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Perhaps I didn't explain it as well as I had intended...

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...

I'll repost this in the thread where it was supposed to be...

Sorry...

....a super-stonewashed picture to be posted..........even a stonewashed.............

...........I'd settle for a sunbleached or tie-dyed one even?...............

..........

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"I still hate snakes"
...........................KNOW

DUH!!!LOL
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if i were as ugly as you i'd have to pay alimony too!!

Did Stan import the first stonewash or was it hatched out? I thought I read somewhere that it came from a Graziani pastel breeding. I personally don't like all the different pastel names, except for the stonewash which is quite different then the others. I've seen crappy and awesome versions of each line. Just because you import a super nice pastel doesn't mean it's anything more then just that, a nice pastel.

Just my opinion,
Eric
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www.ESReptiles.com

Funny you mentioning that Eric cause I spoke with Stan in '02 about his "stonewashed" pastels and could swear he told me they were produced from Graziani line pastels.......his theory (back then) was the "stonewashed" look was caused by the female(s) he was using.....kinda like MJ's sweet "Mojavish" pastel he hatched out a couple years ago........Graziani pastel bred to a beautiful faded "Mojavish" female.........but then again...I have trouble remembering yesterday, so a 2 yr old phone call is definitely a vague memory...........

The "stonewashed" pastel is definitely beautiful...having seen JH's, Camlon's, CMG's........but I, myself, am not particulary sold on it as being a "different line" of pastel..........but what the he!! do I know.......just thought it was odd you mentioning that.

he is as a hatchling.

Here he is at 6 months. He now belongs to Bryan of exoticballpythons.com. I called him the 'Wannabe' pastel. Because he's not sure what he wanna be? LOL!

Here is the mother (the Mojaveish female you refered to. By the way she just ovulated this week bred to my Mojave!)

And to further throw things into debate, here is my Super Duper pastel! Stonewashed??? From breeding a Graziani X Graziani pastels.

Here is her mother.

And father.

Thanks for remembering Tom!

MJ
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Names..b-days..aniversaries........MY HEAD.......that's different....but that was an unforgettable Pastel you produced...same goes for your Super Duper...simply gorgeous!

The Mojave pairing (with that lil lady) will, hopefully, be incredible.....looking forward to seeing what hatches out. Don't forget the lil people and keep us posted.......LOL

...for posting these great pictures of those awesome animals...

You've got some really top-notch animals, Mark...

I especially like that Super Pastel...
Looks like a Stonewashed to me...
Although, personally I don't care what it is "called"...
It is a stunning animal...

Thanks again...

I appreciate the compliment!

One of these days I will take pics of all my pastels that are different looking. The variety in style is amazing and they all came from the same Graziani bloodline. I would like to think that they are more special than the regular pastels but I really don't. Sometimes the chips land where they may and you get some different variations. Whether those looks will inturn be reproducable is questionable especially with any consistancy.

I just consider myself fortunate to have over one thousand pastel females in my collection at this time. Kidding!!!! LOL! Almost got you there didn't I? I only have 500! Kidding again!!! OK...you didn't fall for it that time. I don't know how many I have. I lost count. Muuhahaha!

Seriously though, when a new strain does come out like the stonewash I do give them their own strain names. For example I have the Mastercard Pastels, Visa Pastels, American Express Pastels (Oh...they are very special) and so on and so on. I can hardly wait til I hatch out a Discovery Card Pastel!

Sorry, I'm trying to be funny and I'm probably not.

Thanks again Nigel! A compliment from you means a lot!

Mark
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You forgot the "PayPal" one. Funny......
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RicK @ BbI

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

It's always expected to show up...
But it never does...

I goofed and posted the above post in the wrong place...

I apologized for messing up and kind of figured that this particular thread would languish into obscurity...

Lo and behold...it begins to take on a life of its own...

So, I thought this might possibly be a good place to ask the following questions:

How many of you out there are lurkers...???

How many of you lurkers do not post to this forum because you do not want to suffer at the hands of "nitpickers"...???

If you could post to this forum without the dark cloud of "nitpickers" looming on the horizon, how many of you lurkers have questions that you would really like to ask...or threads that you would really like to respond to...or animals that you would really like to show...or whatever...???

If you are a lurker that would like to participate on this forum, but you do not participate because of "nitpickers", how about responding to this post with a post of your own having the phrase "No Nitpickers" in the Subject field...???

If I get a bunch of responses, that will confirm my belief that many people avoid posting because of "nitpickers"...

If I don't get any repsonses, I will of course assume that you have not responded because of "nitpickers"...

Only bona fide lurkers need apply...
Any "nitpickers" with 3,762 posts to their name do not qualify ( )...

Hey...now's your chance...speak up...

It's easy...
Reply to this post...
Put "No Nitpickers" in the Subject field...

I actually have questions....

I have one female ball that does have marble sized folicals in her belly... There was a male in with her at one point in time... She will lay belly up from time to time....
My question... Is she going to lay eggs or can she still absorb the folicles should I continue to put the boy in there from time to time? and is this Black head python abnormal enough to make a deal about?

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T-West
Email
53.152 Ball Pythons of various morphs...
1.0 Dumeril's Boa
1.0 European legless

There are many schools of thought on this subject...

Some say that by the time you can feel the follicles, there is no reason to continue putting the male with the female...
Some say that when you can feel the follicles, then that is the time to put the male with the female...

Some say that lying belly up is a sign of being gravid...
Some say that lying belly up is a sign of the onset of ovulation...

There are almost as many thoughts on this particular subject as there are breeders of ball pythons...

My advice...
Keep putting the male in with her...
Keep an eye on their behaviour...
If you observe the male showing interest in her, continue putting the male with her...
If you observe copulation, continue putting the male with her...

The only downside that currently comes to mind of putting a male in with a female for longer than absolutely necessary, is that now that male has less time for other females. Since it looks like you have plenty of males for your females, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. If this male is some kind of a special animal that you are really interested in producing offspring from, I would absolutely choose "putting him with her for longer than may be necessary" over "putting him with her for less time than may be necessary"...

I hope this helps...

Thanks for your response...

I missed your last question...

Sorry, but I do not know enough about Black-Headed Pythons to give you any kind of a meaningful answer...

.

You can feed many things to your ball python...

Whether he will eat them or not is another matter...

Personally, I wouldn't feed either of those things to any of my animals...

Stick to the obvious...
Rats...
Mice...
Gerbils...
Bowls of popcorn while you're snuggled up with him watching horror movies together on Friday nights...

*Disclaimer*
I have no idea whether ball pythons would or would not eat bowls of popcorn...
My suspicion is that if they would eat bowls of popcorn, they would probably prefer lots of butter...
It's not like they have fingers that would get buttery and sticky...

Nigel
To mant times post a pic to be beat up or ask a question to be insulted.I just wait now to ask my questions to the right people in person.Or use that age old ancient device the telephone.Thanks

I know exactly what you mean...

There are times when I am thinking about replying to a post and the thought crosses my mind...
Is it "worth" responding...???
If I don't respond, I have that time to do other things...
If I do respond, some "nitpicker" is going to microscopically analyze every word that my post contains...looking for something to jump on...

At the end of the day, we're never going to stop the "nitpickers"...
They have nothing better to do...
We can, however, choose to ignore them...
Perhaps they will go away...
Nah...I doubt it...

Thanks.
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Darn it...

I try to post "good stuff"...
And it pretty much goes by the wayside...

I goof up and start a new thread instead of replying to the thread I meant to reply to...
And you like it...

Perhaps I should goof up more often...
LOL...

Thanks again...

.
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Kane

"That's not what I said".