Reptile & Amphibian Forums

There have been many pastel babies advertised in the classifieds lately from MNR. They're pricey, but their appearance makes them worth it. They're very pretty.

I had two questions. First, I was looking back through the older forum topics and saw that pastels are often born "messed up." Guess pastels result from genetic fooling around? Is the mortality rate for pastels pretty high? If they hatch and begin to eat OK, will they probably survive and do alright?

Second, what do pastels look like as adults? Do they remain lighter and more colorful than typical sliders or do they revert to the standard shell appearance of an adult slider? Has anyone had experience growing a pastel to maturity?

I purchased a couple sliders from Mike at MNR, one of the nicest pastels and a nice golden albino to keep it company lol. Mike is a stand up guy from what I can tell so far. He has been very helpful to me and since we are both in Florida during this nasty hurricane he held shippment, even saved my butt by not shipping at my emergency request, as they would have been delievered to an empty, maditorily evacuated house during the hurricane. I have been raising Albino res with no real problems except some specimens having serious photosensitivity issues, due to the albanism. As for Pastels I have not had as many to answer all your question from experience, but many of the same questions you ask are ones I have looked into myself. I have noticed that in the large female pastel I have, she is not an extreme pastel, and has perfect scutes. In most adult or sub adult pastels I notice they mostly have close to perfect scutes and no real deformities in the shell. I would personally becareful when selecting a pastel and look for a few primary things before aquiring one. Check the scutes for assemetry. Ask about swimming movements. Does it swim in circles? Only to one side? Is it cross eyed or any other noticeable abnormalities? Then of course ask the normal questions of how its feeding? Whats it feeding on? How old? etc.... Just ask Mike about it he doesn't seem like the type to lie and I would consider him an honest guy. Hope you get a nice one... Mike B.

I have to re-check but I think pastel has to do with environmental factors during incubation and is not a genetic thing. I will have to recheck that and find out exactly what those factors are.

Steve