mud slinging contests. Also, you significantly reduce your risk of getting banned from kingsnake if you don’t post on the forums )

"Also, you significantly reduce your risk of getting banned from kingsnake if you don’t post on the forums."

I have read many of your posts, both here and on other forums...

I respect not only your knowledge, but your willingness to offer your insight and opinion on many issues...

Most of the time I agree with your views...sometimes not...but mostly I do...

Out of everything that I have ever read that you have posted, the sentence above is my favorite...

Thanks for brightening my day...

First things first, as I said previously nice animal!

I realize that there are variables in all Ball Python Morphs, but in order to lend respect to someone who has derived a particular name for an animal we (Camlon Reptiles) will always use that as a reference for that particular animal. I feel there is as you’ve said a difference in the Stonewashed Pastels, and believe that the Super Morph of these Pastels will be a different variation of the Supers we see now.

What I find interesting about this post is that someone was only asking a question about a particular line of Pastels example Bell Line, SK Line, Nerd Lemon, VPI Line… , and whenever I’ve seen people post images of Super Pastels they usually always say what line it is. So why does it have to be presented in this way in order to make an example of how the Ball Python Forum has grown, or it’s lack of growth? Many of the breeders you mentioned in your post have their own forums, and that may be the reason we don’t see them here. If someone wants to develop their knowledge base on Ball Pythons they can always go to the aforementioned mentors to gain it. The choice belongs to them as to whether they post here or not, but the Forum to me is like TV if you don’t like what you see turn it off.

Just my thoughts.

Debra
Camlon Reptiles

I understand very well that the question asked of me was very simple...
Basically, was this Super Stonewashed produced from breeding Stonewashed to Stonewashed or Stonewashed to normal...???
And if Stonewashed to normal, what line was the normal...???

I could have simply replied "Stonewashed to Stonewashed" or "Stonewashed to normal (line X)"...and I'm guessing that would have been the response you were looking for...

However, for the reasons I explained previously, I do not know what "Pastel variant" the parents were...only that they were both Pastels...
This means that I do not know whether this Super Stonewashed came from Stonewashed to Stonewashed...or Stonewashed to "normal" Pastel.

Had I simply replied to your question with the response "I don't know", I would then have probably received 20,000 responses saying "Ooh...if you don't know what the parents were, how do you know it's a Super Stonewashed...???".
In an effort to avoid turning this thread into a long and protracted debate about how I could possibly claim this animal to be a Super Stonewashed without having detailed pictures of parents, grandparents, etc., I attempted to explain why the parentage of visible morphs is not necessarily something that I am always overly concerned with...

The name "Stonewashed Pastel" was only coined in the past year or two...
Someone, somewhere (I think it was Stan Ruppel...I may be wrong) coined the term "Stonewashed Pastels" to refer to a particular appearance of Pastels...
Prior to that time (whenever it was), there was no such thing as a "Stonewashed Pastel"...
Actually, prior to that time there was such a thing as a "Stonewashed Pastel"...it just wasn't called a "Stonewashed Pastel"...it was called a "Pastel"...

So, assuming for one minute that I purchased a Super Pastel 3 days before the term "Stonewashed Pastel" was coined, if I asked the breeder what the parents of my Super Pastel were, he/she would reply "Pastels"...
The "Pastels" may have been "Stonewashed Pastels"...
The "Pastels" may have been "Blonde Pastels"...
But at that time, no one had coined the terms "Stonewashed Pastel" and "Blonde Pastel"...so the breeder would not have identified the parents as a "Stonewashed" or a "Blonde"...but rather as "Pastels"...

The simplest thing would have been for me to ignore your question entirely. Whenever I have seen your posts on this forum, they have seemed to me to be both polite and reasonable...you are not on my personal list of "nitpickers"...so I wanted to respond to your question...

I could have contacted the breeder that I acquired this animal from and asked for pictures...
Then, based on the pictures I could have given you a direct answer to your question...
I can certainly do this, but at this time I have other more pressing issues on my plate...

I could have simply lied and said "Stonewashed to Stonewashed" or "Stonewashed to normal"...
This was simply not an option for me...

So, I replied to your question...
I gave you the most thorough and complete explanation I could at the time as to what I know about the parents of this animal...
I attempted to deflect the "nitpickers" by discussing various situations when I would and wouldn't personally care about the parents of different animals...

Judging from your response, it appears to me that you may have taken offense to my reply...
If so, that was certainly not my intention...
If so, then I certainly wish that I had just ignored your question entirely...
That would have been much simpler for me...
And would have saved me a significant amount of time typing my response to you...

From your reply, it appears that you do not believe that our animal is a Super Stonewashed Pastel...
Personally, it's not particularly important to me whether an animal is a "Pastel", "Stonewashed Pastel", "Blonde Pastel", or whatever the Pastel flavor-of-the-month is...
What is important to me is the looks of the particular animal...
I was extremely impressed by the looks of our animal...which is why we acquired it...
From a value perspective...from a breeding perspective...from a genetic perspective...from whatever perspective you can think of...it doesn't matter to me what "variant" of Pastel it is...it is the looks that matter...

One of the benefits of "naming morphs" is that it makes discussing the animals that much easier...
It is far easier for us to have a conversation where we discuss
"Pastels" than it is for us to have a conversation where we discuss ball pythons that have yellow body coloration with fading in the black and eyes that are...etc., etc., etc...
"Stonewashed Pastels" are a particular "look" of Pastel...
Our animal was produced from a Pastel to Pastel breeding...
Maybe Stonewashed to Stonewashed...
Maybe Blonde to Blonde...
Our animal is a Super Pastel...
Our animal has the "Stonewashed Pastel" appearance...
If you wouldn't call it a Super Stonewashed Pastel (as is apparent by your stating that "the Super Morph of these Pastels will be a different variation of the Supers we see now", that's your opinion...and is perfectly fine by me...

I agree that some of the breeders I mentioned do have their own forums...
But that's not the reason that most of them avoid this forum...
It's because of "nitpickers"...
I know, because many of them have told me...

I agree that this forum is like TV...you can turn it off...
Many of the top breeders have...
Sure, you'll see them here once in a while posting pictures of their new creations...
But they rarely venture here to interact with and to respond to questions posed by the forum "regulars"...
Interesting...the Kingsnake Ball Python Forum...probably the single, largest ball python forum on the Internet...more exposure than any other ball python forum...and still they choose not to come...

If that does not bother you...if that does not trouble you...that's fine by me...
Personally, I do not see how the combined thousands of ball-python-years-of-experience that these breeders could bring to the forum would not be of enormous benefit to the vast majority of forum participants...and lurkers...

Tell you what, I bet you there are at least 500 lurkers that will read this post...but have never and will never post to any thread on this forum because of the "nitpickers"...
Because they are worried that they will ask a question or reply to a questiion...only to be sliced-and-diced by the "nitpickers"...
If that does not matter to you, fine...
It does, however, matter to me...

Just my thoughts too...

Bryan

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Washed out color. No intensity. Do you breed them?
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

Try taking your sunglasses off inside. Then imagine your brown axanthic next to it, that will increase the chance of you telling the difference.

Cheers

>Washed out color. No intensity. Do you breed them?
>>-----
>>RicK @ BbI
>>
>> Ball Boutique,Inc.
>>The home of the singing snakes!
>>
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- Joel Smith
Email Me!

sorry but I like the supers that SK have pictured on their site... I need the sun glases.
I will take pictures soon of my dad. He is in deep shed.
BTW to each his own.
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

Must be the age getting to ya, are those sunglasses precription.

btw, to each his own.

>>sorry but I like the supers that SK have pictured on their site... I need the sun glases.
>>I will take pictures soon of my dad. He is in deep shed.
>>BTW to each his own.
>>-----
>>RicK @ BbI
>>
>> Ball Boutique,Inc.
>>The home of the singing snakes!
>>
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- Joel Smith
Email Me!

You must admit...that brown Axanthic of his does have PLENTY of color and PLENTY of intensity...mostly brown...

A Hershey's Axanthic...???

Hey I think you may be on something!!!!!
Do you think it is genetic?
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

If it is, you could always market them as...

"Hershey's Axanthics...the proven brown Axanthic that looks amazingly like a proven normal ball python...but at 70 times the price".

Sweet, time to market my hershey albinos!

>>
>>If it is, you could always market them as...
>>
>>"Hershey's Axanthics...the proven brown Axanthic that looks amazingly like a proven normal ball python...but at 70 times the price".
>>
>>
>>
>>
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- Joel Smith
Email Me!

hummm yes all in marketing.....
I see where you are coming from!
Now got it....... But you got to get on the ground floor.
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

Generally speaking...

If it was NOT washed out...

It would NOT be a Super...

Have you ever noticed how Supers are more FADED than non-Supers...???

That's kind of one of the defining characteristics of a Super...

*Gazes at the Heavens in utter bewilderment*

Gorgeous snake by the way. Good luck with him/her.

>>
>>This is a Super Stonewashed Pastel (not the Ruppel line)...
>>
>>
>>
>>
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- Joel Smith
Email Me!

...

That super stonewash is very NICE! Thanks for sharing.
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Jason
JH Reptiles
www.jhreptiles.homestead.com

..

Thats washed. Best lookin (at least as good) that I've seen thus far.

Chad

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Man, I can't wait to hatch out a Super!

Very cool animal that is making a LOT of people jealous!! Me included!
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......

nm

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Stonewash or no Stonewash......that is a beautiful animal!

Thanks for the pic......wow!

Also, excellent well communicated thoughts on the nit pickers. As I spend more and more time on these forums I see a hyper sensativity by some individuals. New people ask authentic questions and they get hammered with criticalness and condescension. I don't understand why we don't encourage people.....after all aren't they the future buyers that we hope to sell to?

Ball python morph names are faced with delution......watered downed....call it what you want....I don't care, just show me some solid pics and get me some honest historical info. I'm a big boy and I can make the right decisions with my available resources.

Based on the pick above.....I interpret that as a smokin super with strong stonewash characteristics. If it was mine and I was attempting to describe it to someone, I would not hesitate to use the word Stonewash.

Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles

...and thank you for your reply.

The color on that pastel is really really faded, why dont you send it to me, and in return I will send one that isnt quite so faded out...

LOL

Bryan

GREAT LOOKING ANIMAL!

It's on it's way...

jc

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