Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have recently acquired a WC adult eastern hognose. I have yet to try feeding her as I am leaving her alone for a week or so. My question regards whether to switch her to rodent food or leave her on a frog/toad diet. I have read that easterns sometimes develop liver problems if maintained on a rodent only diet. There have been good discussions on scenting in the past. However, I have seen very few posts about the potential health problems with a rodent only diet for a amphibian specialized snake. If a frog diet is desired, is it feasible to commercially purchase frogs much the same way a person would mice? This might help alleviate some of the WC pathogens that might be introduced. I know that there are quite a few people that have easterns in their colonies. I would love to hear everyone's opinions/experiences.

A lot of people who keep easterns in their collection feed rodent diets. You shouldn't have any health trouble with giving mice to your eastern, but you may encounter a picky eater until you can get it converted.
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Robert Charvat
1.1 het albino Western Hognose

I have heard the same concerns about an all rodent diet. I have had mine I guess about 3 years and they seem to be doing fine on rodents. Of course they did start out on an amphibian diet and I must confess it was no easy task to switch them to rodents, but with time and persistence I was finally able to do it.

Its funny with the babies as some of them seem to go right to the rodent and others will resist it time and time again.
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Kevin
www.harrellandsonsherps.com

Hi there,
You did good by asking about this before making a decision. There have been dozens of great threads on this forum over the years, and I wish I had saved them all. I'll give you the bottom line about rodents and easterns and save you all of that reading.

You may have heard/read about liver problems, but you haven't seen any proof! This is an urban legend based entirely on conjecture. ANY ANIMAL that is subject to starving can develop fatty liver disease. FLD is NOT caused by eating too much fat! As we all know, Heterodon sp tend to go off feed for virtually no reason, and that goes for amphibian fed ones as well.

There have been people on here who were quick to blame the death of their eastern on a rodent diet (I remember a person that blamed it on the ONE mouse that he fed his snake). Yet, none of these people have provided necropsies, nor do we know anything about the health of animal before it died, or of it's captive care. So at that point, it's all conjecture, and completely uneducated guess.

>> I have seen very few posts about the potential health problems with a rodent only diet for a amphibian specialized snake.

Yeah, that's because there isn't any information. There are dozens of NA native snakes that are not rodent specialists that only get rodents in captivity, where's the controversy on those snakes?

>>If a frog diet is desired, is it feasible to commercially purchase frogs much the same way a person would mice?

As far as I know, no there isn't. The only ones you will find are WC and are the farthest thing from being the healthy food choice you are looking for.

In the past, I have dug around really hard looking for evidence either way, and I couldn't find any. When I was a curator, I wanted to know if the eastern that had been fed rodents for 11 years would be harmed.

I would also suggest a varied diet, since amphibians only comprise ~50% of an eastern's diet. They eat a lot of insects. I've been able to get easterns to eat cockroaches, crickets, and even Mazuri gel diet for herps.
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society online store
http://www.cafepress.com/vaherpsociety

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