Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a juvenile hognose that weights about 13 grams. Today, he tried to eat the blanket on my couch. He was fed a pinky 2 days ago. Am I not feeding him enough? Does this even mean he's hungry?

I would feed him again. Sounds like you got a hog of a hognose 😄

If it is 13 grams and you fed it 2 days prior to the 'incident' and it had not defecated yet, then it would be considered enough. 1-2 appropriately sized food items and then wait until defecation.

Biting the sheets may have been a fluke incident. Nothing to do with the parasite, just phrasing. I use to have a western and I currently keep easterns. Occasionally they will "bite" non-food surfaces as they try to dig into them. Just from pressing into the surface in an attempt to burrow, their mouth will sometimes open as the rostrum pushes against the surface and cause their teeth to snag the surface if it is fibrous like a sheet or piece of clothing. It doesn't happen often, but my western did it once and my easterns a few times.

As far as a feeding strike, this will be a very aggressive attack on whatever the hognose is biting and is usually only triggered by a scent stimulus.

There is no such thing as 2 this or that is enough. If a snake seeks food, its hungry. For a comparison, I watched a wild kennerlyi, eating toads, until they would hang out of its mouth, and it was so full, it was crapping them out at the same time.
Captive conditions normally do not support that ability but its not about the snake or what the snake wants. They want to feed.
Feeding, digesting etc, is without question based on conditions, temps, humidity etc. Wild snakes, feed when very cool, then seek heat to digest what they consumed. The larger the bolus the higher the temps, until the bolus breaks down, then they move to lower temps.
If a snake is hungry, feed it, then observe what happens and go from there. This two items stuff is like following instructions on making a toy plane from a cheap kit. The snakes are more then simple instructions.
About eating non food items, there is a difference between accidentaly getting a tooth caught on a blanket, and attempting to eat a blanket. Its the keepers task to determine which is which.

Hogs do push their faces into what they think is soil with a good amount of force. I could see the mouth being pushed open. On the other hand, hogs are crazy little snakes when it comes to food.

If you said it was a Cal king eating the blanket, I wouldn't have thought twice.