Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is a Pastel boa? Jeff Ronne has done amazing things with them but what exactly is 'Pastel'? Is it a simple recessive gene? How does it differ from Hypo? Will all 'pastel' boas look pastel as adults? Will breeding pastel to pastel yield all pastel?

Thanks,
Dan

http://www.kingsnake.com/boamorphs/pastel.htm

http://www.theboaforum.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=boapics1;action=display;num=1050880714;start=0

Wish I had the time to answer... But, I don't.
John
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"To be the best..........You must lose your mind."

I believe the Jeff line pastels are line-bred, meaning, he
bred specific boas together in an attempt to pass on the
good traits to the babies, then breeds those to other boas (from
the same line or diff line) that share the same characteristics,
on and on refining the line and improving upon those specific
characteristics he is trying for. In the pastel boa, I believe
he describes it as a lack or overall reduction of black, esp
along the lateral (sides) of the boa. In general these also
tend to be more highly-colored than normals but the lack and
reduction of black is his defining term.
Pastel is not a specific inheritably genetic trait (as in a
recessive or co-dom gene) but rather a variation on normal
pattern/color variations refined to the point that in general
breeding a 'pastel' to a normal would produce babies with a
high influance from the pastel animal and breeding pastel to
pastel would produce babies with high-pastel influance. (as far
as I understand it) I do not know of any proven pastel line
that acts in a dom/co-dom or recessive fashion.
Hypo/salmon is a proven co-dom genetic anomoly (i can't spell)
hope that didn't confuse the issue more. lol If someone can
help me out, I've seen it explained in a much better fashion
I am just not quite awake yet as I haven't had my coffee injection.

there are lots of boas out there with the 'pastel' traits
or lots with high-pink that are called pastel, IMO these
should be called pastel-types or just hi-pink boas, Jeff's
specific pastel lines have been bred for generations to provide
the look he wants and he coined that term for his boas.
It can get very confusing.
Here is my high-pink pastel-type