Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know it's common for hognose to go off feed in the winter. I have a male that hasn't eaten in 2 months. He's not losing a bunch of weight and he is super active. I've heard of people putting electrolytes in their water when they go off feed. Would this help him out or is it a bad idea or waste of time?

Snakes do not sweat. They do not urinate. They excrete uric acid.
They are moisture conserving and can survive arid regions as well as humid ones. If your snake starts getting wrinkled and losing weight give him a soak in warm water. His electrolytes should be fine.

Thanks for the response. What about vitamins? Seems like he would need something cosidering how active he is.

Theoretically he would not need vitamins. However not being outside to have sun light and a varied diet he could have a need for some added nutrition. About once a month I will drag the mouse over a small spot of vitamin powder with D3 for reptiles. Some hogs will reject the prey if the scent is altered making vitamin addition difficult at times.

My take on the hydration thing is this: if your caging allows the snake to conserve water, then you do not need electrolytes added. Do not use distilled water ever - no minerals. Added electrolytes once in awhile never hurts of course, it is just not needed when caging is correct.

Cages that allow snakes to conserve moisture are basically cages that limit ventilation. Glass cages with full screen tops do not allow snakes to conserve moisture as well unless you provide a humid hide (at least true where I live in the southwest). Screen tops generally suck. (Those petco snake kits suck in that regard.)

I have been "testing" the usage of vitamins. I have various snakes of different species that I have done occasional vitamin dusting of their food, and I have some animals that I did not. I dust all with calcium however, a very light dusting of the food. Health-wise I cannot see much difference, but I will say this - the vitamin-laden snakes do seem to have slightly enhanced coloration. Certain colors like red and yellow seem to stand out a bit more. At first I thought it was just individual differences, but now I think there is a trend.

Works for birds, so why not reptiles? Since I know nothing about what causes color in reptiles vs birds, I could be wrong here.

Thanks for the advice. I have them all in a rack. My concern was one of my males didn't eat for 3 months and was wondering if I needed to add anything to his water while he wasn't eating since he was staying so active. However, having said that, he finally took a mouse yesterday so not an issue anymore thanks again.

You are correct in thinking the hognose snake gets his minerals from his food and not his water. The variety of minerals in his normal diet far surpasses any minerals that he might get from water. Much of wild hognose snakes water is soaked up by body
in contact with moisture and no minerals acquired. I used distilled water for several years because evaporation leaves no scale in the watering device ; a plus unless you are using disposable cups.
.

Valid points - snakes do not sweat and therefore lose minerals as fast as say humans do, snakes typically do not drink much water anyway. I must agree the logic seems to stand.

If you look on the web (so it must be true...) there are as many pro-distilled water articles as there are anti-distilled water articles. All say that distilled water raises acidity.

I'll stick to filtered water for herps, you can do your distilled. But now I am wondering what I should drink? lol Apparently softdrinks often use distilled water because carbon is more easily absorbed in distilled. That is why softdrinks offer no minerals, and that is a complaint by doctors besides the chemicals and sugar.