Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everybody. New to this forum. I was recommended to come here from another forum and was told that it was a great place to get husbandry info on hognose snakes so I thought I'd give it a try. I am not use to this type of layout on a forum so I'm not sure if I'm starting a new thread or if I'm replying to an already existing thread lol.

I'm hoping I can get some info on getting my western hognose switched over to F/T. I just got mine a few days ago from my brother and she eats live. I've offered her frozen but she wont take. Shes about 12-14" and on fuzzies. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks

Hi, ya I have problems feeding mine frozen too.....she never takes them until I heat them up

A trick I've learned is if you take a live fuzzy, feed it to her and while she's eating it place f/t fuzzy near her mouth while she's eating the 1st. Also if that doesn't work, a good work around is while she's eating the 1st take your tongs or what ever and kinda force the f/t fuzzy in her mouth while she's eating the 1st one. Sorta like one long fuzzy

I've had success with doing it this way.....also my Rosy was very much only live....she was most difficult switching it might take a few feedings. Good luck and update us on how it goes!

Hi and thank you for the reply, Austin.

That does seem like a good way to get her to take the F/T but will she ever take them on her own from using this method?

I'm actually going though this with my Rosy, she has taken 2 f/t only after being given a live one. Two different feedings that is.

Depending on how often you're feeder her might make a difference also....since she as you say 12 or so inches, she's got enough weight on her to go a while without eating.

Have you tried giving her some time without food to see if that helps? Depending on how warm her environment is also affects her hunger response. There are many people around that pretty much cook their snakes to get them to eat...IMO, that's crazy! What I mean is they keep their snakes at temperatures that are so high that to be able to survive they have to eat....and probably would eat f/t even if they had only ever eaten live before. Again, that's just my opinion. Not judging how others do it, just stating what I've read and others talking about this. I'm sure the Zombies will come after me for the above statement,(inside joke) lol...

If she's taking live and she's doing well, I would try f/t right after a live one....see if she takes it....usually after eating something they still have a good feeding response to eat more.

As stated by Johnathon they are all different, you might have one that just wont convert...time will tell gl!

I've only had since Sunday and she ate a live fuzzy with no problems. I haven't her much time without food. Are you talking about the basking temp or ambient temp? I do offer higher then usual basking temps but she has a place to escape from it and use lower temps.

I think I will try offering her a F/T after she takes a live one.

Is that one yours?
He looks great but mine is better

She was angry in that pic from a couple days ago.

I'm was referring to ambient temps that many keep theirs at. I think it's excessive for anyone to keep them much above 80-82 ambient.....on the cool end anything 70 or so.....again imo!

How often are you feeding her?

Yes that's one of mine.....I have two.

Great picture by the way.....what a look! Love it!

What is that substrate you are using? Looks wet to me....just curious.....

I've been messing around with some pvc ends to make a type of Jungle Gym......mine love to crawl though the maze and it's easy to make different paths to give em something new to explore.....at times it can be difficult to know exactly where they are.....but taking them apart is easy.

I'm using a mix of childrens washed play sand and organic top soil. Its wet in the picture because I just gave it a quick spray. It stays nice and dry on top and moist at depth. She will be fed weekly.

You don't need the top soil. Play sand is fine, but could use some silt. If your going to thicken up the sand, I would recommend that coco stuff that comes in bricks. 75% sand to 25% coco stuff.

These are pics of wild hognose burrows. As you can see the sandy ground has no organics. In the field, the hogs make a point of living only where the substrate(ground/earth) is non organic.
While we keepers can debate this and that all we want. When left to their own accord, the snakes must have reason for the choices they make.

Whats fun is to test different mixes and substrate types, and see what works best for you and your hognose. Testing both substrate type and depth is interesting and fun. Best wishes

FR, I'm guessing their natural burrows aren't as strong as I'm thinking? They seem pretty loose from what you say and the pic.

I'm messing around with sand and eco-earth right now.

I am not sure what you mean by strong. Hognose do not use a burrow, over and over, like they make one for future use. They are more like an earthworm. When make burrows all the time and daily. This is one of the odd(different) aspects I learned about hogs. Watching them in the field is very educational.

I still am learning lots and lots, but all their odd behaviors are closely tied to this life like an earthworm. How they swallow, how they hunt, their defensive behaviors, and their supreme success in the right habitat.

ALso the way the make burrows. They only dig to start a burrow or better yet, tunnel. Then they push forward then compress their bodies which pushes the material to the sides and compresses the sand at the sides of the tunnel, this packs the sides and allows it to last for a bit.

In captivity, moisture allows the sand to keep its shape, totally dry sand or substrate, will not pack and hold its shape. Slit which is fine material, also helps sand hold its shape.

In the field badgers helped me understand this. As they male large burrows, they tend to make a series of short burrows, maybe two feet deep. They must be digging something up. Anyway, if you look into those burrows, you can see hog tunnels all over. They enter in the sides, bottom, top, where ever the hog was headed, it would pop into the badger burrow.

Anyway the point is, you do not have to provide a substrate that holds burrows for REUSE. As they normally make new ones, as its normal procedure. Deep down, they will reuse chambers and some burrows. I hope this helps

Wow, thank you very much for the info. And yes by "strong" I meant burrows that last a while and can be re-used as well as burrows that wont collapse easily.

Ok FR, I mixed eco-earth and play sand.

http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii600/poison619/DSC01874_zps6e4a8fe0.jpg

http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii600/poison619/DSC01873_zps102b9451.jpg

http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii600/poison619/DSC01882_zps34fcd1d8.jpg

I would really like to go out and dig up similar substrate like in your pic but I don't think I've ever seen that type out here in San Diego. Most is hard packed.

I don't think you would have a problem finding it in the San Diego area. As a SoCal boy myself, I have some experience.

In your area, I would look in dry washs, they separate sand, slit and have areas with mixed sand and slit.

going inland a bit would make it easy. ALso around one of your many estuaries, up away from the marshy areas. Again, I hope this helps.

That PVC pipe "jungle gym" thing is interesting. I might have to give that try. Right now I'm using paper towel tubes to make tunnel crawl spaces for mine.

reako45

Credit goes to Discern777, I got the idea from seeing him using a piece in his inclosure. Since they like to be underground so much, it just made sense to give them something to be able to hide in. Only thing I want to change is the color, the white is unappealing. The parts are so easy to clean though....that helps. The pieces also add height for other items I use.

One thing I find that is interesting is they tend to have a favorite part of the structure they will stay in the most. Thermal regulating I guess.....I'll post some photos one of these days....

A couple of things, first, that hog appears to be a male. And one that was not fed well when young. (only going by the pic)

Also the cage appears wet, and hogs not not fans of wet. They like dry and humid.

And ambient temps are a bit more important with hogs then some other species. As they spend most/much of their life in the ground. Ambient temps up to the high eighties are fine for growth and feeding. If you want your hog to grow, then ambients in the high eighties are great. You just have to feed often, daily every other day type of thing.

Once they are adult size, you can use a lower ambient. Best wishes

What makes you say male? And what makes you say he wasn't fed well? His body shape seems nice and round to me. I'll post another pic.

In the photo I just got done giving the cage a quick spay so it was moist. It is now dry on top.

I will also try upping the ambient temp and hope it will increase his feeding response to the point where he will take f/t.

Yes and I did say, from the picture, as that's all I have. But from that picture, it has without question a male tail. Males and females, tails are radically different. Females taper quickly and are very short, males are long and stay the same for a distance.

About its weight, again, its only from the pic. ITs head is not full. like a normal or FAT hog. ITs sort of wilted. And for a hog, a bit skinny.

I have far more experience in the field with hogs, then in captivity. In the field, I call some, short string hogs, those are ones that do not have much time left to find food. A bit skinny, hollow, wilted heads, etc. They need to find food quickly or they are done. Others, full heavy, stocky, etc, And of course everything inbetween. Yours has the look of a short stringer individual(from that pic) Also, with males, like yours looks in the picture, the tail diameter is the same as the lower body, when thin. With healthy fatter individuals, the lower body is larger then the tail. In the field, I have many methods to determine health, and visually is only a small part. So it could be just the picture. Also consider, low in weight is not to be confused with a sick individual. Low body weight animals, respond quickly to food. Sick individuals do not. So all it may take is a couple of good meals and its on the road again.

"He looks great but mine is better

She was angry in that pic from a couple days ago."

Yours looks like the model they made that ET creature after! Look at that face!

How she doing now? Eating better?

oops forgot the photo!

Another thing I've tried and had success with is using a small box and placing the fuzzy or whatever in it for the snake to find, within the tub or whatever you are keeping the hog in...... without worry of substrate contamination. I just leave the pink or fuzzy overnight and usually it's gone by morning.

I tried clear boxes first without success, then I switched to colored boxes, the green works at night, but the purple one works best. I'm sure a completely black box would work also....but the dollar store only had 4 colors.

I drilled the holes instead of using a soldering iron, which accounts for the breaks in the plastic....don't think the Hogs will mind Cutting the door opening was with a razor knife...I just made sure all the sharp edges were gone.

hello,

ime, most westerns will switch to f/t fairly easily. i have 10 that all eat f/t with easily now. some slam it off tongs, and some have to have it laying in the cage overnight. i do have one that was a picky feeder and took about 6 months. now she slams f/t regularly. i have a male, that will only eat live, and he is about 9 months. eats every time even in shed, but only live. they are all individuals...

i have weaned a couple off. i started by offering fresh killed off tongs. let them get used to feeding regularly off of them. maybe 4 or 5 meals, and then try switching to f/t. you might also try scenting a f/t with fresh mouse bedding. if they take that, then scent less and less.

keep us posted...

jonathan

Thank you as well, Jonathan.

How does your live feeder handle his prey? Ever been wounded? I know these guys have adapted to handle live prey in the wild but I would still think the chance of them getting injured is higher then that of a contrictor.

I do have some pine bedding that I will use to scent the F/T.

Thanks

no, he has never been bitten. i feed him fuzzies. i hold it with tongs and he takes it off them.

you mentioned that it had only been a couple of days... missed that at first... i would give it time as well. i have gotten some hogs that ate the same day or within a couple days of arriving. i have several others that took literally a couple weeks to start feeding.

take it slow and don't sweat it as long as they look healthy and have good weight. provide a tight hide, good temps, and fresh water. i would give it a couple days to a week without holding or messing with it to let them settle. then try sticking in a f/t in the evening and leave it over night. then go from there...

Thanks for the info

She did take a live mouse the first day I got her to my house so she is a good feeder as far as live go's. Maybe I should wait until I see her hunting for food. Then toss in a F/T. And she does have nice and tight hides. In fact she makes her own. I haven't seen her since early yesterday. She has tunnels going all throughout the enclosure.

Nice, letting hogs be hogs, great job.
Heres a picture of those same holes in nature with wild hogs.

Again thanks for the wonderful picture of how you let yours behave naturally. I would say use hides, but that's not what they do, They do whats in your picture.

Thank you very much, FR. I actually got this idea from a member of another forum (I believe hes also a part of this forum) who showed me some of your posts on here a couple years ago. I also keep my other ground dwelling snakes this way (corn and a beauty rat). I think your technique is amazing . Its 100x better then keeping them in racks and learning nothing about thier natural behaviour.

No offence to those who use racks.

Its not my technique, its the hogs, they have been doing it a while. I have only been on this forum for 15 months or so.

Anyway, Please keep reporting how they respond to that type setup.

So far, and its always so far, the westerns use deep substrate well and do come up often, almost daily. Some of the Mexicans, go down and that is the end of that.

If I am so lucky to produce some baby Mexicans, I am going to test a raise up bin with deep dirt. Kinda like I would do with neonate varanids. That is, keep a handful in one cage and just toss in food and see how they respond.

As it is, putting WC hogs in deep dirt is funny, they use it as an escape hatch. AS of now, I do not have long term captives. So maybe they will give it up and act normal after a few years.

On here, doing something like that is like throwing the bible on the ground and stomping it. As you said, its fun. And I find it hard to believe that folks do not like to have fun.

ALso if you use cleaner sand/sand mix, your hogs will stay cleaner. In the field, they do not use substrates with plant material in it. They always pick pure silty sandy soils. I have lots of pics where half or part of a free ranging snake is tinted with silt. But never the dark plant material from commercial mixes. At least on my main site. still looking at other sites. But, in captivity, your mix works great, other then looks.

Anyway keep up with the fun and learning and post it. In the 15 or so months I have come to this site, your the first to test that or the first to admit testing that. hahahahahahahaha

Anyway, I use time lapse cams in the field, and when I set up that test raise up cage, I will record it. Thanks so much

I have a large female that only wanted live for a while as well. I would feed her rat pups which were as large as small adult mice, but presented no threat of injury to her. Only drawback was the cost, $2 as pop... er pup. She eats f/t now w/ no problem.

reako45

Picked up a nice female recently. Took df fuzzies from original breeder, but in my place live fuzzies was all she accepted. She now accepts df rat pinks. When warm weather arrives will try the hopper mice df. The bigger they get, the less particular they are, it seems.