Hi all, here’s my first post. Im fairly new to the ball python world (8 months or so) and have recently aquired a TSK axanthic pastel who has darkened significantly in comparison to his younger self. Just curious on whats out there as you only really see babies on MM and hes 3 years old and still looked really pastelly at 1.5 years (see last picture.) First picture is the most recent, you can see the eye cap has been dealt with
The downside is just how difficult it is to Tell which snakes would be the best holdbacks and such because not every snake darkens up in that way. It’s one of those things that may also just be a polygenic/line bred trait and not a fully passable trait like a dominant recessive and so on…
That said, it’s a project I’d love to work on. Or at least a dark line of some type. I actually did pick up a very dark black pewter recently who was said to throw some dark offspring… So hopefully that will pan out for me as well. I might have her tested for surprise hets as well but I know for sure she’s not het albino though.
She looks a lot darker in person. Her original owner didn’t realize she was carrying pastel until it popped up in her clutches.
Yeah dark morphs have interested me since I started getting into ball pythons but i also like light morphs. I saw this guy’s listing on a local classifieds website for free and i thought, “oh cool axanthic pastel.” I’m not sure if she had just had him listed for a long time or if she just used an old photo but i was very pleasantly surprised when i took him out of his hide at her house to find an almost jet black iridescent snake with white pastel line ofc lighting played a part in that. But i would love to get some more dark maybe super pastels or something see what i can find once we buy a house and i can start breeding. My other project i plan on doing in a few years is with a couple babies i have, od enchi mystic mojave (potion) and a ghi mojave as i’d like to produce a ghi mojave and i think enchi and od would produce some cool stuff in there too
Wow, that ball python is gorgeous, that’s wild how much he’s darkened! I actually thought he was an IMG boa when I first glanced at the thumbnail, I haven’t seen many bps that dark.
I have nothing helpful to offer regarding breeding projects, just compliments for that handsome boy.
Yeah he’s super precious. Lady treated him very well other than having issues with humidity but we all do up here in alaska with glass enclosures. Its just way too dry in the winter. She only got rid of him because her husband hates snakes. But i could tell she wasnt very happy to get rid of him. He’s in very good hands now though we handle our snakes daily and i monitor them meticulously for heat and humidity. He loves to hang out havent fealt the need to wait a couple weeks to handle because he just come right up when I pull his tub out. Think he appreciates being able to see out of his eye again too lol.