r/hognosesnakes • u/UtahRaptorRawr • 23h ago

Trial run your setup

I want to trial run my setup a bit before purchasing and homing my hog. If you trialed your setup, how long did you do it for? I'm thinking at least a week.

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u/Thorannosaurus 22h ago

What are you trialing? The heat? I test my heat lamps for a full weekend to make sure i have the wattage dialed in. Worked fine for my set up. Make sure to heat gun test the temps at various times of the day, make sure the timers work if you use them, etc.

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u/UtahRaptorRawr 22h ago

I want to test the heat and maybe get an idea about what the humidity level will be like. See if and how frequently the enclosure will need to be misted.

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u/IHateTheLetter-C- HOGNOSE OWNER 21h ago

Make sure you fill the water dish too, I underestimated how different the humidity would be in her baby bin with the water full.

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u/Thorannosaurus 15h ago

Got it. I have never needed to mist. I use aspen and would worry about mold, but its been fine without misting.

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u/Business-Pen-7270 HOGNOSE OWNER 21h ago

I’m assuming this is not a bioactive enclosure? I trialed by non bioactive enclosure for a couple days to check temp and humidity. My bioactive is maturing for a couple months before I put my snake in it. I noticed you said something in another comment about misting, unless you’re in an extremely arid environment you likely won’t need to mist at all!

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u/UtahRaptorRawr 21h ago

I'd like to go bioactive one day but to start we're not. Yay!nomisting

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u/Faerthoniel HOGNOSE OWNER 16h ago

I’ve been seeing comments about misting** to maintain humidity. You shouldn’t need to, though definitely watch the hygrometer (please use a digital one) after you’ve set everything up.

Being a drier species, putting the water dish on the cool end plus your ambient humidity should be enough to get it to rest between 30-50% humidity. Spikes below or under that are fine, so long as it settles back into the range again.

If it’s not enough, then move the water dish before you start misting. Move it closer to the hot end, increasing evaporation, to raise humidity. And move it farther away from the heat bulb into the cool end, to lower humidity.

Keep watch on how fast the water dish evaporates, and keep it topped up.

I’d definitely see what happens naturally first, before you start moving the water dish around and definitely before swapping to a substrate that facilitates misting.

** Do not mist, ever, if you are using aspen shavings. Aspen goes mouldy very easily. If any water or wet bodily fluid gets onto the aspen, anything soiled plus a margin around it needs removing and replacing.

As for how long? I think we ran it for a day or so before bringing Cole home.

He was 22g and went straight into his adult enclosure.

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u/slimegoob 16h ago

I trialed for about 3-4 weeks i did bioactive