B.caudalis

Guest

i'm new to keeping dwarf bitis sp,i bought my first one at the hamm expo last weekend,i was curious
of any of you has an idea on location of this one

B.caudalis Caudalisman

are not the best pictures sorry

greetz
dave

Hi Dave,

your male is Namaqualand locality... It`s good it`s feeding on mice by self. That`s good sign, hope he will do well for you, as caudalises from this locality are sometimes causing a lot of problems...

Cheers,
Peter

Looks like a Namaqualand speciemen, they are very very nice but do not very well in captivety usually. That's why they are often offerd for ''fair'' prices of about 200-250 Euro per animals. So they go fast, but unfortunately most will be dead within the first 3-4 months or so.

That's it so far from my experiences with this locality.....especially the males also often do not accept mice as food.

A note: The substrate you are using in the last 2 pics is definitely NOT GOOD for B.caudalis.
Try a fine sand with a high calcium amount, or something like gravel - that's much better and is also more realistic.

Regards
Marco

Guest

thanx both for replies,the sand is drying i had no dry sand so i hope to switch him this weekend.
mine is eating mouse pinky's very well.i hope he does good,Marco have you any idea why this locality
is problematic?i mean is it related to parasite or climat condition's,....?

greetz
dave

Hi Dave

That's great with the sand, very good ! ;-)
It's the most important thing that you can get them to eat, in your case this oviously works - so thaht's the good news.

Try to inject about 0.5-1.0ml of water in every pre-killed pinky you offer - this helps and works very well to support the regulation of humidity. They often do not drink enough from alone...

Namaqualand is a very very nice and big area with lots of microhabitats and also lot's of different colormorphs of caudalis - so are greyish, reddish, organge etc etc...
Som places have a higher humidity levels then others, the prey items are often different....only in a few areas the are used to also accept mice - usually they only eat specific local lizards and geckos.

And check the animals for tongue-worms ( don' know the exact english term for them), but Namaqualand caudalis usually have them. In nature that's not a big deal, but under the conditions in captivity they can be deadly for the animal !! Check that with you local Vet...

Cheers
Marco

Guest

many thanks for the good info Marco

greetz
dave

Hi Dave , I am also got specimens of this caudalis today , but as expected they is not eating the mice , I will be force feeding this specimens with water and panacur injected into the pink and hope they respond well to the food and treatment.
I include pictures of the specimens and their landscape so if you like you can be making your cages to look like their home in the wild.
You will need about 1 million rocks.

Cheers
Andrew

Male01
B.caudalis IMG_3902

Male02 (different pattern)
B.caudalis IMG_3912

Landscape

Guest

hi Andrew,

your setup looks very well,very nice caudalis as well,mine has eaten its second pinky last weekend,
so luckely he feeds good

greetz

Hi to everybody,

Ahh, I love those bitis, stunners!

@Dave: Good that it's feeding so well, is this one CB? Can you tell me who sold it to you?

Best regards,
Markus

Guest

its wildcaught not cb

greetz
dave

Hello, by seeking some information on the biotope of the bitis caudalis (namaqualand) I often find photograph of namaqualand with a large variety of flowers and not like the photographs that Andrew Hacket with put on the post.
Therefore I asked whether in this area it there would not have more rains and of humidity that it be thought.

Think that this locality would not need a wet hiding-place?

So not why?

Namaqualand is very dry, the flowers are only in bloom for a short period of time but this is why Namaqualand is famous.

The caudalis from here like to be dry.

I put my hygrometer in my caudalis cages this week and its been ranging from 40 - 60 % where as the room is around 80% , quite a difference.
I also think maybe humidity does not kill these animals , as I have snakes like chionactus that live in desert and don't even drink water, ever! and they do fine in high humidity.
It must be something else that makes them do not so good ? Like parasites like marco mentions , or they may not have the mental capacity to survive captivity.

me also I bought a caudalis namaqualand 1.0 with hamm last (14/12) it feeds very well from small mouse of which I injected 1ml water and I to him am made a small wet hiding-place which dries in the course of the day.

I to him am put a wet hiding-place because the morning in a wild state it must have a spade of humidity.

Even in drier area of Africa (the Sahara….) it there with moisture the morning.

Think that can be bad for it?

I am not using any hides for B.caudalis , they have branch a rock and some dead leaves for dynamics and seem to sleep always in a different spot each night. If you want to be using a damp hide box make sure there is also a dry hide box so he can choose which is better for himself.

thank you for your answers, I hold you with courrant if I have problems with this method of maintenance.
Soon I would post photograph of my caudalis.
thank you.

*UPDATE* , I have de-wormed all specimens with 2 doses, 1 week apart using panacur so far so good , all are still alive . After 5 force feedings one specimen is eating pinks on its own.

Excelente'

Andrew

Excellent Andrew,

please keep us posted.

cheers
M.

very nice species i am getting to like the bitis species more and more
gorgous pics andrew

Hi Andrew, Hi Dave,

do you guys have any update for us on the snakes?
would be good to see if all went well...

cheers
Mario

Guest

They are a extravagant species. Very intracate designs and the colors are wonderful. All animals pictured are magnificent examples.

Guest

hi Mario,

i sold it about 8 monthso ago to a friend who has a female,this one did very good for a male
eating every 2-3 weeks pinky's. my friend male died so i sold him this one, last thing i heard he was
still doing great. dwarf bitis is not realy my thing i gues ,like to stick with the gabonica/nasicornis for now

greetz
dave

» B.caudalis
» Caudalis babies
» Bitis caudalis CB 11
» B. caudalis feeding
» My Caudalis Namaqualand...