How to create clowns that don't brown out as adults

Hi i am looking for ideas on how to make clowns that look great as adults without browning out or fading away .
I have a breeder female fire, blade clown and she is being paired to an od,pastel 100%het clown 100% het sunset .
I also have a dg project and just won an enchi,fire,leopard 100%clown 100% dg proven breeder male .
He is very browned out .
I know that it might not be a great idea to put him to my clown girl due to both having fire .
Not sure if i should just ignore the browning and concentrate on getting dg clowns before worrying about other genes.
Any thoughts welcome .

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DG clown is definitely a step towards reducing the browning a bit. The downside is if browning out upsets you, bps will never look the same as when they hatch. You’re going to have to try not to let it bother you as much.
A good example of this is look at the Pompeii as a baby and then as an adult.

I don’t work with clown specifically, but genes I have worked with…
A combo that I own that hasn’t browned out as much as my others so far is:
Mojave enchi cinnamon fire OD. The cinnamon and enchi allelic combo tends to fire up the yellows/oranges a bit more without as much of enchi’s tendencies to brown.

Obviously BEL combos will tend to yellow, not brown.
Super fires will stay pretty bright but may yellow out a bit less than BELs.
But the idea you want is to keep pattern. So maybe try super special which makes a nice patterned yellow or something like a fire vanilla allelic combo. They’ll be more prone to just fading than browning.

Coral Glow/Bananas in combos can still look nice as adults but they tend to dull out to a light tan not darker brown

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I will say that I love this goal, because my biggest problem with clowns is how terrible they look as adults. Babies look great, but adults are incredibly underwhelming and often, in my experience, straight up ugly. (Sorry, clown fans).

The first thing, and most important thing in my opinion, is buying good quality clown. Now, unfortunately, this is hard to do because it involves inquiring, asking breeders for pictures of the adult animals that produced the baby you’re looking at buying (which a lot of breeders see as a “time wasting” thing to do) and then passing on the snake in question if the adults aren’t up to your standards. It’s the only way to really be discerning about the genetic quality you’re working with, and it makes things a lot harder, because most people breed to have the gene there, not for the actual genetic quality that lasts into adulthood. I can count on one hand the number of plain old clown adults I’ve seen that were up to my standard, and you won’t make friends because so many breeders wrongly believe that if you inquire on an animal you should buy it, and even though that’s not actually how anything sales related works, you’ll have people annoyed with you because of it. (I do it. I’ve had plenty a nasty message from a breeder when I explained that the parents weren’t up to my standard but thank you anyway, or they refused to send parent pictures at all and I refused to buy). Getting good quality in the first place is, in my opinion, the most important thing to do.

As for the rest and what armiyana said, there are some incomplete dominant genes you can work with as well that will enhance the clown and let them keep their colors. Hypo and desert ghost are both good recessive genes to start with there, and as I mentioned before, you need good quality hypo or good quality desert ghost, or else it won’t matter. I agree with looking into BEL genes like mojave and lesser (though these will often reduce the contrast of the animal as it ages) and fire complex like fire, vanilla, disco, etc. that may also introduce some blushing and fading but will reduce the amount of browning. Banana clowns can also look really cool but that’s an instance in which you must find one that comes from a good line of banana, as there an overwhelming amount of non-breeding-quality bananas out there.

Darker genes can do well in clown - blackhead, mahogany, stranger, chocolate, etc. (just be aware of potential issues working with blackhead and chocolate as they are in the spider complex).

But at the end of the day - quality. Find a baby that looks good, but don’t buy it if its parents don’t also look great. You’ll have breeders annoyed with you because they think you should just buy it as long as it’s clown, but be very discerning with what you get in the first place. Unfortunately this means that if you really want to create good quality clowns, it’s possible the animals you already have… might not be the best fit to start. And sometimes that happens.

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Strongly agree with what inspirationexotics posted, and just wanted to throw in that lace and special would both be good incomplete dominant genes for a good looking adult clown.

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Special is probably my favorite BEL gene because of how the yellows pop in the right combos.

Especially as inspirationexotics said. Good quality breeding.
This photo was when the pair was 4 years old.
Mojave fire Coral Glow het hypo(Orange Ghost line)
Pastel enchi Special Mojave het hypo(OG line)
Hoping to produce a super special super enchi from this line in a future season.

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Thanks for all the detailed replies .
I had initially written off clown when i first got into ball pythons due to the browning out problems or the yellowing out with bel genes.
I do realise this is pretty normal with most other genes and the big push behind dg is that it improves almost anything and stays bright .
I should think more about special .
Getting into clown is more of a sideline to my main objective of trying to produce a visual sunset that stays orange for as long as possible .
Any clown sunset along the way is a bonus but i fear is a recipe for a brown snake .
It was explained to me that pastel and dg into the sunset clowns could mean they at least stay nice and golden rather than brown .
I have not done any buying based on parents since the hobby has been very much at the budget end for me though i can appreciate i should have in this instance.
It would seem most of the clown breeding is aimed at producing pretty and powerful babies to sell whilst they look at there best.

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