Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, i am a bit new to the hog world. however i have a question about their eating habits, when i first brought him home i offered him a few fuzzy rat pups. he ended up eating three of them.
the 2nd week came and i offered the same amount. he ended up eating only one.
it is now the 3rd week and he has refused to eat both a small fuzzy rat pup, and also a pinky mouse ( i tried it to see if maybe he would just like smaller prey)

do they sometimes refuse to eat for a week? Is he still full from two weeks ago when he ate three?

My boas never refuse food, so im a little concerned. Does anyone have any advice?

Ps : hogs rock so far it think. besides the food issue he is much more like a "snake" than my others who are all quite tame. he is a bit defensive and thats very interesting to me. more of a challenge i suppose.

My hunch is that your snake is just telling you it's not hungry and that the rat pups it's been eating have something to do with it. Like you're seeing, these awesome snakes have a large set of personality traits that distinguish them from boas and pythons. One part of this is that they occasionally miss a meal or go off food altogether. This often seems like it's because they aren't hungry or are about to shed, breed, brumate, or lay eggs, or for reasons unknown, or they're sick.

Their are several caresheets available online that give good suggestions on hognose snake diet and methods for stimulating appetite, such as feeding small meals frequently and routinely.

If you go through this forum and others you'll find that your question is a common one. Best of luck!

A week for a hog is nothing. I've stated this before, but I had a 10g neonate go 4 months without even loosing a gram.

Since you've fed your hog, has he defecated at all? I typically use the rule of thumb that shortly after they defecate, I feed them. You don't want to gorge your snake with too much food that it can't digest it all properly as that can cause regurgitations which can ultimately lead to death.

One thing that might be helpful is knowing the size/weight of your male hognose. Typically, adult males run between 90-150 grams and are usually closer to 100 grams. 3 fuzzy rat pups is a lot of food for a male in my opinion. If you are feeding him this much, make sure he has a lot of heat to help digest all of that food.

Remember, snakes are not the brightest of animals and will sometimes gorge themselves because in the wild they never know when their next meal will be. They also will not usually eat again until all of that food is properly digested.

Adult male Western Hognose are also very well known for going off of food for months at a time. This is very normal during breeding season but can occur at really any time. I have a male that just ate after fasting for a month and a half and I've had some males not eat for 3 months without any noticeable loss in weight or degradation in health.

Good luck on your hoggie. They are very unique snakes and have their own little set of quirks that you will eventually get accustomed to. Keep us updated on how he's doing.
-----
Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Thanks for all the good advice ppl!
I guess i will try a little something every week and see when he will accept food.

He has defecated a few times since he ate that huge meal the 1st week. however i do not know his weight. He is a yearling. there is plenty of heat in his enclosure though.

Hmm ill def post when he eats food! lets see how long he goes.

Alright! he finally came around and decided to eat. He was really pissed if I played around with the food last time though, so this week i simply tried not bothering him but placing the F/T mouse pup in front of his face. After a few mins i came back and he had eaten it, i put another one there and it was also gone a few mins later. Im glad he is back to eating regularly. Looks like the hog experience will def keep me on my toes more than the boas! He is a whole lot of fun! (if i knew how to post pics here i would, he poofs up quite a bit and i got some great pics!)

So here is my flickr site with all my pics on it anyway!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39866042@N08/3851514246/in/set-72157621981658700/