Western Hognose Diet ??

[Darlene]

I've recently seen some posts on this topic. It was suggested to collect & freeze toads & lizards for them. Wouldn't this bring parasites & diseases & perhaps even be illegal ? Some say they do alright on a diet of mice, some say they don't. I was wondering what all you keepers of hoggies feed personally & how they do on it. I'm just looking for a general idea & other diet suggestions.
Thanks - a -bunch.

[Vanan]

Darlene, if your hognose is from Captive Bred stock, you have no worries. Feeding it CB rodents is enough. No need for lizards and amphibians. Westerns fair well on rodents.

As for wild collected prey items, I would highly recommend against it as it does increase chance of parasitization. Even the freezing of such prey doesn't kill off all pathogens. If need be, try only scenting, instead of using whole wild prey. Otherwise, use CB prey items such as pictus geckos or CB frogs.

Good luck! :)

[Simon R. Sansom]

Like Vanan states, Western Hoggies will do quite well on a diet of rodents. One of our contributors, Mr. Roy Stcokwell has been breeding them for more than a decade using a strict rodent diet.

It's the EASTERN hognose snake which is the one that should be fed amphibians, and which is known to suffer health problems from a rodent diet.

Cheers!

Simon

[Linds]

Western hognoses can do fine on a diet consisting soley of mice, its the Easterns that aren't natural rodent feeders, and that should be provided with a diet consisting of reptiles/amphibians.

I wouldn't suggest collecting anything out of the wild intended for food. Although freezing does kill parasites, it does not kill alot of the bacteria, which can lead to all sorts of trouble. And yes, in Canada this would be illegal as well.