# Pastel Boas



## spirit975 (May 15, 2007)

Do both parents have to be true pastel for offspring to be called pastel? If you pair a pastel to a non pastel the offspring would not be pastel...right? Even if they show pastel traits? I know pastel is a selectively bred trait rather than a morph, but not sure on the above question.

Thanks!


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## spirit975 (May 15, 2007)

Bump.. :whistling2:


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## kizza (Feb 18, 2009)

pastel boas are co-dominant so meaning if bred to a common half the litter will be commons half will be pastels.

you cannot get het pastels as they are co-dominant same as the hypo, salmon, jungle, motley etc

dominant-to put it simply, they are what you'll see anytime they are present, whether as a pair or in a combination with a recessive alelle. typically, all 'normal' traits are dominant, while 'abnormal' traits are recessive

kieran: victory:


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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

The original poster is right -- pastel is a line bred trait rather than caused by a single mutant gene. As far as I know, outcrossing a pastel to a normal produces babies with varying amounts of pastel influence. I would not call the babies pastels unless they were as good as the pastel parent, but I don't know what the dealers would do.

The modern practice is to call each normal gene the standard of comparison. As the standard, they are not dominant or recessive. Each mutant gene is dominant, codominant or recessive to the normal gene. MOST mutant genes are recessive to the normal version of the gene (allele), not ALL.

While you can't get het pastels, you can get het salmons and het motleys. Heterozygous simply means that the two genes in a gene pair are not the same (see a good dictionary or genetics text). The salmon mutant gene is not the same as the normal gene. So a salmon boa with a salmon mutant gene paired with a normal gene is heterozygous salmon. This is a very common mistake on herper genetics web pages.

With a codominant mutant gene, you can tell whether there are two copies of the mutant gene in the gene pair or one copy of the mutant gene paired with a normal gene. You can tell what the genes are just by what the herp looks like.

With a dominant mutant gene, you can NOT tell whether there are two copies of the mutant gene in the gene pair or one copy of the mutant gene paired with a normal gene. Determining what the genes are can only be done by breeding test if the pedigree does not tell you.


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## spirit975 (May 15, 2007)

paulh said:


> The original poster is right -- pastel is a line bred trait rather than caused by a single mutant gene. As far as I know, outcrossing a pastel to a normal produces babies with varying amounts of pastel influence. I would not call the babies pastels unless they were as good as the pastel parent, but I don't know what the dealers would do.
> 
> The modern practice is to call each normal gene the standard of comparison. As the standard, they are not dominant or recessive. Each mutant gene is dominant, codominant or recessive to the normal gene. MOST mutant genes are recessive to the normal version of the gene (allele), not ALL.
> 
> ...


 
Thanks, i thought i was right lol.

So technically if i bred my very clean Hypo Kubsch Pastel girl to a clean but non pastel boa, and i got some babies who were as clean as their mother i wouldn't be breaking any rules by selling them as pastel? 
To be honest i have pretty high standards when it comes to line-bred traits, i expect a candy-cane corn to be nothing less than perfect, so only the cleanest and best boas would be classed as Pastel.


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