1st hog, is it me worrying too much or normal behavior?

Hey all, I'm looking for a bit of info as a brand-spanking-new owner of a hognose. I figure I'll describe my setup first :). I haven't weighed him yet, but we were told he's just about full grown. For substrate, we have a thin layer (1/2 inch) of organic potting soil topped with about 2-3 inches of sandy-clay burrowing mix. Clean water dish on cool side, humid rock-type hide on warm side (I know, we need another for the cool side) UTH. Soil temp of cool side is 75.5, warm is 85. Now it seems like he's ALWAYS on the cool side, wrapped around his dish. He also feels very cool to the touch. Is this normal? Should we bump up the temps with an additional overhead bulb, or perhaps a low heat output light to regulate a light cycle? I haven't been measuring humidity because most of the sources I've looked into said that it's unnecessary. RH in our room is around 46% though.
Thanks guys!

Is your UTH regulated with a thermostat? How are you measuring your temps?

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Originally Posted by NormanSnake

Is your UTH regulated with a thermostat? How are you measuring your temps?

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Yep we've got a thermostat, temps are with an accurite probed thermometer, I also checked them with my temp gun.

Is he eating? My hogs hug the warm end when they have a full belly and will hang out on the cool end the rest of the time.

Pictures would help. If it's a male he may be off feed because he's keeping trim for the women-folk. He may be going into a shed cycle or he may not favor the flavor of what you're offering him.

We attempted to feed a hopper mouse, but he declined :) I don't have much experience with hogs, but I'm not too worried if he skips a few meals. Although he doesn't have the stockiness of my ball, he is rather plump, bright-eyed and healthy looking. We'll take him to the vet this weekend for a general check up, fecal float etc, maybe offer another hopper next Tuesday. I've read that they do better on a few small meals per week as they have a higher metabolism than some other species. Should we consider 4-5 days between feeding, or stick to a once a week deal?

Where did you get it? Did they not offer any feeding advise/info?

Mine is about a year and a half. She is usually on the cool side under the substrate. She has been a real pain on feeding. She will only eat live and usually only once a week and sometimes every two. I dont think you should try a five day feeding schedule until you get it eating regularly. If it won't eat now trying every five days will just add to the stress.

Check out this site. It helped me out when I first got mine.

http://extremehogs.com/Index.html

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Originally Posted by KMG

Where did you get it? Did they not offer any feeding advise/info?

Mine is about a year and a half. She is usually on the cool side under the substrate. She has been a real pain on feeding. She will only eat live and usually only once a week and sometimes every two. I dont think you should try a five day feeding schedule until you get it eating regularly. If it won't eat now trying every five days will just add to the stress.

Check out this site. It helped me out when I first got mine.

http://extremehogs.com/Index.html

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Thanks for the link! We got him at a reptile show, but he guy selling him wasn't the breeder. He said the little dude was on hoppers, not sure when the last feed was though. So it's entirely possible that he was very recently fed, and is just taking some time to adjust to the new surroundings. He's become a lot more active and seems to be settling in well though. I'll attempt to feed again on Sunday, so we'll see how that goes!