• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Baby female hognose feeding advice

D

Dardin

New member
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
Messages
15
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Indianapolis, IN
Hi everyone...I'm hoping I can get some advice on my baby female western hognose. Currently she is about 7" and weighs 10-11 grams.

I have an almost 2 year old male hog that weighs ~70 grams and is about 18". He eats every 5 days ( when he's not fasting for a month or two) on fuzzies that are around 10% of his body weight and he does great....he's docile, healthy, curious and honestly spends most of the day out of his cage if I'm home...

Ok, so now I get the baby female and she is literally the polar opposite....hissy, open mouth strikes, and constantly on the hunt for food. I can barely handle her without her latching on to a finger to bite it. So...I said let me up her food. She's a female, which grow faster and larger than a male, so I started her on 2g pinkies every 4 days, which is 20% of her body weight!

She ate yesterday morning, and already she is roaming...and when I got in there to change the water, she attacked my pinky finger and was trying to work it down until I finally ( gently) pried her off.

So my questions to everyone are 1) should I be giving her even bigger prey/ offering her more than 1? And 2) how often is too often to feed her?

I am keeping her in a 12x12x12 exo Terra, at the same temps as my male - 78-80 ambient during the day with a hotspot of around 88 with low humidity. Should I cool her down maybe? I would hate to do that and she get an RI, but maybe someone has a different experience with a female of this species.

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
Considering how much trouble I have getting some of my hogs to eat you should be thankful! :p

Every animal is going to be different, if she's constantly looking for food then I would give her more. Unless she starts to look obese I think it would be a great situation. I think it's generally good to feed hogs twice a week when they're growing, but with her you might consider even more. I have some hogs that will take 2-3 mice in a sitting, it's completely dependent on the snake.

Another thing might just be getting her used to you handling her versus feeding her, right now she might associate you with a meal and automatically go into eat mode. Baby animals always need some amount of "training", I have a feeling that as she ages she'll calm down much more and realize that seeing you means more than just food.
 
Also, I don't think cooling her is the solution. I would simply up her frequency of eating, she's growing and has a high metabolism.
 
Thanks for replying Nick. Yeah I know how lucky I am, I raised a baby boy hognose who ate maybe 20 times his whole first year! Luckily my exotic vet also has a male hog and checked him out and told me to be patient. I was used to boas who eat anything you put in front of them, so it was a learning experience for sure. After he hit a year old he started eating regularly and growing like a weed.

I'm going to try and get her to every 3 days, and give her two 1 gram pinkies at a time and see if that makes her feel more "full". The breeder did feed her off tongs, so you are probably right that she is expecting to be fed with a dangling pinky, and my fingers look too good.

I'm hoping that it also improves her attitude a bit, cuz right now she's just mean! Lol, but I love her. All my snakes were skittish as babies, but she takes the cake.
 
Back
Top