Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys i was wondering how you guys get your hogs up to size? I am a new hog owner love these guys! Picked up a pair for het albino's and currently feeding small meals more often. I feed monday and thursday and i try to give them 3-4 pinkies if they take them a feeding. Do you guys feed off tongs or leave them in there inclosure? I feel when i stick my hand in there tubs they freak out and just throw there heads at the pinkies "funny when they do that" and huff and puff. From your experience does this mean there not hungry or i should just stay still?

You just have to study your hogs and see what works best ,I would use the tongs .
Best of luck with your breeding project its always nice to see more hognose breeders

Beautiful tri colors btw

Hognose are well suited to large meals. Of course, proper temps are necessary for them to digest large meals.

So for most keepers, staying somewhere between small and large meals works well. No sense feeding multiple pinks when a single "appropriately sized" meal will do.

Males will breed when sexually mature, and size does not matter here. So to try and bulk up a male quickly is not necessary.

IMO the female should be sizeable before being bred. In the wild it does not seem to be an issue, but for captivity it often is an issue. I am a proponent of waiting until the 3rd season for females, probably because I don't rush their growth. Many breeders do breed them younger with success.

Thanks guys! I have high hopes for these little guys! Really excited about them and love how there popularity is picking up. I will wait until the female is 200-250g. I am starting to pick up there signs of being hungry or not if they want food they just say ahh lol I have allot of pinkies to go through! Picked up a whole bunch of them in bulk but after i go through these im going to go for fuzzies and only feed one per feeding. Its a long process feeding 4 per i couldn't imagine doing it to a large collection. I also picked up a larger tong i feel like they dont like my hand with a smaller one lol

The one I have will hiss and strike sometimes.... Sometimes he won't. Sometimes he'll take fuzzies from tongs, sometimes he just wants them left in the tub and he finds them himself. His mood is forever changing.
-----
www.kingpinreptiles.com

Most of mine eat out of my hand. I feed 3-4 times per week if they appear hungry. You learn when they are hungry, and if kept in the appropriate environment, they will eat voraciously and grow rapidly. I have 2010 females that are over 200 grams and 2011 females that are over 125 grams already.
-----
Greg Jackson

Wow thats really fast greg! I just have to learn my snakes a little better. For my female I have found if i feed her one and then wait another hour or so she will normally take another one or two. My male is totally sporadic crazy little bugger.