I have some very interesting information that is firsthand. I maintain a collection of reptiles and amphibians for exhibit and program use including several Eastern hognoses that are all eating mice. One of them is a 2-year-old that is supposedly captive bred, but apparently has not gotten used to captivity entirely because it always goes into defensive mode whenever looked at. This includes flattening its neck, false striking, hissing, and defecating. Through my literature research of hognoses, I found just how varied their diet can be, including many invertebrates (see http://www.uga.edu/srel/Reprint/1801.htm). Today my assistant decided to see if this 2-year-old would be interested in crickets. You better believe that she got him to eat two!
Given this snake's defensive tendencies, it is understandably very tactile sensitive. He did not tolerate the cricket climbing on its body at all, so the legs were eliminated. From there, the same procedure was followed as when it is fed pinkies: the cricket was held in front of its mouth with small hemostats until he stopped hissing. At that point my assistant recognized that he was reverting to us feeding mode and slowly opened his mouth and swallowed the cricket. Using this same method, he consumed a second cricket but was not interested in a third.
I would like to point out that we also have a another Eastern Hognose that has been with us for over ten years and will readily consume frozen thawed bull minnows.
With the continuous debate over the diets of hognoses, and Eastern's in particular, I hope that this is further proof that their varied diet in the wild predisposes them to accepting other food items other than toads in captivity.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)
