Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a male Western Dusty Hognose which was born in Oct. 2005 - purchased from Renegade Reptiles. He was a good eater, taking dead pinks off my hands. I stopped feeding it for 3 weeks and now he will only eat live pinks that are in his enclosure. I always moved my snakes into another enclosure for feeding and never had a problem doing this numerous times with this hognose. He doesn't appear sick, defecates often, looks like he's growing after each meal. He lives in a small rubbermaid shoe box container - hot temps read 90F, cool temps 75F, small water bowl, plenty of ventilation, uses the paper towel whenever it wants to shelter, very active behavior. I'm not new to reptiles but this is my first hognose I personally owned.....what could it be?

Daryl

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SP Engineering (www.sp-power.com)
x.x Green Tree Python
1.0 Western Dusty Hognose
x.x Pacman Frog

That seems to be the norm for males at this time of the year, patients seems to be the key with hogs.

Hognoses certainly can be picky eaters, and sometimes their preferences can shift spontaneously. I don't have an explanation for you as to why he will not accept his previous foods, but I can offer are some minor suggestions. The high end temperature, depending upon the size of the shoe box, could easily be increased another another 5°. Other than that, I highly recommend not offering him the live food until he either starts losing a significant amount of weight, or begins taking the dead pinkies again. This means getting a good enough scale to measure down to a gram since it is a small snake, and if it begins losing more than 10% of its original weight, you can offer a subsistence live mouse. Don't offer food more than once a week for right now, and limit or eliminate handling. I can assure you that healthy hognoses will not starve to death in the presence of food. The above method is merely an adaptation to a trick use for turtles to get them off of their "junk food habits" and stop eating all protein and start eating their veggies. Animals that are built for survival will always take what they can get, sometimes they just have to be convinced or reminded that a different food source is a perfectly adequate food source.
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS

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

... nature has ceased to be what it always had been - what people needed protection from. Now nature - tamed, endangered, mortal - needs to be protected from people. When we are afraid, we shoot. But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.
Susan Sontag

Thanks for your input. The 90F is actually a low, and since he's always sandwiching himself between the bottom surface and papertowel, I'm sure it gets easily in the 95 range. I've tried offering him dead pinks for couple weeks and still had no luck. I dislike leaving dead rodents for over an hour so I end up throwing them out.
Is it safe to feed hognoses fish? I threw a minnow in his enclosure and he started going after it until he was frightened by the flopping. He was eating strong from December to February. He's only about 12" in length. I'm assuming males don't take a break from feeding this time of year at this young age.

Daryl

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SP Engineering (www.sp-power.com)
x.x Green Tree Python
1.0 Western Dusty Hognose
x.x Pacman Frog