Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here's the story. When I got this little girl from the breeder she was purposively eating live unscented pinkies. Did not eat at all for me a bit over a month. I was going through live, f/k, f/t both scented and non. Attempting to feed every 4 days, good thing I have other non picky eaters. I have a vertical freezer that I keep mice in and the bottom drawer is packed with plethora of scents. The scent that got her eating for me was salmon. Moving along, I get her off scented onto unscented f/t. She gains some size and I believe she's doing well so I move her into her original 6qt from the 6" dia deli she was when she had feeding issues and she went off food again. This time not even wanting the salmon scented. The scent for this go around is green anole.

Has anyone ever experienced this were a neonate would completely switch preferences like mine has? Very few snakes that I have get names; on how this girl is I think she deserves one. DIVA comes to mind.

There seems to be the approach of tricking a snake by scenting. Which can work.

Or adjust the husbandry to allow a greater feeding response.

The point is, naturally snakes have an incredible feeding response. They have to. They consume a wide varity of prey items and take them with aggression.

I attempt to adjust conditions to mimic that feeding response, then try trickery later.

Trickery is normally only required with thin, weak or compromise individuals. Healthy strong individuals should feed well.

Try offering a better hot choice or choices. Cheers

Interesting info however you are slightly off tangent from my question.

I don't think its off. Your task as a keeper is to support your animal to be normal. Normal is not to be picky and have to do this scent or that scent.

Whats odd is, tuna or salmon do not have anything to do with what is natural to hognose snakes. Natural would be, lizards, toads, birds and eggs, turtle eggs, rodents, earthworms(tried this last year and they ate them up).

These guys are wild and never exposed to fish, some other areas may have fish in their diet, but that is not normal.

The point is, when snakes are not "normal" becoming picky, not feeding, having to offer such things as tuna or salmon scent, becomes what you have to do. All you have to do is support the animal back to normal. So the answer to your tangent is, yes that can happen, but its not normal to the animal.

A funny thought to me is, husbandry means to husband or support. Husbandry is to support an animal to be that animal. With its normal prey aggression and hogs are very aggressive feeders normally. Use husbandry to support that aggression.

In nature some populations are prejudiced as to prey type. that is, they cosume a type of prey like toads and lizards and turtle eggs. Rodents may not be part of their local diet. So you must teach them that rodents are a prey item. other locals do consume rodents and that teaching is not required in captivity.

That type of prey recognition should not be confused with non supportive husbandry.

In captivity, its very normal to use a very very restricted range of conditions(support) when compared to what they have access to in nature.

These guys are feeding on lizards(hmmmm they are wild, not captives)

It was off tangent the first post you made, the second post answered my question plus you gave information in support which I appreciate.

Thanks to the USAF, I have had the oppurinity to be stationed at Holloman AFB for the past 7 years in Otero County, NM. So I have been able to collect a vast supply of different local scents: great plains toad, plains spadefoot, red spotted toad, tiger salamander, collared lizard, mediterranean house gecko, and banded gecko.

Under the same conditions, I introduced all those scents first and she didn't take any of them. However, when I got to the salmon she took it without hesitation. Why is that?

I would love for her to feed on unscented mice and she's almost back to it. It's really no big deal as in only adds a minute to feeding her. Only the tip of the nose is dipped in the scented water now. Truthfully I am not going to be bound by what is in the western hognose environmental dietary constraints when in this case she took something totally different from way left field.

I am going to do what I think is best for her from the hints or clues she gives me. Thank you for thoughts and opinions on this matter as well.

This is something odd, both with the animal and with keepers.

Salmon and tuna, are not natural prey items for hognose. Therefore, it cannot be something considered, "normal" to the animal. Not in recent times, maybe saltwater fish were a prey item in the distant past.

You said,Under the same conditions, I introduced all those scents first and she didn't take any of them. However, when I got to the salmon she took it without hesitation. Why is that?

The interesting part to me is, under the same conditions. This is what concerns me. Its as if your using the conditions as a standard, when in fact, captive conditions used by all of us, or marginal at best. The range of temps is so very limited in captivity, as well as chronic dehydration.

Both temps and hydration, play strong parts with feeding response.

I would think the first thing you do with captives that are picky, is change the conditions. Yet, there is some strong belief that our conditions are a rule and the animals must fit that and/or be tricked to fit that. Like with scenting.

You stated, that animal was previously feeding on pinks, or unscented items. Maybe dehydration is a factor.

Back to your tangent, if I were to theorize why hogs are attracted to Tuna/salmon scents, it may be something to do with brine, as our local hogs are very prejudiced to alkaline soils.(salt flats, etc) Maybe and again, theory, being dehydrated, they are lacking salt. Please let me say, its only a theory. And a forced theory hahahahahahahahaha.

Back to hydration, wild snakes do not expose themselves to drying conditions. When they do, its only for very short periods. Hogs do move on the surface in the day, but mainly in the humid times of the day and the humid times of the year. The rest of the time, they confine their activity to burrows and networks of burrows.

Last year I observed many many many wild hogs and their surface activity was aprox. 15 to 30 minutes, per individual.

With Hogs these times are fairly easy to determine.

For me, sticking to one small set of conditions, is a tangent. Best wishes

In regards to the scenting of pinkies using fish scents, the wrong question keeps getting asked over and over "Why do hognose like fish when it's not part of their natural diet?", or in the case of one individual that basically repeats the same obvious statement over and over "Salmon and tuna, are not natural prey items for hognose. Therefore, it cannot be something considered, "normal" to the animal." and "Whats odd is, tuna or salmon do not have anything to do with what is natural to hognose snakes.". Yeah, I think we already knew that much.

The biggest key to being a good researcher is to know how to determine the right questions from the wrong questions. For this discussion, this leads us to ask how hognose differentiate palatable food items, in this case a fish scented pinky over a non-scented pinky. Well, the key word here "scented", but we'll get to that shortly. Hognose obviously don't determine palatable food items from sight although that does help to trigger a feeding response when a prey item does move but sight alone is not going to determine what is edible or not, it's just going to determine something that might be worth attacking to determine later if it's edible or not. So sight is probably not the right sense we are looking for. Does a hognose use touch as a means of determining a palatable prey item over another? Perhaps, but in the case of scented vs unscented pinkies, the answer is no as both pinkies should feel identical to each other but one is going to be more palatable than the other regardless of how it feels. How about taste? Well, that would seem like a reasonable question to ask and most animals will often times taste things to determine whether it's edible or not and either continue to eat it or spit it out based on taste. But in this case, hognose don't normally taste something to determine whether they want to eat something or not, once they bite into something, they usually have a good intention of eating it. I've never seen a hognose take a bite into an unscented pinky and then spit it out only to take a bite out of a scented pinky and eat it, that's never been witnessed by me. However, I have witnessed many times of hognose accidently biting themselves out of excitement and then quickly releasing, so taste might have something to do with that part of eating rejection, but I've never witnessed it with actual food items. So that only leaves us with smell, snakes smell with their tongues using the Jacobson's organ which determines chemical compositions from scents. Most snakes will often flick their tongues around prey items to determine whether it's a food item or not which, when determined as a prey item, often triggers a bite response which is typically followed by an eating response. So we have determined that hognose snakes are determining prey items, in this case, fish scented pinkies, by smell.

So, I believe that the right question is to ask "What is it in fish odors that triggers a feeding response?" instead of the wrong question "Why do hognose like fish?". Obviously, hognose don't "like" fish per se as, has been pointed out many times, fish are not part of their natural diet and I doubt they can determine a fish from a frog based on appearances alone. But it's highly possible that there is a chemical scent in fish that either is identical or similiar to some of the natural scents found in prey items of hognose and other snakes that do in fact trigger a feeding response.

The key now is to try and determine just what that chemical is that can be found in both fish and other natural prey items. I first looked up information on fish odors and so far have come up with two chemicals that can also be found in amphibians, Trimethylamine (Google reference)and Choline (Google reference).

Now, whether or not either of these two chemicals are in fact the cause of triggering a feeding response from hognose using fish as a scent is uncertain and is pure conjecture on my behalf, but I do believe that it is research pointed in the right direction and worth further investigation.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Your right, of course its something in the tuna/salmon, and yes, its triggered by smell. I think everyone knows that.

And your very right, its all about asking the right question. Its always about the right question.

A good question is, why do some problem hognose, take Tuna/salmon scented, over toad scented pinkies? Which means taking something scented by an unnatural scent over a normal natural scent. Why didn't the snake take toad scented? That is the question. Troys direction is looking at a scent common to both toads and fish. yet the individual snakes may have refused toad scented. That did occur here with albino westerns(after they arrived here) they did move to live unscented rodents very quickly. (questions to be asked here too)

Normally, when healthy, western hognose do take toads and pinks. And eggs, and several other prey items(I offerred earthworms from in the field to several hogs and all readily consumed them)

You can ask, are rodents a normal prey item? That can be argued. They most likely are a fringe item. That is, they are consumed, but not a major part of their diet.

I would wonder, would it be a healthy behavior for a neonate hognose(4 to 5 inches long) to invade a wild rodent nest?(thats were pinkies are) I would think that would be very deterimental to the health of the hognose. So its possible that neonate hognose would shy away from the scent of rodents until they are large enough to protect themselves. That is also something to question. As in, it may be very normal for hognose to shy away from rodents, particularly if they are not capable of defending themselves.

Again, the right question, I would think it would be wise to follow normal trouble shooting techniques, and that is simplist things first.

I would think that the first question would be, are we supporting the REPTILE(ectotherm) in a way that supports its natural range of behaviors/abilities? as you know, this is what I question, first and foremost(including my own efforts)

If you look at hognose, they are basically a food sack, a big head, thick body that holds lots of food. And in nature, they feed like pigs(hahahahahaha) So the question is, why are they not feeding like pigs in captivity. Most feed well, but I will say, its rare to see the type of prey aggression that you see in nature.

If you can duplicate that feeding aggression, there would be no need to use tuna/salmon scents. Thats my thought. (prevention over treatment)

In a loose way, your(Troys) reply assumes that those supporting conditions are standard(in captivity) and not to be questioned. Instead of coming up with a way to prevent this problem, Troy is looking at it in a way to treat the problem.

I suggest the first step(question) is to prevent the problem, and if that cannot be done, then treat the problem. So yes Troy, its all about the right question and the simplist question.

Which is, are we keeping these animals in a way that supports their natural abilities. Feeding, is about the strongest and most important natural ability. If they are picky in nature, they are GONE, erased, absent, etc. So they always live in places that supports feeding, or they simply would not be there.

There are behavioral concerns, such as prey specialization. Its clear in nature, they(many reptiles, including hognose) specialize on prey blooms. Such as toads. When toads metamorph, there can be millions upon millions of them. Then hogs hit toads hard, particularly the neonate hogs. Until the toads are no longer abundant. Then they move on to other prey. On my site, that was lizards. How this works is very different then how we keep them(you can ask questions you know)

Of interest, adult hogs did not regain lost weight in the toad season. So my question is, is there another prey source that supports adults? one during the summer, before the toads(rainy season) Like nestlings, eggs, etc(birds, reptiles, rodents). A common source of energy with most colubrids. I hope to find this out soon, of course, It may take years. Cheers

A field observation from two days ago.

http://youtu.be/QnoJgmqm_Kg

Sorry for the earthquake, its a telephoto cam, taken from distance. No tripod. and I suck. Thanks for the conversation

You may also consider the fact that picky neonates are probably not surviving in the wild.

Just because "wild adult hogs eat well", does not mean all wild hatchlings do. A large percentage of each clutch dies in the first year of life. How can you be sure those deaths are not related to a hog being picky about food, or because a hatchling refused to eat food when I came across it?

Unless you are digging up nests and using telemetry and other devises to monitor the babies as they hatch, you cannot be sure how many survive, or how many die, or why the die.

If you are claiming to do this, the where are your research papers on neonate hognose appetites in the wild versus in captivity? How can you prove to your audience that pickyness is a problem that only affects captive snakes?

You can't prove it. Not without more research. So don't make generalizing statements about wild snake behavior when you don't know.

You can't be 100% sure that the first year mortality rate is not affected by pickyness in wild hogs. And if you claim to have proof, lets see the research papers.
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4.4.4 Western Hognose
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 Everglades Rat Snake

I have witnessed a tendency for some snakes to have a hard time adjusting when their environment has changed regardless of the generality of environmental conditions being met. The best advice I can give is to give the snake time to adjust and better yet, don't try so hard to get the snake to eat by offering it food so often. Most healthy snakes, hognose included, can fast 30-60 days with no real detrimental effect. However, it's a common problem with people new to hognose to offer them food too frequently when the animal is in no mood to eat, this can often lead to the animal being turned off completely and just getting pissy every time food is offered. If your snake is healthy and adequate weight for it's size, I would only offer it food every 7-10 days for 2-3 weeks and only after a month of non-eating would I consider scenting. It's also possible that your snake might be going into the shedding process which can alter a snakes eating behavior, sometimes 2 weeks in advance prior to going into blue.

The bottom line is patience. If your snake was eating unscented before, it will most likely eat unscented again. The best advice I can give you is to not move it anymore from housing to housing so it can adjust to one place and to just give it more time between offering food.

Hope that is helpful.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

I totally agree. That also applies to many other types of captive snakes, and I have seen it many times myself.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

We've chatted a bit about this via email. I was posting this because it seemed to be dying down. I've had this girl since October and she's doing fantastic now. Just wanted to see other people’s thoughts on my question.

Feeding 7-10 days never came to mind when feeding my neonates. I only ever did that for my juvies. Even longer for my adults.

The only thing frustrating for me now is wasting feeders. Just about all my sub/adults are either fasting, pre-lay, breeding, or thinking about breeding. Even my bottomless pit, monster female went off feeding and finally started nesting. I learned a long time ago not to thaw out all the food at once. I go 1/3 at a time and trickle down feeders that were not eaten in a timely manner: Hog>Alterna>Corn>Monster Female Hog

That's what I do. Most of my snakes are predictable. The picky ones, though, if they're out of quarantine I offer their food to the next. It's that awful time of year, fortunately I haven't had to throw a rodent away for about a year or so.

If there's ever a moment you have nobody to give the rodent to, this of course means it's time to buy another snake. LOL

Just yesterday I threw away 5 hoppers. It usually isn't that big of an issue previously because if it happened I would take them to the pet store and feed them off to which ever breeder snake was due to eat.

Troy hit the nail on the head. I have had hatchlings go for a scent, refuse that same scent another two feedings or so, go for a different scent, and that is what takes them past the scenting phase. Hard to say if it is on account of me, as I do not use a scenting method that is 100% consistent for every pink I scent, but it has happened a time or two.

Good luck,
Ross Couvillon