Posted by:
FR
at Tue Mar 19 09:30:40 2013 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FR ]
I don't think its off. Your task as a keeper is to support your animal to be normal. Normal is not to be picky and have to do this scent or that scent.
Whats odd is, tuna or salmon do not have anything to do with what is natural to hognose snakes. Natural would be, lizards, toads, birds and eggs, turtle eggs, rodents, earthworms(tried this last year and they ate them up).
These guys are wild and never exposed to fish, some other areas may have fish in their diet, but that is not normal.
The point is, when snakes are not "normal" becoming picky, not feeding, having to offer such things as tuna or salmon scent, becomes what you have to do. All you have to do is support the animal back to normal. So the answer to your tangent is, yes that can happen, but its not normal to the animal.
A funny thought to me is, husbandry means to husband or support. Husbandry is to support an animal to be that animal. With its normal prey aggression and hogs are very aggressive feeders normally. Use husbandry to support that aggression.
In nature some populations are prejudiced as to prey type. that is, they cosume a type of prey like toads and lizards and turtle eggs. Rodents may not be part of their local diet. So you must teach them that rodents are a prey item. other locals do consume rodents and that teaching is not required in captivity.
That type of prey recognition should not be confused with non supportive husbandry.
In captivity, its very normal to use a very very restricted range of conditions(support) when compared to what they have access to in nature.

These guys are feeding on lizards(hmmmm they are wild, not captives)
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