Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A couple of pics of my female cbb. eastern hognose eating a rat pinky.

Beautiful snake. Here is a pic of my WC female eating an adult mouse. Finally got her to eat a scented one this week.

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Jenea

2:3 Tricolor Hognose
2:1 Eastern Hognose
1:2 Western Hognose
2:2 Southern Hognose
0:0:2 Florida Redbelly Snakes
0:1 Gulf Coast Box Turtle
1:1 Red-eared Slider
1:2:2 Mediterranean Geckos
2:0 Cats
1:1 Kids
1:0 Spouse

Beautiful snake!

Congratulations!
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Jamie W.

(url)http://rosyboas.tripod.com(/url)

Isnt feeding eastern hogs mice harmful for them ??? ive heard they cant handle all the fat and all this .. And I have owned many eastern hogs, Since I have tons of toads around, I usualy stuck with feeding them toads, But, I had one red phase that I got on mice, and died a year later..Just wondering.

>>Isnt feeding eastern hogs mice harmful for them ??? ive heard they cant handle all the fat and all this .. And I have owned many eastern hogs, Since I have tons of toads around, I usualy stuck with feeding them toads, But, I had one red phase that I got on mice, and died a year later..Just wondering.

mice and rats are not the problem per se... it's mostly the fur. E Hogs just don't seem to like the fur too well (considering their wild diet is toads and frogs is it any wonder furry things would give them trouble?). If you are worried about obesity from the higher fat content, you don't over feed them then. My e hog would eat every day if I put food in front of her, but I don't. I normally let her tell me when she's hungry instead of me dicating when she needs to eat (she'll hang out in her food dish). I started her out on pinky mice then moved to fuzzy mice. I eventually reached the point of moving up to hoppers, but the all out fur on them - she more or less turned her nose up to the mice. She'd take them if there was no other choice and she was really hungry, but why go to that hassle of upsetting her. So I switched over to pinky rats and she went bonkers... it was like candy to her lol. I never even had to try scenting the rats with the mouse smell. She went straight to it first attempt. With the switch to rats, every now and then she tries to con me into giving more food than she needs but not that often lol. As she is nearing full size now, I just go back and forth between fuzzy rats and extra large pinky rats. She is a nice lean looking healthy glossy 2 year old snake....not obese looking at all.
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PHWyvern

Was it a WC hog, and had it been tested for parasites?
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Jenea

2:3 Tricolor Hognose
2:1 Eastern Hognose
1:2 Western Hognose
2:2 Southern Hognose
0:0:2 Florida Redbelly Snakes
0:1 Gulf Coast Box Turtle
1:1 Red-eared Slider
1:2:2 Mediterranean Geckos
2:0 Cats
1:1 Kids
1:0 Spouse

It was a captive hatched, Im not the only one that experienced this, I was just curious, I have no prob w/ getting toads year round, I usually freeze alot of the toads because of parasites though..

>>It was a captive hatched, Im not the only one that experienced this, I was just curious,

In my own opinion, hogs tend to not do much in captivity except sleep and eat. And they don't even have to hunt down their food..it's just handed to them. They don't expend a lot of energy. Any animal that is over fed (regardless of type of prey item) and is taking in more calories than it needs is going to wind up with potential health problems. Look at bearded dragons..omnivorous lizard. Years ago people were feeding diets that were 80-100% meat/bugs and 0-20% vegetation. These animals were dying from obesity and liver failure by age 5. 7 years was considered old. Then some people experimented with a radical idea...flip the diet ratios around. These lizards could live 12-15 or more years when the diet was reversed. Again, it's because more calories were going in that was needed by an animal in a captive setting that didn't have to hunt or anything. Once people flipped the diet around and lowered the calories and such, you wound up with healthier animals living longer lives.

Rats/Mice are a little high on fat compared to frogs/toads (though I seemed to remember reading somewhere that it really wasn't that much of a difference). But it's pretty easy to adjust the feeding schedule accordingly based on the prey item given instead of stuffing the animal with more food than it really needs (and some hogs live up to that name...they are hogs when it comes to food and will continue to eat when offered). A growing baby of course needs more food/calories than a full grown adult because it's spending more energy growing than an adult who only needs to be maintained. Simple adjustments to the diet are necessary.

If an animal has a parasite load, that too can have a direct effect on their health.

Also, how often one interacts with the animal and exericses it some to help burn off calories can have an impact (or lack of impact if it's never handled and worked with).

And then there is the fur thing when feeding rodents. Hogs natural diet of toads/frogs don't have fur. They are adapted to eating rodents when needed to in the wild, but not really something long term. They do seem to have problems dealing with the fur in the long run. Sticking to pinkies and fuzzies in captivity solves most of that problem. fuzzies have very little fur compared to hoppers and adults. I prefer to throw convienence out the window and choose to feed multiple smaller items with little or no fur to my hog as it's easier to digest instead of feeding of one big adult mouse full of fur that could cause problems for the snake.

My eastern hog has been on a rodent diet since she was hatched and she is doing quite well. Has never touched a frog or toad. Nice body/muscle tone, nice healthy glow, no fatty deposit lumps, behavior is alert and feisty. I expect her to live quite some time barring any accidents. She is nearly full grown so I am not feeding as often and am interacting with her more now than when she was a baby. This makes her work off some of the calories cause she would prefer to curl up asleep all the time if she could (except when eating) lol. When she was a baby I was feeding her rodents almost every 2-3 days. Now she goes 7-14 days between feedings. If I instead had chosen to put her on an amphibian diet that long break between feeding would not likely be a good schedule. I'd be feeding her twice as often, maybe more because the prey items are of different values than rodents.
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PHWyvern

I agree with the fur thing.I started my cbb. female out on pinkie mice then graduated to rat pinkies, then rat pups.My other female started on rat pups. jeff