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 #1899918


Wyland2222
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 Need any and all info on western hognose

Ok my grandson wants a western hognose snake, we were all ready to try to find one, until I talked with my breeder ( I have ball pythons), she said they are hard to keep alive........I know nothing about them yet.......any info would be greatly appreciated. Husbandry, she said something about their temps, feeding, I know they can eat mice, but then someone said toads? Anyone have a lot of experience with them? Please help..............any help would be great, he is 9 and if he got a snake and it died on him his world would come to an end...........so please help us, because if this is not a good snake for him we need to know now.
Thank you so much
Trish
11/16/08  09:33pm

 #1900041


JackAsp
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   Message To: Wyland2222   In reference to Message Id: 1899918


 Need any and all info on western hognose

They are a lot easier to keep than you were led to believe, but they do sometimes go on hunger strikes, as is true of many species. The toad thing is hugely exaggerated; most breeders give them mice and nothing else. Sometimes one comes along that has to be trained, but if they’re reputable they won’t sell it until it’s eating what it’s supposed to when it’s supposed to. Westerns are less amphibian-dependant in the wild than Easterns, plus any western you buy today is the result of several generations of mouse-only-fed breeding. My only real complaint about them is that they aren’t very good at holding onto you when you try to play with them. My Madagascan hognose climbs all over you like a corn snake, but with my western you just sort of have to balance her in your hands looking like you just caught a fish or something.



11/17/08  01:31am

 #1900068


Wyland2222
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1900041


 Need any and all info on western hognose

Thanks for your reply, how about their temps, etc............she said their husbandry must be kept very carefully correct and watched closely. So you say they are not still when held? And what is this I was reading on here about being hot, warm snake, venum? And I have read and heard that they almost never bite, that you are hard pressed to get them to bite, true of false? You see my grandson is our lizzard lover, had a beardie, but is not that comfortable with snakes, however after seeing them and reading just a bit about them, and then holding and playing with a couple of them at my reptile store, he was hooked on them, which is why we were thinking of letting him have one but don’t want something that is just going to die on him, now my 4 year old granddaughter, she is our snake person, she has not fear when it comes to snakes, rofl.........
Thank you for your reply and if you can point me to any web sights that will further help us out I would greatly appreciate it.
How old is your western hog? How large do they get?
Thanks again
Trish
11/17/08  06:06am

 #1900476


JackAsp
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   Message To: Wyland2222   In reference to Message Id: 1900068


 Need any and all info on western hognose

Temps: Different people give different answers. Since I’m not sure which people are completely right, I use a large tank with deep substrate and a heating pad under one end and she figures out where she needs to be at any given time. The room itself needs to be warm, though. When she was new I got careless a few times and left the window open, and even with an undertank heater, whenever the room temperature dropped below the low-to-mid seventies, she’d throw up. So ignore anyone who suggests a nighttime temperature drop. As far as exactly what the ideal warm temp and cool temp are, though, I’m not really sure, because when she’s thermoregulating she’s buried under the substrate so I’m not really sure where she spends the most time. I only see her when I dig her up or when she’s looking around at stuff. I keep her in my bedroom, and the bedroom is usually in the upper 70s, but it flunctuates too much for me to have any kind of standardized hot and cool temps. That’s the thing about professional caresheets: what works in a temperature-controlled, photoperiod-controlled snake room doesn’t necessarily work in a display tank.

I guess hot and dry is an oversimplification. Hot at one end and warmish on the other, with care taken that too much heat doesn’t bleed over to the cool side. Either a long cage or a moderate-sized one with a dimmer switch on the heat source and warm ambient room temperature. Dry just means don’t mist, don’t use damp substrate, but thye aren’t as sesnitive to it as a chuckwalla or Trans-Pecos rat snake or something. In fact, during the winter it’s normal to include a small humidity area if your home gets very dry. Tye room getting warmer, dryer, or humider isn’t a big issue. But if it’s cold, you’re going to have trouble keeping the proper thermal gradient in a small area. To keep the cold end slightly warm, you’ll end up with a way-too-hot hot end if you don’t do everything perfectly.

Every case of envenomation I’ve ever heard of was somebody who had the snake accidentally grab their finger when being fed and then decided to let it chew on them for a while to see what happened. They all regretted it, but nobody lost a hand or anything. The only real concern is that if the kid tells his friends that it’s mildly venomous, and then word gets to the Neighborhood Nanny that there’s a child with a venomous snake, she might decide to call social services, who may or not accept that there ius such thing as a "harmless but venomous" snake. Have a plan for that possibility, because people get very emotional about both snakes and about their perception of child endangerment.

It’s not that they’re skittish when held; it’s just that they aren’t very nimble or prehensile. You have to be careful to make sure they don’t fall off, becvause if they go off balance they can’t catch themselves very well.

They don’t bite. If a snake that little were to chomp onto a coyote or badger, it would rip them in half. But if they puff themselves up to look bigger, and hoiss like a snake ten times their size, and ferociously nose-butt at it, then it dosn’t realize that they’e too small to actually hurt it, and it thinks the nose-butts are attempted bites, so it retreats. If the snake actually bit them with its tiny little teeth, the bluff would be over.

They do bluff VERY well, though. Someone who’s not used to snakes will flinch every time the snake hisses and feints, which will reinforce that instinct, and a fairly tame snake that doesn’t take well to the trip home may end up very resistant to handling. If you completely stand your ground, touch the ball of your finger gently to the top of their nose, and very slowly stroke tailward and don’t stop petting them (emphasis on slowly, though, they don’t like being scratched or tickled as much as dogs) until after they’ve stopped hissing, and you do it again every time they hiss, the snake will figure out that there’s nothing to get worked up about. But as an absolute first snake for someone who’s iffy about them.. I’m not sure. I’m not saying no, but I’m not saying yes right away either.

I’m pretty new to them myself. Bebe just turned two in September. I answer a lot of threads around here because I have TIME nowadays, because I don’t have eight million pets any more, so if I can chime in on something that everybody else is too busy vacuuming up aspen shavings and re-adjusting heat pads to worry about I will, but it’s not because I’m a big hognose expert. She’s a little over two and half feet, which isn’t much bigger than normal any more. I know the old Audabon guide says their record length is like 35 iches, but snakes in the wild starve a lot, and that book was published decades before captive-bred westerns became common. These days two feet for a female is still normal, but a really big one can break three feet, because the ones that have those particular genes are less likely to miss any meals while they’re growing.. Males are under two feet, often only a foot and half.

Hognose.com is no longer active, but is a good starting point.
Also, Kingsnake.com has a very busy forum dedicated to them.
It’s surprising how popular they’ve become.
11/17/08  07:32pm

 #1900590


Wyland2222
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1900476


 Need any and all info on western hognose

JackAsp.
Wow, you wrote a book here, rofl.........but very informative it is and it helps me a lot, one thing that helped me was your info on how they bluff, my grandson would not be so willing to work with one, he would spook for sure, I have 3 ball pythons, and just because he saw his mom get tagged by one at our rep store, he does not want one, he has it set in his mind that you can not even make a hog bite you.............and it did not help that my rep store had a pair that were just wonderful, not spooked at all, he and his sister (4) were holding them and playing with them for like 45 min, so he is convinced that hognose is the snake for him, and because we read you can’t make them bite you, he did not even hestitate in picking this one up, but if one does try to bluff him, well that would be that...........
I appreciate you taking the time to write all that, because it is a big help to me..........I just wish we could find a snake he thinks he can trust and feels the same way about as he does the hogs......but I don’t want him getting a snake, then being afraid of it, or having it die on him.......
So thank you and the search is on for something for him, but I don’t think it will be a hognose...........but they are soooooooo cute, rofl
Trish
11/17/08  09:12pm

 #1900670


Adam_S
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   Message To: Wyland2222   In reference to Message Id: 1900590


 Need any and all info on western hognose

Good info JackAsp ... but how the hell did you know I was vacuuming up aspen shavings???

Trish, there is really no such thing as a defenseless reptile. Part of what makes a hognose snake such a great pet is that it defends itself in harmless ways. They have a very broad natural range and are a robust and hardy species that can withstand the same mistakes in care as ball pythons. Some keepers become frustrated when their pet goes longer than they would like without eating, but ironically few species are more notorious for this than ball pythons. Many Ball Pythons, as well as Corns, Kings and Milks are gentle snakes that are reluctant to bite; that being said I’ve been bitten by most of these and know a person or two who has been bitten by them all. On the other hand, I don’t know anyone who has been bitten in defense by a Hognose snake, myself included, and I’ve handled far more of these snakes than any other species.

Have you considered one of these: http://www.speedydog.net/prod_rcsnake.html

... I do admire that it seems you’re encouraging the kids love of reptiles thoughtfully

Adam
11/17/08  10:50pm

 #1900741


Wyland2222
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   Message To: Adam_S   In reference to Message Id: 1900670


 Need any and all info on western hognose

Adam,
Oh that remote control snake is the cutest, rofl.............
Yes I know there is no such thing as a defenseless reptile and he knows that even his beardie could bite him, he just got it into his head, from someone saying, "you can’t hardly get a hognose snake to bite you" into his head, loves how they look etc........glad I did my homework before buying him 1 for Christmas, not gonna buy him something that if it does hiss at him, he will back away and not touch it for fear of getting bitten..........gonna keep working on him with my ball pythons, mine have the best personalities, granted I only just got my first one in Aug, now up to 3 of them, rofl........but so far so good, never even offered to bite, but then I am not afraid of them, any species of pet does know and feel your fear. So because of advice both here and from friends in beardie forum, he is not getting any snake from grandma this year, rofl. Now his mother may be a different story, she is the one who would be caring for it etc........so if she wants to spend the money she does not even have to do this thing, well I can’t stop her.
I do appreciate all the advice and help here, and Yes Adam, we do like to get the kids into reps and the proper care of them but we always do our research on anything they show interest in.
Trish
11/18/08  06:19am

 #1900890


JackAsp
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   Message To: Wyland2222   In reference to Message Id: 1900741


 Need any and all info on western hognose

Fox snakes and dwarf pines are also non-biters. Like hognoses, they will bluff if frightemed, but they don’t startle as easily as hognoses, probably because they’re faster than hognoses. A hognose has no other defense, whereas most snakes sort of think they can probably just escape if things get rough. Most non-biters that come to mind either get kind of large for a small kid, or they have very specific temperature and humidity rules like ball pythons.
My first snake was a fox. They’re about four feet long, although not as heavy as ball pythons, and if they get annoyed they’ll vibrate their tails audibly to mimic a rattler, but she never hissed or feinted at me. Didn’t even vibrate often. I often see hatchlings at reptile shows for 25-30 bucks. They like a cool end temperature of about 70, they’re active during daylight, and they’re just arboreal enough to be very easy to hold while you’re multi-tasking. And neither type that I just suggested has any venom glands whatsoever, so you don’t have to worry about the kid next door bragging to his parents that he’s been handling mildly venomous animals at his friend’s house.
11/18/08  03:06pm

 #1910246


JohnsonLady
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1900890


 Need any and all info on western hognose

Well it seems like you’ve gotten pretty much all the information you need about western hognoses the only thing that I would like to add is that one of my coworkers at the zoo I work for actually did get bit during feeding, like others have said, that is usually the only time you would get bitten. But her hand swelled up quite large for a week and the one thing you need to worry about is getting bit twice within the same year, for some people it can cause them to go into anaphylactic shock so make sure that you take the necessary precautions if you or your grandson were to get bit. It helps a lot to feed them in a separate container such as a critter keeper so that they never associate your hand coming into their cage with food. Other than that I absolutely love my hognose and I’m sure your grandson would love one too but it might not be the best for him if he is slightly scared of snakes.
12/06/08  06:49pm


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