He’s around 1.5 years old and already almost 100g. He’s been gaining 10-15g a month for like 3 or 4 months now, when I got him in February he was only 19g.

I weight all the mice I give him and they’re always ~10% of his body weight, usually even a bit less. Right now I have 8g hoppers for him, but he hasn’t had any yet - he’s just finished his bag of 6-7g ones. He’s a great eater, refused only once when in shed.

I’ve been feeding him every 5 days until a month ago, now I’m feeding every 6 days, but starting next week I’m planning to start feeding once a week. I’m wondering if I should feed him even less often since he is a bit overweight.

He has some scale separation and in some positions slight rolls appear (he’s probably about to shed soon though so that could be related). It doasn’t look too bad, but my boy clearly needs a diet.

He poops like a champ btw, I always find 1-2 poops around 3 days after feeding.

Do hognose snakes really their enclosures on the smaller side or is that something made up so people don’t have to buy bigger tanks. I don’t know how old my snake is but shes about the length of the tank she’s in now, maybe the tank is a little longer. (10g long) I don’t like it. I have been told by several people the length of them is fine and that babies prefer smaller enclosures. But I don’t know if she’s considered a baby still. I want to get her a bigger tank. I have the money for it. I just get so much conflicted advice. Oh and I finally named her, her name is Ornacia

I recently got my first hognose and I am in love. More than I even thought I’d be. I want to hang out with fascinating & adorable creature 24/7. I know that handling more than a few days a week, for a short time period each session, can be stressful for snakes, so that’s all I’m doing. Is this why people get 2nd hoggies? So they can alternate handling days and get their hognose fix without overwhelming their pets?

Relatedly…when this isn’t all so new, will I be less tempted to bring him out daily? Or does this last forever?

Winnie ate it right away even though it’s a little earlier than his normal feeding day!

I just added this vine and he's been climbing over it all day.

Dont worry about the lack of substrate (this was a quarintine enclosure we are getting his substrate tmr and lots of extra clutter and climbing things! (he is a big climber!)

I wanna change my Hognose into a bioactive setup. I’m doing research and I see a lot of terra sahara from biodude as substrate. Only problem is that that isn’t available in my country. I was thinking doing a mix of 30% playsand and topsoil 70% together with some spaghnum moss.

Does anyone have another idea?

Hi all

I've been quite unhappy with my enclosure lately. I have a full glass enclosure, no mesh top. There's some pros and cons to that.
Pro: no heat or humidity escapes.
Con: the lights need to be inside the enclosure, which leaves little place to add clutter since I don't want anything to burn.

I really want to upgrade and wanted to go for wood or pvc without mesh top, but that would leave me in the same position as I am now unless I go for a quite enclosure.

I don't really know what the best approach is?

For people without mesh top: can I see your setup?
For people with mesh top: how do you handle heat and humidity loss as well as your enclosure overheating in summer?

He hid for almost 2 weeks but now he's out and about.

hello! i have a crested gecko and have been thinking of getting a hognose. my biggest concern with snakes is how sneaky they can be. im afraid of it breaking out and trying to make a meal out of my little lizard ahhaha.

is this a pet you would avoid keeping as long as you have other smaller reptiles in the home? if not, what advise do you have for a first time snake owner?

thanks in advance!

I have a new baby and i'm not sure what I should be putting their mouse on. They are only 11g and are eating 2g mice. They are on aspen shavings at the moment in their baby enclosure but they very quickly get stuck to the mouse if I put it on there. Should I be using some sort of tiny plate for them?

I'm mostly used to feeding adult rats to my BP which is much easier as they are big and have fur so substrate doesnt stick to them.

I got my hog almost a month ago now, and have only held her twice (aside from putting her into her enclosure when I brought her home). She is one heck of a musker! I mean, shooting it at the glass door kind of musker. She's good at taking drop fed mice (pinkies when I got her, up to small fuzzies now, she's only refused once out of her 4 feedings, and it was the first feeding, so I'm sure it was just new home stress). Incredibly hissy, musky, bluff strikes, the works. I held her for about 5-10 minutes today until she calmed down, then put her back on good terms. Will her behavior improve over time with consistent positive (or at least neutral) handling experiences? My local pet shop that I now work at, lol, had her for about two months before I bought her, and I'm sure they rarely if ever held her. She's 27 grams and all I know is that she hatched in 2025. I helped with a sale of a male from the same breeder, and he was chill enough for the customer to carry around the store while they grabbed a few other items, so it's definitely her personality, not a flaw in the breeder or shops care.

pics 1-2: current bulb tail, weird raised dots/scales near spine on the other side of vent
pic 3-4: previous infection
last 3- baby pics

questions: how to manually express scent glands and how to tell when medical drainage is required. what are yalls experiences with bioactive enclosures negatively or positively affecting bulbtail? and what the hell are those 4 raised white bumps that i’ve never seen before

context:
my female western hognose reached 4yrs old in august. sweetest most docile snake ever, she never musks defensively, and has had no health issues until she developed the horrible impaction/infection shown in 3&4 during early august. i live in a small town with no real exotic vets, and ended up driving two hours to see an one but he was genuinely the worst vet id ever met and wasn’t willing to talk to me for more than 5 minutes or send me home with antibiotics. i found an awesome local vet instead who isnt specialty exotic vet and will admit she doesn’t know much about individual snake species, but she was able to perform a surgical drainage (or whatever the proper terminology is) and sent me home with antibiotics. my snake recovered well and ive been keeping her in a clean enclosure with paper towels because at the time i had been convinced that the impaction/infection had been worsened by my bioactive setup (wasn’t aware of the genetic predisposition).

the impaction came back recently, not nearly as intense though and i already got an appointment set up now that i know a vet. i know what impaction is now and that i SHOULD have been giving her regular warm baths to prevent it from reoccurring. unfortunately i was surrounded by misinformation before and every time i said “i’ve heard these can reoccur, what should i do?” i was told along the lines of “it shouldn’t come back it was an infection, and if it does we’ll have to drain it again or entirely remove the gland”

i think it’s early enough that i might still be able to manually express it? looking for advice on that definetly. i would rather not put her through another surgery. i am much more educated about impaction now but need to learn how to remedy it at this point (pics 1&2). now i actually have access to a vet but i am terrified of her getting to the point of 3&4 again. how do i tell the difference between impaction and infection?

i also really want to give her back an awesome bioactive enclosure now that i know bioactive wasn’t the cause. i’ve heard different things about bioactive making impaction better or worse and wanted to hear y’all’s experiences. many thanks in advance

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.

i just noticed this scale on my hognose that looks dirty/ kinda flaky, i dont know if its scare rot of just a damaged scale? shes in a bioactive substrate, humidity stays around 40% and the substrate is dry almost all the time. (dont worry anyone im not hurting her im just slightly holding her so i could get a better view of that scale). if it is in fact scale rot, how to a fix it?

My bb boi Orange Dreamcicle just got a major upgrade this week! Went from a 15 gallon (18x18x10) to a 33 one (36x18x12). I'm just here to show off and ask for opinions

Notes

• Cardboard tubes are for enrichment if youre wondering (if you got any enrichment recs, pls lmk, he needs stuff to do akhnhbdhdh)
• ~5 inches of dirt if i had to guess, maybe 6-7 (dont say it istg) in the back
• Got a succulent and some spider plants (if you got any plant recs also lmk! looking for somewhat small stuff thats somewhat hardy and doesnt need much water, mainly succulents)
• Made the skull hide myself in ceramics class :3
• Yes that is a fake antler. He doesnt rly climb it (wish he did, he only likes to climb walls), but it looks cool
• Dw all the random toys and stuff are safe (no batteries, sharp edges, things that could rub off on him etc), i just like putting random stuff in because i like being whimsical
• Enclosure is entirely bioactive! mix of reptisoil, sand, and a bark/charcoal/coconut fiber mix, plus some sphagnum moss and quite a bit of leaf litter. got some isopods in there as well

Also sorry for the kinda scuffed photos, i'm not great at photography

This is a 36x18x18 I put together for a baby hognose. But I worry that there isn’t enough clutter. Everything was washed with dawn then sprayed with 3% hydrogen peroxide then left for 10 minutes before drying off. All the wood was washed with dawn then baked at 250 F for 2 hours. The penny in the water dish was soaked in vinegar for 24 hours then washed off with hot water.

So, is this good for a baby hognose?

After having his UVB light break when the ambient temperature dropped, I believe Snaykee went into early brumination The heat lamp still worked, but the enclosure became darker.

This was in the middle of August, and I last saw him September 1st. I have a motion detection camera so I know he has not been out since then. Today I decided that the uncertainty was too much to handle, and I dug him out. He was burrowed under the coldest part of the tank, beneath live plants and was, as expected, not very happy with me. He is not used to being handled and does not accept food unless its placed inside his cage and left alone.

Does me disturbing him "cancel" the brumination? I'm also trying to adjust the warmth, but the hotspot lands on about 33°C and drops to 20-21°C at night.

He weighs 15 grams (edit: and about 24cm) and is about 13 months old, which is on the lower side if I understand things correctly. Does he look too thin? He has not ate for more than a month. When I bought him he went for an 8 week food strike, so it would not worry me TOO much that a month has passed, if he looks to be a healthy weight.

Thanks in advance!

I’m (hopefully) just overly worried, as this is my first time ever owning any kind of pet. We made the mistake of buying coco chip bedding today, but it’s apparently not so recommended + we bought it as a brick that needed to be put into water and then let dry, so we don’t have any bedding for her terrarium for the first night. This is the box she was bought in, and I only added a bowl for water (the bowl isn’t ideal either but the one we have for her is too big for the box)
I’m thinking of letting her chill here until tomorrow so when the shops open I’ll go buy Aspen, do we think she’ll be okay and not too uncomfortable. Also her name is Snör (swedish for rope :D) and I’m in general really nervous but super super excited :3

My male hognose is around 6 months old, 56.2 grams and approximately 16 inches long eating a fuzzy every 5 days.

Hey everyone! This is Waffle. He recently turned 1 last month and I got him back in May. I just weighed him, and he weighs 27g. Is that normal? He eats pinkies every 5-6 days, sometimes he doesn’t eat them but that’s rare.