Reptile & Amphibian Forums

np

it sorta depends on if u want it to grow quick, you would probally regulary feed it 2 times a week..but if u want it to grow faster by powerfeeding then feed him some more..i feed my yearling 4 pinks a week..or like 2-3 fuzzies a week.. see ya later

Do not powerfeed. It will drastically shorten the lifespan on the snake. The only reason powefeeding is utilized is to get breeder females up to their large potential size earlier than normal so that they can breed at an earlier age. While it may work out well in the short run, the hog is probably doomed to have years cut off of its lifespan. Andy
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Who are you who can say it's ok to live through me? Alice In Chains

Think about what your hognose would do when all the little spade foot toadlets are out by the thousands. Do you think they would just eat 3-4 or do you think that they would eat 10-20? How about when they come across a nest of small mammals like mice or rats would they just eat one or two or would they eat all of them? If they did eat 10-20 toadlets how long would it take to digest them and when do you think the hognose would feed again? If I were you I would do what you feel is right. My adult hognose come across f/t "nests" once or twice a week and they eat all of them.

I have often heard people justify their husbandry techniques by making an analogy to what the wild version of the animal does. Every single one of these analogies have been exceptionally poor in my opinion. The simple fact remains that just because an animal does something in the wild does not mean that it's OK for it in captivity. Once you take any animal out of the wild and put it inside four glass walls, all bets are off, and the rules of the game changes instantly.

Another simple fact remains, a calorie limited diet has been proven to be better for an animal across the boards, whether it's a bird mammal reptile or amphibian. Animals that are overfed have significantly shortened lifespans as a result of kidney and liver problems.

Colby's sure is a good one. It is true that there would be an explosion of available food items at certain times of year, corresponding with the emergence of frogs from their larval stage. However, this is short-lived as many species trickle out of the ponds at a low rate after an initial surge. Colby used spadefoot toads as an example. I am doing amphibian research now and I only saw a surge of spadefoot's for about a week. Resources like this will come and go with almost no predictability, but what Colby has not taken into account is the long periods of fasting inbetween these resource explosions. I agree that hognoses are bound to come across a nest of mice, but realistically, how often does that happen in the course of one year? I think in this case the successful hunting of the species is being entirely overestimated. I can bet that a hognose only gets lucky like that only once a year.

So to justify feeding a hognose as often as Colby does, 52 weeks a year, is not supported by the natural phenomenon that the justification is based on. If you want to realistically simulate a natural diet, feeding several times a week with long periods of fasting would be ideal. This claim is supported by the scientific literature I've read on diet studies that had been performed on various reptiles and amphibians. When the stomach contents are broken down, the vast majority of the animals have empty stomachs. I doubt there are many snakes that constantly have food in their stomachs. If they did, then what would be the advantage of their ectothermy? Most ectothermic animals like reptiles and amphibians have the ability to shut down their digestive system in order to conserve energy until the next meal comes along.

If you actually cared about the health and well-being of your animal, you will not "powerfeed". There is absolutely no reason why an adult hognose cannot survive and maintain a natural growth rate by being fed one mouse a week.
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*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.

".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

I generally feed my snakes once a week with everyone getting 1 mouse except for my hog and my larger balls which get 2 items. My hog is almost a year old now. I think she could take smaller fuzzies now but I give her 2 pinks. Every few weeks though we will miss a feeding for whatever reason. I dont feel as though this hurts them at all and I feel certain that snakes in the wild dont eat as well. What kind of a diet do you guys give a yearling hog? Colby, Ive seen in this thread and others that you feed more than most. Have you seen any signs of problems from your method? Thanks for responding. I hope to have a pic up later tonight of my little one. Take care. EP
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Occupants not paying rent:
7 balls
2 corns(normal, candy cane)
1 pueblan milk
1 everglades rat
1 cal. king
1 gray band king
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2 leopard geckos
2 fish, 1 snail
1 pac man frog
1 rat
5 cats

I worked at a zoo for a while. They had something called fast Friday. They would not feed the Birds of Prey, felids, wolves or bears on Friday to mimic a fasting that they would encounter in the wild. These animals also encounter disease in the wild but it doesn't mean it is healthy. That is what I would call a bad captive verses wild analogy. You say it is bad for me to feed more than one or two mice weekly because it can cause liver problems. Overfeeding is not a cause of liver failure.
Fasting is the cause of Hepatic Lipidosis. When an animal does not eat and starts to use it's fat reserve the fat gets trapped in the liver causing liver failure in some animals. Hepatic Lipidosis has not been proven to cause problems in reptiles especially ones that brumate.
Hognose have an abundance of food sources compared to other snakes of North America. They eat almost anything. They eat toads, frogs, lizards, snakes, birds, mice and who knows what else? I'm sure that they go without food sometimes but that does not mean it is healthy. After all those little toads go away where do they go? Just because you can't see them doesn't mean that they are gone. I'm sure most of them die, but some live a while underground waiting to be eaten. But like you said we shouldn't compare wild hognose to captives. I think that is true for now so let's move on.
I feed my hogs what they want. It is a lot more than what people think is healthy. I think it is because they have some kind of old school knowledge about how a snake only needs to eat once a week and can go months without eating. And all of that knowledge came from ? I get my info from my hogs, it's all I got. They are healthy. I don't have problems with them eating because I don't starve them. Hognose keepers can do what they like. If they want to go by what they read on the net that's fine. I would recommend they turn off the computer and watch the populations they have at home because it would be impossible to get real data from wild hognose regarding feeding habits.

I am not willing to beat this into the ground. There was a discussion and a few months ago about power feeding that was excellent. Unfortunately, Kingsnake's search engine does not allow me to find it easily. It sure would come in handy to look at that information again right about now!

"Overfeeding is not a cause of liver failure.
>> Fasting is the cause of Hepatic Lipidosis. When an animal does not eat and starts to use it's fat reserve the fat gets trapped in the liver causing liver failure in some animals. Hepatic Lipidosis has not been proven to cause problems in reptiles especially ones that brumate."

We went from overfeeding, to reasonable feeding, to starvation? I SERIOUSLY doubt that once a week could ever be considered fasting. When I mentioned liver and kidney problems, I did not specify hepatic lipidosis, there are many types of liver failure.

"I feed my hogs what they want."
This is where I really start to have problems.

"I think it is because they have some kind of old school knowledge about how a snake only needs to eat once a week and can go months without eating."
I do agree, kind of like how frogs should only be fed flies!

If I'm allowed to make comparisons to other reptiles I think I can prove my point adequately. Turtles are famous for being overfed in captivity, and clearly exhibiting signs of overfeeding that manifests in their shell growth. People who keep turtles and know nothing about their behavior and their natural history, see the turtles begging as a sign of real hunger necessitating another feeding. Little do they know that resource availability can be scarce and unpredictable for the turtles, which we have already established is a good way to describe the hognose's prey. The obvious explanation for the turtles constant begging is that it does not know when food will be available again, so it dedicates as much energy towards food while it is available. Again along the same parallel, hognoses might want to eat when food is available in preparation for periods of low food availability. In captivity, this feeding method is not short-circuited and the animal continues to eat despite the lack of any cues that food will not be available.

Also, turtles have what I call junk food habits. Where they obviously do not know what is best for them, and continually turned down healthy foods as long as they are able to get their regular foods no matter how ridiculously unhealthy it is for the animal. Some examples of this can be found in AC Highfield's book The Tortoise and Turtles Feeding Manual. Some examples of what people have fed has been down with the justification "I feed my hogs what they want", where the word hogs is replaced with turtles.

Ham and chocolate
bagels with cream cheese
bread, milk and cheese
canned cat food
ice cream and apple pie
peas, beans and dog food

Each line represents what an individual turtle was being fed exclusively. Indisputably horrible diets for a turtle.

I hope that with these examples that it is clearly shown that captive animals don't always know what is good for them. They are unable to make decisions about their own nutrition, even when it is seriously life-threatening, or when it can result in a slow and painful death. It is our responsibility to find the fine line between the desires of the animal and what is actually best for them.
My intent here, was not to pick on you personally Colby. However, it is one thing to subject your own animals to a feeding method that has always been considered controversial. It is another thing to recommend it without any explanation or any warning on these forums where some people will take your word as golden. If you can find some way to justify your feeding methods to yourself, no matter how trivial, then so be it. But the reasoning you have provided is simply not supported by logic and what we know about reptiles. When I think of power feeding, I think of people who are trying to make money off of a living animal without any concern for its welfare. For the majority of the people on here who have relatively small collections for their personal enjoyment, power feeding does nothing to increase the value of their collection.

My reason for spending the massive amount of time I have on these forums is simply because I want what is best for the animals. Power feeding in general does not fit into my classification of acceptable husbandry practices because it is known to be detrimental to the health of the animal.
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*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.

".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

A guy made a post a while back in another forum that really affected me. He said that he bought a rattlesnake 20 years ago and fed it on a 2 week schedule. Some of his friends bought rattlers from the same litter and fed them at the 'acceptable' once or twice a week rate. His friends went through two or three successive rattlers while his original was still alive. I want my hog and my other snakes to be here in 20 years, so I feed them accordingly.
Obesity kills. Being a bit hungry for a few days a week doesn't.

I agree...I mean, a hognose might gorge itself when it finds food but think of how often food is not available or at least plentiful. They go weeks, even months, without eating while waiting for their next meal. They have to stuff themselves in order to last. In captivity, this instinct is still around. And it can cause trouble. Take a look at the what kind of snake forum as the corn snake I just got. It is 4.5 and has been fed jumbo rats (yikes) for the past while...it is now horribly obese. If you want to let your snake "pig out" so to speak, then give it a while off to digest and get the mouse out of its system. Obesity can cause all sorts of problems, and as mentioned a common one is liver failure, though other problems can arise as well. But to each his own . Happy herping. Andy
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Who are you who can say it's ok to live through me? Alice In Chains

>>np
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*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.

".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)