Hognose husbandry questions!

[caravaggiooo]

Welcome to the forum!!

...and soon to the wonderful world of snake keeping!!

Hognose are cool little snakes, and relatively easy to keep.

Have you decided male or female? Or do you not have a preference?

Either way, I would strongly advise getting a snake that is a little older and a well established eater. Hognose, especially males, can be extremely tricky as hatchlings and juveniles. As a beginner to snakes it can be very difficult to get them eating. I ended up getting my hognose, Cosmo, kinda by accident because the two previous owners couldn't get him to eat. Here's the links to his story if you're interested:

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-to-the-family

Now to answer your questions:

1) you're probably going to need both. Being in Canada, unless you keep your house pretty warm, you'll need the UTH to provide a hot spot and an additional heat source for ambient temps and to provide a gradient. You could also use a heat lamp with a heat bulb or a CHE. Since hognose don't need high humidity, a bulb/CHE would work fine.

2) I have not used herpstats, so won't be any help there. However, their reputation is stellar, so it's a great choice.

3) hognose don't require any additional humidity and it should actually be kept below 30% and bumped to 35%, no more than 40% during shed.

4) whether you need to make adjustments or not is something you'll kinda have to figure out once you have the enclosure set up. Unfortunately, there's no one cookie cutter answer for this since climates, how people keep temps in their houses, etc...etc...all play too large a factor.


Hope I helped, good luck and feel free to ask any questions you may have moving forward!

And keep us posted!

Thanks for your answers!

I've heard females are better eaters so I'd rather go with a girl, but nothing is set in stone yet. I also do want an older snake, and I'm hoping there'll be one available near me in the near future, but from what a breeder told me they might only have juveniles when I intend to buy... this is all very much still in the preliminary planning stage, though, and I haven't bought any supplies either, so anything could happen haha.

Regarding heating - I guess I'll have to figure out my room temps to properly plan for that. I'm moving to a new place soon so I can't do anything about that yet, but I do usually like to keep things pretty warm in the winter, I'm estimating in the 73 ~ 75 range (I'm not too good with the cold lol)? And it does get hot in the summer where I am, we try not to use much a/c. I'm actually more concerned about spring/autumn, where there's more temperature fluctuations. In this case, would you still recommend a UTH + ambient heat combo?

I'll for sure post here once I get the snake!

Before I even answer how big is the PVC enclosure you are planning on and how old is the hognose you are planning on aquiring?

If you plan on a 2017 or 2018 animal you are YEARS away from a PVC cage.

I'm thinking of a 24x24x12 one (30 gallon I think), would that be sufficient for an adult? The cage makers here only offer 24' and 48' long ones for some reason, and I know for sure that 48' is overkill for a hognose. If I have to, I'll of course be willing to start out with tubs or whatever else (which I'll also need advice on setting up).

Ugh, that's the thing. Ideally I want an older established female, but I don't know if that'll pan out as the selection here seems pretty limited. This is my first time purchasing an animal and I'm not sure how to go about getting exactly what I'm looking for.