Western Hognose Snake Caresheet
Western Hognose's (Heterdon Nasicus) are a small species from the colubrid family of snakes. Males will reach a maximum size of around 18-24 inches, with females reaching around 36 inches, this makes them an ideal pet as they are very easy to house. They are rear-fanged venomous, although the venom is very mild and rarely causes problems (sometimes mild swelling will occur, but most times there are no symptoms). They have great personalities and are diurnal, so they will be up and about when you are.

Housing
Since the stay small, they don't need huge enclosures and often do best in small environments. We start babies off in cricket tubs or similar sized boxes, this ensures the snake feels secure and is therefore more likely to eat. As they grow you can slowly move them up into bigger tubs, we use 3L Braplast tubs for our juvenile 's and find they work very well. Once they are adults you can either continue housing them in tubs or move them into a vivarium. If keeping them in tubs, a 18L or 33L RUB is an ideal size. A 2-3 foot vivarium will also be perfect if you wish to house your snake that way. Hognose 's do not do well in high humidity so make sure there is plenty of ventilation in whatever you choose to house them in.

Substrate
So what substrate should you use on the bottom of your vivarium   / tub? You have several choices, these are listed below, along with any advantages and disadvantages of each one.

Aspen / Wood Chips Advantages: Allows the snakes to dig and bury / makes them feel more secure. Easy to spot clean. Disadvantages: When feeding they can stick to food which gives a possible risk of impaction.
Newspaper / Kitchen Roll Advantages: Cheap and easy to replace. Disadvantages: Not so aesthetically pleasing, kitchen roll often gets pushed into water bowl making a mess.

Heating
Western Hognose 's are cold blooded like all reptiles and need to be provided with the correct temperatures within their caging to allow them to thrive. Hognose do very well when kept hotter than most colubrids. An ambient temperature of around 80 °f is perfect, with a hot basking spot of 90-94 °f. Keeping them at these temperatures will keep them active and allow there fast metabolism to function correctly.  

Heatmat: A heatmat is the easist way to provide your snake with a warm end, you should use a heatmat which covers about 1/3 of your vivarium / tub floor space, and place it right at one end. When using a wooden vivarium you need to place the heatmat inside, if you 're using a glass tank, you can place it outside, but make sure you raise the glass tank slightly or it may crack, you also put the heatmat on the outside when using plastic tubs.   When using a heatmat, you can use a mat or temperature thermostat, there is no need to use dimming or pulse thermostats (although pulse thermostats are more accurate so you can use these if you wish), I can also recommend Habistat or Microclimate thermostats. Make sure your thermostat probe is placed in the vivarium on top of your heatmat and substrate, this will allow you to accurately control how warm your warm end gets. You now need a digital thermometer (with a probe, or an infra red gun) to measure how warm it is getting and adjust the thermostat as needed. Please do not use the analogue thermometers as they are not accurate.

Heat lamp: You may also use a heat lamp to provide your basking spot if using a vivarium. You again need to set this up at one end of the vivarium and set it up just like you did a heat mat. The only difference is that you need to use a dimming thermostat. This type of thermostat dims down the bulb to create the correct temperature, a normal thermostat would turn it on and off, creating a disco and shortening the life of your bulb! Depending on the size of your vivarium and how warm the room you are housing them in is, you may have to try different wattage bulbs to find one which works best, however 40W / 60W is normally ok. Remember to check your temperatures carefully with a digital thermometer though. Make sure any bulbs are guarded to prevent burns.

Lighting
Being diurnal light cycles are very important, although they do not need UV, a good amount of daylight will keep them active and alert.  

Feeding / Supplements
When kept hot enough hognose 's have a very fast metabolism and do well on small, but frequent meals. They can be fed every 3 or 4 days on a suitable sized meal and should grow much quicker than most colubrids. We start babies off on pinkies, and by the time they are 4 months old or so they are normally taking fluffs twice a week.

Hognose 's can be fussy feeders and sometimes tricks are needed to get them feeding, especially with babies. We have found that frog scenting with North American tree frogs to be the most successful, although people have used tuna, egg, salmon etc with success. If they won 't take food from the tweezers, try leaving it in with them overnight. You could also try moving them to a smaller enclosure.

Adults will fast at times throughout the year and this is never normally a problem, they will start eating again when they want to. Unless your snake is losing a lot of weight then just keep offering as normal. Over the winter they naturally brumate and will try do this in captivity. We believe brumation is key to successfully breeding hognose 's and would always recommend brumating breeders or non-feeding adults as they will most likely feed well after.

Breeding / Sexing
Western Hognose 's are a very easy species of snake to sex, in that you can usually tell by tail length. Males have a much longer tail than females. Some will be somewhere in the middle and popping or probing on older animals is a good way to confirm the correct sex.

To breed you first need a pair of adult hognose's, males should be 60g+ and females 250g+. We believe that brumation that crucial to successful reproduction of these snakes. We begin the cooling process around the beginning of Decemeber by stopping all feeding. After around 2 weeks we turn off the heat mats and allow the snakes to drop down to room temperature for a couple of days, they are then moved to a separate room that stays around 55 °f, where they stay for 8 weeks. During this time they get fresh water every week or two. After 8 weeks they are moved back into their normal housing at room temperature and after 24 hours we turn on the heat mats so they are back at full normal temperature. After a couple of days they can be offered a small meal, and then several days later normal feeding can resume.

A week or two after they begin feeding we start to pair up animals, we leave them together for several days, separating to feed and give the males a slight rest. We keep pairing until we see signs that the female is gravid. After a successful pairing the gestation period is around 4 - 8 weeks and the female will shed around 1 - 2 weeks before laying her clutch of 12-40+ eggs . We make sure gravid females have a box of damp moss is which they can lay their eggs. Once the eggs are laid they can be removed to our incubator and kept at around 82 °f and hatch in around 60 days. We have found hognose eggs do better kept slightly dryer during incubation so do not keep them too wet. When they hatch they can be placed in small damp tubs (we like to use cricket tubs), they will likely shed very soon after hatching. After a couple of days you can offer them small defrosted pinkies. Some will take them, some will not. We carry on offering a pinkie every 3/4 days for 3 to 4 weeks before we start scenting with anything. If after this time they have still not eaten we use American Green Tree frogs to scent with and normally have 100% success with this. Once they get an appetite they tend to move over onto unscented quite easily. We continue to feed twice a week, moving up food size as they grow, they should grow quite quickly when kept hot enough and fed well. Once the hatchlings are 8 weeks old and have had at least 5 consecutive feeds they are ready to go to new homes.