Just put a deposit on this guy

He's not likely to be a high grade pastel, BUT that pattern is just too cool. I had to have him. What do you guys think?

very neat patterns and a pastel is a pastel lol. they still make supers ;-)

Thank you. I just have to wait for the breeder to finish getting FedEx certified and get him eating.

Got a new pic of the little guy.

Very nice! He is definitely a looker!

If FedEx is as slow with them on getting the legal paperwork, you may be waiting a while. LOL I waited about 4 months for them to finally get me everything. Most people say it takes them 1-2 weeks to get everything. But if he tells you he's waiting on FedEx's legal dept., then it's a legitimate delay!

He wants each of his babies to eat at least 3 meals before he'll let them go, too. He said he hasn't had luck getting these guys to take a meal for him yet. They hatched out May 12th (I think) so it's still early but frustrating, nonetheless.

Yeah, I've had one baby that didn't take a meal for 2 months. I kept offering her a live fuzzy mouse, she kept refusing it. Finally I offered her a f/t small mouse, and she ate it. Go figure! It takes some a while to figure it all out. LOL

And a lot of breeders want to get 3 meals in them first. I go beyond that (my OCD kicking in again hehe), and say I want them to have at least 4 consecutive meals and be at least 2 months old. But then I can be more sure of if they are/aren't going to eat regularly--gives me more peace of mind to not have someone coming back on me saying, "This snake I bought from you won't eat . . ." LOL

I would gladly take him now and start him myself, but I understand the need or want to get him feeding before shipping.

It's a shame he's not so "blank" on both sides, but here's the patterned side of him.





He's so light, it's almost "bumblebee-ish".

Yep, he is very nice! Almost looks like he's got some calico in there . . . but you'll be able to tell more once he has a bit of size on him.

I just paid the balance on him. Now that ReptilesExpress has launched, the seller can ship to me (he's having the same hassle getting paperwork from FedEx). Hope to have him here soon and will post new pics.

That's awesome. I really love it. I honestly am not good at telling quality or not--for instance with my amel corn, I asked for one with "more red" and the guy was like "but more white is desirable!" IMO just buy what you like and forget the rest of the world! Teehee.

It looks kind of spidery, or bumble-bee ish.

it does have some odd marking but stilla pretty snake

I'm hoping that his pattern is genetic. There were some normals in the clutch with similar patterns (lack thereof). I'd love to breed him to my butter and produce some pastel butters with that sort of patterning.

that would be pretty awesome.

Okay.. so I was up until about 3:30am dealing with UPS trying to get them to hold my package at the UPS hub so I could pick it up first thing in the morning. I got nowhere with them. The people at ReptilesExpress were also trying to help me out (Debbie and Brendan are amazing, btw) with UPS but also had no luck getting the shipment's delivery option changed. I wanted the package held for me because our UPS drivers are notorious for delivering here late. I resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to wait and hope for the best. With 2nd Day Air delivery through UPS, your package is supposed to arrive by 10:30am. I was up this morning at 8am watching the tracking page on UPS' website and listening for the truck outside. At about 10:20, the truck drove up and I signed for my package.

The snake was packed well enough, I guess. There was no cool pack inside the box so if the little guy had been stuck on a hot truck all afternoon, there might have been issues. Fortunately, UPS got him here on time.

He's a gorgeous little guy with beautiful coloration. I know it will change with age, but right now he's just spectacular. I was fixing up a tub for him and started to place him in when I noticed his tail didn't feel right to me. I took a closer look and he's got a hard knot on his back where the tail meets the body. Today really hasn't been so great for me so far and this didn't help matters. Here are pics I took of the knot/bump on his back.









I have contacted the seller about this and he says he never noticed it before. I'm not really sure how you miss something like this but I guess it could happen. He offered to let me ship this guy back and pick a different one or take a $20 credit. I'm inclined to just take the credit and hope for the best even though I think $20 is a lousy credit if it turns out that he won't be able to included in breeding projects. I'm not happy about the snake... but my first experience with ReptilesExpress.com was great. Donna set her alarm so she'd be up at 4am (7am our time) time just to get in touch with UPS out here and try to get things the way I wanted them. She wasn't able to, unfortunately, but she went well out of her way to try for me. I've never encountered customer service like that before. I was thoroughly impressed.

I'm still waiting for a reply from the shipper about the credit.

well that sucks I am sorry to hear that. He is very pretty. Have you tried popping him to see if everything is there?

the anti-poon wrote:

well that sucks I am sorry to hear that. He is very pretty. Have you tried popping him to see if everything is there?

Honestly, I'm afraid to. I think that rough popping may be what caused this to begin with and I don't want to aggravate an injury. I'll probe him later to make sure he's a he.

After getting a better look at him this afternoon and getting a few more opinions, I'm pretty sure this is a kinked back. The scutes near his vent aren't uniform and don't look like they developed right so I think whatever happened to this little guy happened during incubation.



I've worked out an agreement on a $40 partial refund and a $40 credit towards a future purchase with the seller because I want to keep this little guy.

he is prettier in these pics than in the first ones i think.

I'm really sorry about the bump! 20 bucks would have been lousy credit. I am glad he agreed to more. So that is overall 80 dollars of combined credit and cash? Not sure how much you paid for him. IMO the seller should give you more than that, but it's certainly better than 20.

His colors look like fire! Have you picked out a name for him?

Dagan wrote:

I'm really sorry about the bump! 20 bucks would have been lousy credit. I am glad he agreed to more. So that is overall 80 dollars of combined credit and cash? Not sure how much you paid for him. IMO the seller should give you more than that, but it's certainly better than 20.

His colors look like fire! Have you picked out a name for him?

He was $75 but after shipping charges, the total on him was $107. I'm happy with the partial refund and I'll definitely keep in touch with the seller and put the credit towards another snake if he produces something else that stands out in the crowd.

I picked out names for the butter and for this pastel at the same time. I chose characters from one of my favorite books, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West". The butter is Elphaba and this pastel is Fiyero.

Great names! Pairing them will be like fanfiction.

I offered food last night since I had live rat pups available.



He had no qualms about eating for me.