Our new snake :)

[lovemyskittles]

We just bought him today at an expo. He's very small right now and moves around a lot - it wasn't easy getting pictures of him - we had to be quick. Oh, and we named him Hogan.

[presspirate]

Nice looking hoggy. Congrats!

[Grimleo]

What a cutie :D grats! :)

[Freebody]

ya they have the cutest little faces. good looking little guy :)

[percey39]

Love the pattern, great looking little guy.

[Lankyrob]

Awwwww, what a sweetie!!! We named our GTP Hogan too!!

[lovemyskittles]

Thanks everyone! :) We're very happy we decided to add him to our family. lol.
My boyfriend came up with the name but I think it's a really cute name - cute name for a cute lil' guy.

[ineedsoap16]

Careful, they're almost as addicting as carpets. Very nice looking little Hog. Got a little reddish to him huh?

Ryan

[marvelfreak]

Congrats! Sweet hog.

[Will0W783]

How adorable! Hoggies are just the best; so fun and curious!

[Jennet]

lovely colour... you just wait till he takes his hoody out to you... I nearly fell about laughing the first time my lad did it.... and despite their small size, they can hiss like a steam train :crazy:

[Marica]

Hogan the Hoggie, too funny! Cute little fellow.

[lovemyskittles]

Thanks. He's a little jerk. lol. He's the first snake of ours (and my first ever) to bite me. It was so pitiful it was actually cute that he tried to hurt me - didn't break the skin even and I had already caught him and was about an inch away from the top of the cage (getting him out) when he decided it would be a good idea to bite me. Then two days later he did his little "I'm a bada** snake" move and hissed at me when I was trying to get him out of his cage so I could clean it. it was pretty cute too.

[marvelfreak]

Just a quick question. You do know they are refang venomous snakes? They have to more or less have to chew on you to injected venom. I would use caution. If you were to get bit and have a bad reaction it could be deadly to my understanding.

[lovemyskittles]

Yes, we knew before buying him that western hognose snakes technically have toxic saliva (to their prey) but due to the placement of the fangs there's only a few places on a human that they can penetrate a human. The venom is also a mild venom (harmless to most people) and people who are successfully bitten and have an allergic reaction to it mostly just suffer from swelling for a few days - usually just the hand (if that's where they're bitten) unless they let the animal chew on them for minutes then it may swell up their arm. They're still technically considered non-venomous.

There was a study done on the effects of the snake bites of western hognose snakes and the most severe suffered from swelling, bruises, swollen lymph nodes, and cutaneous signs suggestive of a mild bacterial skin infection and blister formation - that person made a full recovery in approx. 5 months. Nothing long-lasting or systemic took place from the bite. The abstract of the article about the study stated "Although hognose snakes may uncommonly produce medically significant bites, they should not be considered dangerous or venomous."

[Jennet]

Hi Tabatha...
May I just ask where you got that info from please, as although I have included this information in a care sheet I have written for hognoses, I have not been able to cite the article and would love to be able to do so. Thanks a lot... J

[lovemyskittles]

J,
At the bottom of the page there are a few links that you can click to read the full article if you have access to those pages or are willing to pay (I have access to one of the sites via my school).

Local envenoming by the Western hognose snake (Het... [Toxicon. 2009] - PubMed result (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19393681)

[Jennet]

Thanks for that Tabatha... I have access via Birmingham uni to Medline, CSA and various other journal access sites, so will see if I can find it... Cheers... :)

[katalyzt]

Ahhh! How cute is he?! Makes me want a Hogie!!