Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For those of you that have raised and breed pastels, to what degree do most of them brown out as they age? Do many end up looking like nice normals or do they stay fairly distinctively colored for the most part? Can this be reduced by breeding to normal females that are lighter or more yellow in color? Thanks.

Nicole

Different blood lines are different quality. The best that I have seen is the Graziani line of pastels.

I would agree that my personaly favorite is the Graziani Line, but no matter which line you use, a lighter female can and usually will produce better Pastels. So when buying a Pastel just take a look at the parents, that Pastel and the normal, and you should be able to find one that will no "brown out" very much.
Jason

When a Pastel turns brown, it is usually in the area that was previously orange, so the Pastel baby with the most YELLOW will probably turn out the best. I think there are stunning and mutt animals from each line, pick the SNAKE that looks the best, with the best looking parents, as opposed to the LINE that you think will be the best.

These are VPI line, and already 800 grams. They have some brown on top, but tons of yellow and lemon yellow on the sides.

Dave

Each "line" so to speak, has seemed to vary from animal to animal. I have seen Pastels from the same clutch or from the same male (different females) that vary greatly...odd?? I don't think so. All honestly, I've witnessed some pretty "ugly" males bred to average females and throw nothing short of superb offspring. Ruppel has been known to hatch out some killer stuff, as well as BHB Ent. and Mark Bell. Of course the list of others is getting BIGGER by the day, LOL!! Lots of beautiful, beautiful Pastel animals are being produced quite often by smaller breeders that give all the BIG "lines" a run for their money!! Just my opinion. Bottom line...really check out the animal(s) out of 6 pairs I scaled from the Bell's, I saw 2 that were SOOOOOOOO close to Supers I couldn't beleive it, I also saw 2 that had more to be desired...so I really think there's no guarantees with the Pastels, but I philosophy has always been "the nicer the animal - the nicer the offspring" I think for the most part this holds true, even with Pastels, but I wouldn't say always.

Has the issue of "nice yellow females bred to a Pastel male will throw nicer Pastels" been proven to be fact? In the pic below, I plan on breeding the nice gold female to one of my male Pastels. So I will have my own answer in a year or so, but just interested to see what others have to say on this topic.

Well I initally posted that question because I'm in the process of collecting females for my pastel boy at the moment, and just wanted to know what others thought about it. Personally, I'm gonna go for lighter females, and females with a great degree of "blushing" (its my favorite part of the pastels). Even if it doesn't produce better pastels, there's no shame in having better than average normal females for my projects!

Nicole