Hognose vitamin requirements?

[emcat]

Hey all, I'm new here. I have been considering getting a western hognose snake for a while now. I have been researching it online to see what they require and I have seen some care sheets say they need vitamins and others not say anything at all about it. Would you say western hognose snakes need vitamins? And if so, what vitamins and brands do you recommend?

[Scubadiver59]

Welcome to sSNAKESs!!

[TRD]

Vitamins? What the heck... no they don't need. Shouldn't get more weird than that.

Welcome here

[Andy_G]

Welcome!

No. They get what they need through their diet of whole rodents.

[BirdInATux]

Hello there! Welcome to the forums

[akane]

This seems to be leftover thinking from wild caught hognose and the more difficult to feed eastern instead of western hognose. They are some of the biggest amphibian eaters and will also develop a fish addiction easy so they don't always convert to rodents easy. There's also some early discussions questioning a frequent occurance of eye disorders in eastern hognose and whether it's a diet cause. I'm not sure what current opinion is on the eastern since I didn't look up the latest on successful captive breeding programs. Western hognose are kept on rodents fine and it's probably best not to risk food variety for these species. Otherwise I offer many of my natives all sorts of things but they go right back to rodents where several report their hognose refusing feeder rodents after offering other foods. Fish are particularly incomplete and high in b1 that is not suitable for snakes that aren't adapted to that diet so balancing it back out may have been necessary previously. A captive bred western hognose on rodents and kept on rodents doesn't look like they should need anything added.