One of our absolute most favorite
group of snakes to work with is the Bitis
genus. We can hardly deny our
addiction to these snakes. Although
we don’t keep many of the more rare species of this genus, it has taken
us many years to selectively acquire the Rhinos, Gaboons, and Crosses that
we do use in our breeding projects.
Our
main interests include East African Gaboons, Ghana and Ughandan Rhinos,
and F1-F2 Hybrids. With the
vast number of Rhinos and Gaboons imported each year, it may hardly seem
worth it to breed these species of Bitis.
But anyone who has had their share of WC imported animals, and the
problems that are often associated with them, know just how important the
captive propagation of many of these species can be. AND, how important it can be to your reptile keeping success
to buy true captive born animals of these species.
They
said, “It couldn’t be done.”
In late August
of 2002, we experienced one of our most exciting litters of
Bitis
ever. During the prior winter of
2001 we paired an adult male F1 Rhino x Gaboon with a totally unrelated adult
female F1 Rhino x Gaboon. Because
we were dealing with hybrids, we took great care to ensure this pairing had the
same identical species/locality lineage.
Both
adult hybrids were the result of breeding West African Gaboons (Bitis
gabonica rhinoceros) to
Ghana locality Rhino vipers (Bitis nasicornis).
After a cycling period, the adults were introduced and courtship was
immediate, soon followed by lengthy copulation.
This was an exciting time for us, because at that point, we were unaware
that anyone had ever produced F2 hybrids before.
There was much speculation and skepticism about the results of this
litter due to the fact that the breeding animals were themselves, hybrids.
As a few months passed, and the reality of the female being gravid really
sunk in, we realized this could be the first litter of F2’s ever produced.
We could only hope for viable babies.
At that time, some had these hybrids pegged as sterile and infertile
animals. We were hoping to prove
them wrong. Almost nine months
following the breeding, as anxiety about the litter was peaking for us, we were
rewarded with 11.6 healthy, viable F2 Rhino x Gaboon Hybrids from known lineage
adults. We offered a few of these
babies for sale, but kept a few back for ourselves.
We feel that F1 Hybrids are definitely gorgeous.
But the F2’s are in a whole different league.
More
info on the Bitis Hybrids
