New baby hognose not eating...tips?

I've had a baby western hognose for about a week and a half or so and she has yet to eat for me. I've tried three times to feed her (every time with a frozen thawed pinkie that was heated up in hot water).

The first time I tried to feed her off tongs in a separate container. She reacted defensively towards the food, mock striking at it and hissing.

The second time I initially tried feeding her off tongs (the mouse started leaking some blood so I tried rubbing the blood on her nose, but she still wasn't interested). Then I left the food in the feeding tub with her for awhile, but she ignored it.

The third time (yesterday) I followed the advice of humanmeerkat and left the food in a toilet paper tube in her viv all day. She didn't touch it.

So far she hasn't lost a lot of weight. I weighed her the first day home and she was exactly 10.0 grams. Midway through the first week she was 9.20 grams and then yesterday somehow she had gone back up to 9.50 (my scale is supposed to be really accurate so I'm not sure what happened with the change in weight; maybe I read it wrong the first time?).

The guy at the pet store (who I talked to and definitely knows his stuff) said she was eating like a pig for them. He said she was taking two pinkies at a time sometimes, which is really impressive for such a tiny snake.

My current theories for why she isn't eating:
1) The cage is too bright/too big and it's making her nervous. She went from a smaller than 5 gallon tank at the pet store that was dimly lit to a 10 gallon tank with a heat lamp that is pretty bright. I'm getting an undertank heater today that should hopefully regulate the heat better and allow the tank to stay darker.
2) Maybe the pinkies are too big? The people at the store said she was on pinkies, but maybe they had smaller pinkies than the ones I've been able to buy. How do you know if a pinkie is too big for a snake?
3) Maybe they were overfeeding her at the pet store and she just isn't hungry enough to eat in a new environment yet. She definitely isn't big enough to NEED to eat two pinkies a week.

Anyone else have ideas on what to try? And how long should I wait before I get concerned? How much weight can she lose before it's dangerous? I have a lot of experience with turtles, but this is my first snake so I would love any tips from those of you with more hoggie experience than me. Thanks!

Hi Lauren,

There is the old the paper bag trick I learned about many years ago, seems to work most of the time (not always) but it is worth a try.

Get a small paper bag (lunch bags are the perfect size for a small snake), prep the bag by opening it, then folding the top over 2-3 times, poke a few small holes for air near the top under the fold. Get the pinkie ready, at least room temp or a little warmer.

Put the snake in the bag, drop the pinkie in the bag and fold the top over, secure the top with 'binder clips' (like used with a small stack of paper) or use a stapler and place the bag in the cage or other warm secure location, in case the snake were to get out. I recommend using the binder clips as they are easier to remove and peek inside.

I would leave the bag alone for about 2 hours and then check the results, if that does not work, toss the pinkie, maybe wait a day and repeat the process before bed-time with a fresh/new pinkie and leave her in the bag with the pinky overnight. Again this has usually worked for me, but not always - I think having the snake in such a small area with the prey item and zero distractions helps the process.

If this does work, try doing it for several feedings and then try the tongs again until she seems to finally get comfortable, sometimes snakes can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get used to their new surroundings.

If the bag trick does not work with F/T pinks, I would recommend trying 'live' pinkies until she feeds several times (you can try the bag trick with live pinkies as well) and then go back to trying F/T with tongs.

Hope this helps and works - Good Luck!

You might have better luck scenting the pinkies with toads. I think there are a few other tricks to scenting them, but you'll have to look that part up. Hoggies are finicky eaters at times and mine goes off food sometimes. Just watch the weight, and try scenting tricks on the pinkies.

How often should I try offering? On another forum I had someone recommend that I wait another week before even offering her food again. But it's already been a week and a half since she's eaten and I'm nervous since she's so small.

How long is it safe for a baby hognose to go without eating?

First issue I see is you are housing it in an aquarium. Glass aquariums are very difficult to control temperature and humidity in. They also tend to stress newly acquired snakes as they are exposed on all sides. What are the enclosure temperatures? It is almost impossible to get a proper temperature gradient in a ten gallon aquarium. In many instances poor feeding response is directly linked to improper husbandry.

At this point in life we only have one hognose left as we have drastically downsized our collection but I have never had an issue getting any western hognose snake to eat; be them neonates or adults. My set ups have consisted of shredded aspen bedding, water bowl, small rock, some cork bark, and deli or Tupperware containers with entrance holes drilled in the lids. The containers are filled with sphagnum moss (lightly dampened) and placed in the middle and warm end of the enclosure under the cork bark buried into the bedding.

I house my hognose (28" adult female) in a 1' x 1' x 3' enclosure. Warm side fluctuates a bit between 88-92 and the cool side runs between 76-80 during the day. Night temp is 73- 74 (The room is temperature controlled and maintains a steady temperature for the most part. I no longer cycle any animals as I have ceased breeding operations for some time now).

Many snakes when started off in to large of an enclosure seem to get stressed and have feeding issues. Wrapping the aquarium with a background on three sides as well as providing hiding spots may help alleviate some stress for yours. The last neonate I acquired (actually my son acquired/ rescued it) what set up in a critter keeper (the large rectangular ones) with a heat pad on one side (I sold all of my rack systems a few years ago). We sanded the sides opaque and placed it on top of one of the other large enclosures. The snake (ball python) was housed in this for 3 months until it was on a regular feeding routine at which time it was moved into a 15" x 30" enclosure (for the most part we use a mix of boaphile, neodesha, and custom enclosures that we build for the animals in our collection).

Generally when acquiring new snakes it's best to let them acclimate for 7-10 days before offering food. Some snakes acclimate quicker than others and will accept food sooner, in my experience hognose snakes usually have settled in to their new environment in about 5-7 days and will feed readily. If you offer food and it is rejected wait a week before offering again. Repeated daily attempts to get the snake to eat will only further stress or agitate it. I have also found with hognose snakes they seem to prefer if you leave the food somewhere in the enclosure and leave them be. All but a few of the ones I have kept were defensive towards food offered from hemostats. The approach that worked for me was to leave the feeders (F/T) in the same spot every time food was offered. I place feeders in the middle of the enclosure on the cork bark and let the snake find it on it's own. It's probably also worth pointing out that field studies have found hognose snakes prefer carrion to hunting.

Thanks for the tip about hognose snakes preferring carrion! I'd never heard that before, but it will definitely inform my feeding tactics from now on. Before I had heard that "colubrids hunt by movement instead of heat" so I was worried the snake wouldn't want to take the food if I wasn't moving it with hemostats. Clearly that's not going to be an issue with the hognose.

Right now the temperature is about 89-90 in the basking area and about 80 on the cool end (measured with infared temp gun). I'm using a basking lamp now, but will be getting a UTH on Sunday so hopefully that will help create a greater temperature gradient (and won't require the cage to be so bright which I think might be stressing her). There are lots of hiding places already; aspen to burrow in, a big hollow fake log with lots of nooks and crannies, a thick plant to hide under, and a toilet paper tube. There's definitely not a lot of open space in the tank.

The tank is on top of my dresser in my closet with the door closed for most of the day so I don't think there's a lot of movement or change around the tank that's scaring her. I only open the door at the end of the day for a few hours to observe her, attempt to feed, or change her water. I could try blocking off three sides though.

You're welcome. The reference to colubrids hunting by movement is very broad and generalized. Some are more movement orientated than others, racers and green (Opheodrys) snakes are highly tuned to movement where as corn snakes and king snakes rely on a combination of scent (research: Jacobsons organ) and sight to locate food. It's better to research the particular species habits in their natural habitat than to generalize care routines especially when problems present themselves. That's not to say a generalized care routine cannot be applied successfully to multiple species. Also individual snakes (much like humans and other animals) may act or prefer something outside the normal established husbandry routines for that species of snake. A lot of a successful husbandry routine for any reptile is understanding the animals natural habitat and routines as well as identifying individual preferences if they exist. I think the primary issue with your snake is it hasn't fully acclimated yet. Give it a week unmolested and then try offering food.

While doing field research on ornate box turtles over the summer I encountered a TON of wild western hognose in their natural environment on the Colorado plains. We always found the most on rainy days or during moist times of day when there were also a lot of toads (Woodhouse's and Great Plains) out and about, so I always assumed they were active at those times because they were hunting the toads. So it's interesting to hear that they prefer carrion (and I wonder if this preference shifts depending on the region?). My hoggie is captive bred so I don't know what region she originated in.

I've been trying to otherwise replicate the habitat I observed wild hognoses in, with lots of fake plants for cover, a loose substrate that is good for burrowing, hot temperatures, and bright sunlight (though now it seems the brightness might be stressing her so I think I'll cut back on that). Though obviously I paired this firsthand experience with articles/care sheets written by people who have had success keeping them in captivity.

I used a method that worked pretty well on my hognose, although it is not for the sqeamish. Find a toad or some cricket frogs (in my case both) and humanely euthanize them by putting them in a fridge, and then freezing them. When they are dead, use scissors or a knife to cut the frogs into smallish pieces. Put the pieces in some kind of container and add a tiny amount of water. Put the pinkies you want to feed your HN into the container and freeze it all together. When your ready to feed your HN, thaw it out completely and without touching it, use forceps to tease feed your snake. Try a few times and if it doesnt work, try a method above. Good luck!

I've tried tuna scenting, feeding in a small dark container, feeding in the enclosure braining, and feeding in a paper towel tube. Next time I'm going to feed in a small container with a pinkie cut in half, brained, and tuna scented.

What kills me is that the snake is obviously hungry. She roams around the enclosure as though looking for food, looking up with her tongue flicking. Although she hisses when I put the pinkie in with forceps she approaches it, mock strikes at it a few times, and even touches the tip of her nose to it and licks it. It seems like she is interested every time. Then eventually she freaks herself out and runs away instead of eating it.

I'm so confused. She obviously knows it is food and wants to eat it, but for some reason she doesn't. Is the food too big?