I am baffled by some of your statements. A 33 gal is too big, so you'll divide it in half? What are you basing this on? How will a tank that is too large be detrimental? We know the snake doesn't want to eat in a 5 gal, it stands to reason it'll do much better in even a 33 gal. Also, a 20 gal is not expensive relative to the cost of a single visit to the vet. Fact is that ALL animals will get sick and die, a vet visit is inevitable. If you are not willing or able to have the funds on hand for a proper sized tank, much less a vet bill, then I am concerned about the hog's future well-being.



Let me make another point. A healthy animal will not let itself starve to death in the presence of food. Clearly something is amiss, and with it being in a 5 gal tank, it's easy to assume that husbandry is less than suitable. With that, I never recommend using wild caught live toads for feeders. It would be acceptable, however, to use them for scenting. Compared to other scenting techniques, however, I've had only scant success with using toads anyway.



>>In addition, the way the petstore (which i worked at) were keeping our snakes, we had the heat mat and lights on for 8 hours a day, and turned them off at night. However, the ambient night temp was probably above 75 F. Do you think I should try this?



Again, what was the temp during the day? 8 hours is on the low side of the proper photoperiod. In order to make your snake "think" it's summer, try ~12hrs.
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Virginia Herping

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS

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"The irrational fear of snakes is the only excuse a grown man has... to act like a complete sissy" - Colchicine

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