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Baby western hognose keeps biting?

RachelSnakes

RachelSnakes

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I have a baby female western hognose that I feed F/T pinkies every 4 days. I also have an adult male whom I have had since 2010 and he has never bit me. The baby female bit me 4 times in about 60 seconds of handling her but I did not let her "chew" because of the rear fangs. The next day she bit me 2 more times. I was going to sell her but today I handled her and even showed her to people in my family who are not into snakes and she only tried to bite when I first picked her up and then was fine the rest of the time. I had a female in the past that would bite me all the time and I got rid of her. She would even "attack" my hands when I went to change her water dish.

Sorry for the long post but I am trying to give all the details.... my main point and question is will she stop the biting or will she end up like the other one I got rid of after several months of trying to tame her and she kept biting? Has anyone else experienced this with western hogs??
 
Yes, I have several "assertive" adult females and have been bitten several times by them, mainly due to me being careless around them.

My own personal observations from within my collection is that the females that are more prone to biting is not because of aggressiveness but more or less out of feeding responses (even if they just ate). But then again, I've been bitten by males that also have aggressive feeding responses, it's just that females are typically far larger than males and seem to have a higher metabolism.

In my opinion, "aggressiveness" in hognose is a completely different response resulting in hooding, hissing, closed-mouth head butting and musking. I've even had some that can literally spray musk over a foot away directed at your face, and these "shooters" have always been neonates at barely 10-15 grams! But it seems that over time, they usually stop with that "shooting" kind of behavior and if they are still prone to musking, it's usually all over themselves or in your hand. Having said all of that though, I quoted the word aggressiveness because in most cases, it's really an act of defensiveness which can easily be rectified by slow careful handling of more nervous individuals.

Being that your female is still a baby, I would bet that her biting is more akin to a feeding response due to her going through a growth spurt, this could come and go or it can go on until they reach young adulthood. In my collection, it's those rare individuals that never grow out of it. ;) So just be patient and keep feeding that hungry happy mouth. I'd rather have an aggressively feeding hognose than one that is more passive and prone to hunger strikes any day of the week! :thumbsup:

All in all, it's an individual personality thing. I have some hogs that will slowly crawl right up to me and into my hands and seem to enjoy being touched and held while others, well, they are a little more active and not to be trusted to unwary hands if you know what I mean.

I hope that is helpful for you. :)
 
Thanks so much for the reply! I just fed her today (the pic is a couple weeks old). She has never musked me, hooded up, or hissed. It seems that she is not agressive then just a little bottomless pit that is always hungry and maybe my hands look like pinky mice to her LOL
 

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Yeah, she looks like she's at that stage where they go through a huge growth spurt and have ravenous appetites. Almost every female I have that gets that size always comes after me when I open their tubs with their mouths wide open. If I didn't find it so endearing of hognose, it would actually be quite jarring, to have those wide open mouth coming straight at you!!! :eek:

In my collection, hooding is actually a very rare event, with only a small handful of adult individuals that actually do it on a semi-regular basis. It's a shame that it's not a common event as it's actually quite an awesome display even though it pales in comparison to a cobra hooding, it's still cool for a colubrid!

Here's our beloved Twix showing me who's boss!

twix-hooding-08092011-b.jpg
 
Woah, that's a beautiful snake and a great picture! My 09 male hognose hisses and throws a fit when he doesn't want to eat and I offer him food. He hoods a little while hissing but not like that. Last time I weighed the little female she weighed 9 grams, and that was 5 F/T pinkies ago. I wish they would hood more often too. Haha
 
Thank you!

Twix is generally the same way, if you offer her food when she doesn't want it, there goes the hood with lots of hissing and some occasional head strikes if I don't remove the food right away. She's my only female that hoods like that and for that reason alone. I have 2 males that regularly hood, one we affectionately nick-named Cobra, not only because he hoods (although his hooding isn't as pronounced as Twix's) but because he actually used to coil and holds his neck straight up like a cobra; he's become lazy over the years and now just hisses and actually jumps around when it's feeding time until he decides to stop giving me a show and finally eat.

For me, this has always been the appeal of hognose snakes over most other commonly kept species, they are just way too unique in all of the things they do and they all have such interesting and wonderful personalities. For all of the years that I've kept Corns and Kings and Balls, they've all acted pretty much the same, but hogs..., they are quite different in my eyes!

Another thing that they do, but rarely in captivity, is when they play dead...

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The only time I ever witness this is usually within the first week they hatch out, after that, they figure out that you are not really that much of a threat and that it's much more effective to musk you than to play dead. Silly hognose snakes! :rofl:
 
I think hogs are my favorite colubrid to keep. I love their personality quirks too. Lol. The playing dead is probably the only time we get to see those awesome black or mostly black bellies! Thanks again for the help!
 
I have an albino girl who bit everything when she was small even herself! It seemed more like she was testing everything to see if she could eat it. She is 190 grams now and no longer bites me or herself only her f/t mice.
 
It was crazy, I was holding her by the middle (to keep from getting bit) and she nosed her own midsection and slowly opened her jaw and clamped down on her self...took her like five seconds to let go. She always bit very slowly, she'd nose whatever it was and then NOM!!
 
I think its weird how no care sheet I ever read on western hogs mentions their "bitty phase" as babies. I think it is important even though I guess not all go through it just mostly females.
 
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading this thread and learning more about the spunky personalities of these adorable little snakes! thank you all for sharing
 
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