Bitis atropos copulation

Just a few days ago I saw this beautiful scene in my terrarium where I keep West Cape Atropos Smile

gratulation my friend ! lol!

cute littel guys..congrats man cheers

Yusssss those are NICE ! Nice rocks too Smile

gratulation mate.

cross my fingers for you.

cheers, tom

Beautiful animals... Congratulations and good luck my friend!

The last time when I visited you, I made a couple of pictures of these beauties...

Female
Bitis atropos copulation 20b33c53

Fantastic news, congratulations!

H

Looking good there Neven.

Thx for the comments guys! And Andrew, yes I do have crazy tendency to collect rocks whereever I go Smile

) so through years I manage to collect some nice examples, which make great use in terrariums Smile

)
It has been around 4 months since the copulation of atropos and female looks like she got something inside... After copulation I separated them since male would not eat while the female was inside his terrarium. Female is still eating, basking a lot. I found some info that atropos female are gravid around 5.5 months?! Does anyone who breed this specie have more data on the lenght of gravidity? The atropos I have are West Cape locality.
Here are some recent pics of the female.. to me she looks... goood!!!

Smile

Congrats Neven,

I think someones are inside ! lol!

Congrats Neven. If it were me I would be preparing enclosures for some baby Berg adders Smile

5 - 6 months is a safe bet, I wouldn't be surprised if this girl gave birth sooner than that though.
She is a pretty one, looking forward to seeing how the babies turn out.

Thank you guys! I do think something is inside, I just hope and wish to be live babies!! Smile

She is still eating but she is very restless, moving around constantly. Before she would bask for hours, now she basks for a while, than crawls around, than bask again... in Croatia we have a saying "crve u guzici" which litterarly means "worm in her A**", and that how she acts... can not be still Smile

Good luck !

Neven

what do you feed the adults and what will you feed the newborn when they hopefully arrive?

Graeme

Thank you guys!

Graeme, my adults eat mice without problem. When I got them male was already adult, female was young, around 20cm. From the beginning she eat small dead pinky without problems and male eat small mice, also dead without hesitation.

I think babies should be ok with pinkies. When it cames to small bitis I think atropos are the least problematic when it cames to eating mice.

Neven Vrbanic wrote:: Thank you guys!

Graeme, my adults eat mice without problem. When I got them male was already adult, female was young, around 20cm. From the beginning she eat small dead pinky without problems and male eat small mice, also dead without hesitation.

I think babies should be ok with pinkies. When it cames to small bitis I think atropos are the least problematic when it cames to eating mice.

Great to hear that as these are a species on my long term list, well done!

It would be very nice if you will maybe have some babies.
I am keeping fingers crossed Wink

Albert Gracer wrote:: It would be very nice if you will maybe have some babies.
I am keeping fingers crossed

I will also keep my fingers crossed,

Kind Regards

Graeme

Just to share a photo of freshly shed male taken in daylight. I do not have great experince with atropos nor have I seen many West Cape atropos but I really think this one looks great! Smile

Just a brief update - my female did not drop anyting after all. She stoped feeding, she looked huge, but no babies came out. I think I will have to keep them cooler this year over winter. Last year they copulted in September so I did not wan to cool them down over winter in case female was gravid. But now male is trying to copulate with her again and I will separate him and keep them apart, cool them down to some 10-15C over winter, and than put them together in Spring time 2013. Hopefully that will work better.

Thanks for your updat Neven. To bad it didn't happen.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.
And maybe we have more luck next year!
I really hope soo.

Greatings,
Arjan.

Unlucky Neven ! At that size I was convinced it was babies inside , we know now cooling is essential for it to take at least , I am also experimenting with my animals and last year had slugs from 3 females and babies from only 1 female , just based on different timings of the matings , the cooling was the same.

A picture for fun....
Bitis atropos copulation IMG_3195

Nice animal Andrew! How much down in temperature and for how long do you cool Atropos? The problem I had with mine was that they copulated in September (Europe Fall) which was like they copulated in Spring time in SA. So I did not cool them down since I though is the female was gravid she need warm period. But now I separated them and will cool them down during our winter and that way try to swich them to European season. So hopefully they will mate after cooling our Spring time. Hopefully that will work.

Thanks for sharing Andrew,
great animal too!

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