Hognose feeding question

My female western hognose (about 50 grams) recently has been getting freaked out by her f/t mice. She will be fine and then when I offer it to her she will start jerking away from it, hissing, huffing and puffing and sometimes musking. I offered her a live fuzzy last week and she ate it with no problem. What can be causing these reactions?

What has changed with the f/t mice? Think about it.

I don't think anything has changed. I'm feeding in the same feeding bin, I am offering the f/t mice on tongs and just hold the nose of the mouse to my snakes mouth and she usually just opens her mouth and starts eating.

try moving the f/t mouse around like a live one. the live ones don't just sit in front of her.

I leave the f/t in the cage for a couple hours and most the time there gone. I just make sure there not hiding in there bedding, i got fed up with the waving them infront of there face thing. They have also been eating more with the leaving it in the tank method seems to stress them out less too.

When I wiggle it it just freaks her out more. I'll try leaving them in the cage for a couple of hours.

My male spazzes every time he finds food. Not worried, but like he's overly excited for a meal. He just sort of waves his face around frantically with his mouth open until he manages (by luck, it seems) to latch onto his prey. This is added onto with lots of hissing. Also have had much better luck convincing him to eat in the past by leaving the prey item in a shallow dish inside his cage, and he hasnt' refused a meal in months.

In my limited exp with them when they act that way they are refusing..;)

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Originally Posted by Emilio

In my limited exp with them when they act that way they are refusing..;)

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My boy will chase me all the way across the house if I hold a rat pink in front of him. Lol. He'll have gopher-cheeks and a gaping mouth, waving back and forth as he tries to grab the easiest prey item ever. I don't actually know if he's hissing, or if he is just pushing out a big gust of air in an attempt to fling himself closer to his meal :rolleyes:

My little male does the same thing. Hissing and striking and bumping the mouse until he finally gets it. It sure makes feeding time a little more exciting.

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Originally Posted by missriss2012

When I wiggle it it just freaks her out more. I'll try leaving them in the cage for a couple of hours.

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i have had some that will tong feed and some that won't. the ones that won't, i had to leave in. the ones that will, always will unless they are coming up on a shed.