Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello. In my quest to understand hogs, I am keeping a few and trying different tools to test their behavior.

As some know, I asked here, is anyone keeping hogs in a hognose way. I recieved no answers. The actual truth is, and should of been asked was, what is a hognose way? The first thing I would point out is the HOGNOSE, nose, hahahahahahaha

We all know, or should know, you can keep snakes in ways totally foreign to them and have them exsist. I have to ask, what fun is that and why would you want that?

As I have posted, their natural habitt and enviornment, is sandy and barren, except for a few small bushes.

THis is natural habitat.

Please consider, when testing, you do not just throw junk in cages and think your going to all of a sudden have answers.

So I started with a base snake cage, 4' long, by 2' deep and 2' high. Sawdust in the bottom, and retes stacks on both the cool end and warm end. With a wide range of temps to choose from.

The snakes established a pattern of choosing cool and warm and acted normally, and feeding normally, except the male, who will not feed as long as he is IN with the female. I remove him and he feeds right off. Otherwise, he attends the female to no end.

As I mentioned in the past, I would add and test as time goes by. So I just added a box of sandy soil to one end.

Here is the male going down. ITs a bad pic, as there are burrows all over the box, some have been blocked by pushing dirt up from in the burrow.

The way the lite is, you cannot see the other burrows, I will take better pics soon.

The box is on the cool end, I will see how they use it. Then I will add another box on the warm end.

As of now, they went in the dirt, and they may abandon their normal behavior of moving from cool to warm in lew of their new natural security. By adding a box on the warm end, it may bring their behavior back to normal. Time will tell.

What is important is, as keepers, we must learn as we go. Not just assume this or that(prejudice what we do).

Snakes are NATURAL, that is, everything physical and behavioral is directly developed in nature. But they also learn, so when testing, you should address both inherent and learned aspects of natural snakes. Thanks

This shows the holes made by the hognose.

While this may not be exciting to most keepers, for a field herper, to know what their holes look like is very important. Not kinda what they look like, EXACTLY what they look like.

Consider, when looking at their habitat, there are many holes made by many kinds of mammals, box turtles, other snakes, lizards etc. But to Know what hognose holes look like. Its easy, just use the same dirt they use and the holes will be the same.

Heres the female underground.

This picture is important because they do not stay on the side where there is lite, but will stay on the dark side. Next test is to cover the lite side and see if they burrow up against it. Cheers

thanks for posting this.

I wish more people would take the time to figure out what is ideal for the snake rather than what will work for the snake.
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