From reading the thread below, I have to question what folks think natualistic means. And please, its not about right or wrong.



Its appears to me that that term has many meanings to keepers and frankly, I am not sure how that it got that way.



I think there is a whole lot of confusion. Naturalistic may mean, not purchased in a pet shop or online. Again, I am not sure.



IF I would thinking about Naturalistic, I would think about what is NATURAL, to the specific animal and in this case hognose.



Pick up any field guide or hognose book that talks about their natural enviornment and it will tell you hognose are specific to certain types of soils. While I often see conflict with books, HOGNOSE are very soil specific to certain types of soils.



I think, sandy, loaming, soft, all come to mind when looking at hognose. You know, something that allows that nose to work.



If I were thinking about hognose(and I have been) and setting them up naturalistically. The first thing I would look at, because of their physical adaptions, is what kind of soil and how much of it(depth)



Then I would think about how they use it. Again, Gregg hit the nail on the head. Hognose make their own cover. In my field experience, they live in a homeycomb of burrows, and dig more when needed. Also, in my area, they spend aprox 95% or more of their lifes living, breeding, feeding, shedding, thermoregulating etc, in these burrows. Only coming to the surface to move across areas that they cannot travel thru(underground)



Right now in the field they are paired up, copulating or getting ready to copulate and they never come to the surface. The great part about hogs in nature is that sand thing, they leave tracks, so if they use the surface, I will know about it. And so far, at my site, there are no tracks. In fact very few snakes of any species are surface active yet this year.



I guess I should take some mirco habitat shots and post them, so you can see what is NATURAL to them.

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Good luck and best wishes

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