Hognose Behaviour & Eating

Early this year I moved my W Hognose from her 20 gallon terrarium into a Vision cage, measuring 36"x28"x18". As soon as I set her up, I fed her in the cage. She readily took two fuzzies and everyting seemed OK. Now she doesnt want to do anything anymore. She spends all day under her log resting, then she will crawl around during the evening to see whats going on, and try to escape. She will readily allow me to handle her, and I do often, but she doesnt seem to be interested in food anymore. She has refused food since early February, but otherwise seems to be in good health. She readily drinks water too. In the past two years I've had her, she has always gone off feed during the winter, and has always resumed promptly, until now.

I have an undertank heater covering the left side of the terrarium , and the temp reads from 89 - 93 in the middle, with the temps lowering into the 80's towards the center of the cage. She has been a picky eater all of her life, but now she is starting to worry me a little bit.

Are you sure she's a she? If it's a three year old snake and a male he is most likely just maturing now and looking for love. My male doesn't eat for several weeks after the females start. With my babies they all eat all winter and show no signs of stopping come spring time.

Double check the sex. If it is a female she may be ovulating. Can you post a picture of the ventral side of the tail as full body shot? That might help too.

Wes Pollock

Originally posted by wilomn
Are you sure she's a she? If it's a three year old snake and a male he is most likely just maturing now and looking for love. My male doesn't eat for several weeks after the females start. With my babies they all eat all winter and show no signs of stopping come spring time.

Double check the sex. If it is a female she may be ovulating. Can you post a picture of the ventral side of the tail as full body shot? That might help too.

Wes Pollock

I bought her as a she, but I'll work on that pic once I figure out how to take a decent photo. It might also be time for a new camera too.

I won't be able to post a pic anytime soon because I lack the funds needed to buy a decent camera, all I have is a half dead Polaroid. I also don't really think there is any reason to doubt that she is indeed a she because I got her from Kevein Minena when he was looking to drop his hognose project a couple of years back.

She just shed, but still hasnt eaten.

She resumed eating. What really caught me was that there was a very attrocious odor comming from my reptile shelving area. Thinking it was comming from the dragon cage I cleaned it and the smell still didn't go away. I then checked the snake cage and there was a HUGE clump of feces. It was very normal looking, but it was huge and around the same size as two hoppers lying side by side. The last thing I fed her was a hopper, a few months earlier, but she passed the meal before she stopped eating, or so I thought. The clump she passed was smaller, maybe the size of a quarter. Could it have taken a few months to fully digest? After I cleaned her cage and replaced the substrate, she hungrily gobbled down two fuzzies. She didn't seem to have any other problem with the hopper, other than taking a little long to pass it, but I'm kind of worried about giving her another one.

As you know, hogs can be sporadic feeders. However, given time, they will almost always come around. In my experience, they conserve so much of their food as bulk, they don't need to eat nearly as much as some other species which are more active and burn more energy.
They also seem to tend to begin brumation earlier than other snakes and end a little later.
When they are on feed, however, you can feed them a bunch. In my experience, strong feeding response for W. hognose lasts about 3-6 months and the rest of the year is sporadic at best.
This is all from my limited experience.
Also, youngsters tend to feed less regularly (even in the good months) than adults.