Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a Western Hognose that I puchased at an Expo 2 years ago. He is an enthusiastic feeder, often devouring 3-5 mice a week. His growth has been rapid, from the small deli cup size, to about 20 inches long. The vendor I bought him from said to heat him & watch him grow...he certainly has flourished. I have noticed something weird, however...he prefers to eat his mice from the backend first. Is this normal? It seems to present some weirdly angled back legs in the frozen/thawed hoppers he's now eating. Any input or opinions?

That's not an uncommon feeding behavior. I attribute it to hognose not being able/willing to constrict their prey, so they whip around and attack from behind. Of course not all do this in captivity, but in the wild they are eating far different prey items than mice which can drastically alter their behaviors.

While it's not unheard of, a 20" male is a rather large specimen. Are you sure it's not a female? At that size, you can easily tell the difference of the length of the tail between the sexes. But then again, it sounds like you are feeding it a lot, so if it is a male, that could attribute to it's rather large size.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

thanks for the reply..I guess I just refer to it as a he...I'll check it's tail.I

by the way, how is the tail differentiated?

>>by the way, how is the tail differentiated?

Check out this link for images showing the differences:
Google images: hognose sexing

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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Its absolutely normal for hognose to swallow prey by how they secur e it. The reason is very simple, their nose, They are a snake of soft sandy areas and secure prey that's in the sand. Toads, lizards, etc and as the prey is not in the open, they swallow it as they find it. backwards, sideways, and head first. They will go headfirst if they have to. In most cases its not needed.
Males have tails that are much longer then a female. Males also become sexually mature at a very small size, 12 inches or so. But do grow as large as females. The largest male I have seen in the field was 29 inches, which is also the size of the largest females. Out of nearly 300 wild snakes, there were many males over 24 inches. Best wishes

Fr. you seem like the kind of retard that makes kids grow up to hate reptiles I have read literally hundreds of post of your belittling bs and it just baffles me that you continue this [bleep]