New to reptiles: what should i know before getting into Hognoses

Colubrids Hognose Snakes
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Hi there, i’m new to this platform and reptiles in general. I’ve been doing plenty of research for the past couple of weeks, and i’m looking at starting with Hognoses in a couple years, i’ve been researching morphs, care etc. I had the ill luck of falling in love with the stormcloud morph. Within a few years of buying snakes i’m looking at starting to breed them. And i’m wondering what would be some ideal morphs to start out, what morphs are undesirable and wisdom and advice in general. Any scrap of information is appreciated.

On another topic, is brumation necessary to having a successful breeding season? How long should brumation last? What is an ideal temp for brumation?
Also, i’ve been looking into racks, and i have the Reptile basics I-10 rack on my radar for juveniles but what would be an ideal adult setup? And advice in this area is sorely needed.

Ill probably have more questions later on but thank you for your help!

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I’ll start you off with this.

Don’t consider breeding anything until you can confidently say you know how to care for Hognose Snakes.

And I don’t mean just basic care…
•Make sure you have a reliable veterinarian.
•Make sure you know what to do when you have a Hognose that won’t eat.
•Make sure you know what to do if anything goes wrong when introducing Hognose Snakes for breeding (males can be significantly smaller than females and they tend to be cannabalistic).
•Make sure you know what is an acceptable breeding size for both males and females.
•Make sure you know what to do if egg binding occurs.
•Make sure you know what to do for “Bulb tails” aka musk gland impaction (common in mature females). My female has a reoccurring issue for this that has to be treated and drained by a vet every couple of months.
•Make sure you know how to care for Hognose Snakes at any stage of life.

Yes. They need to be brumated for 3 months at 50°F. Are you knowledgeable in the process of getting them ready for Brumation, before, during, and after?

Morphs you don’t really want to go for are Normals. Its fine if you want one as a pet but in the breeding/selling world they don’t sell well.

If you do breed. Be prepared to end up keeping offspring for much longer than you anticipate, you may end up even keeping offspring into adulthood without a sale.

I’ll also premise with this. Hognose Snakes tend to not be beginner friendly, especially for someone entirely new to reptiles.
They are commonly very picky eaters and even more experienced keepers can struggle to get them eating rodents, as they are naturally toad eaters. This is even more difficult with getting hatchlings to eat pinkies and sometimes they hatch out so small that eating an xsm pinky mouse is quite a bit for them.

Edit:
There is also a very slim chance you are literally unable to keep them. They are rear-fanged mildly venomous snakes, their venom isn’t significant enough to cause harm to people. Unless you are allergic if you are it can cause a whole list of side effects ranging from mild to life-threatening.

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Thank you for the list, i know some of those but i will make sure to thoroughly research each of those topics, as i said, i plan to research, study and learn for a couple years before even thinking about a purchase, as an animal’s life isn’t something to be subjected to a whim, same goes for breeding. I did read about the possible allergic reactions and mild venom.

One of the topics i need to heavily research is the enitre brumation process.
Thank you so much for your help!

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A lot of good advice given, however I will correct a couple of things + add on.

Aside from the females being known to occasionally cannabalize their mates, they can also be prone to eating their eggs after laying.

Technically they do not need to be brumated, but brumating can make the breeding process a little easier as they tend to sync up a bit better. Just know if you do brumate, you need to be sure they’re in proper condition to be brumated.

This is actually heavily dependent on where you are and the number of breeders in your area, and why you should attend expos local to you to get a feel for market saturation. Where I’m at, I could sell normals quite easily, whereas another breeder in a state with a higher saturation of hognose breeders might have a lot of trouble.

One thing that hasn’t yet been mentioned is checking your local laws. There are some places where it is illegal to keep hognoses. Colorado, for example, allows you to breed them with a registered business and the proper permits, but you cannot just keep them as pets. If you’re in the US, USARK has a guide to ownership laws by state: Reptile Ownership Laws by State | USARK - United States Association of Reptile Keepers

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This is just a personal opinion but with the economy so out of kilter it might be easier to sell normals than high dollar morphs. However things might be different in a couple of years……

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Everyone has given you really great advice. I will reiterate that a reptile savvy vet is a must. I am on my fourth breeding season and am extremely lucky to have had little issues. You know the one that has given me problems? My first and only pet hog. He was diagnosed a few months ago with cardiomyopathy and my vet has been invaluable.
Also as already stated, if you get to breeding be prepared to hold onto the babies for 8+ months and have a plan for when they outgrow the baby rack. I’ve still got some that are almost a year old and sales have been slow.
Lastly, you have to be ready for when, not if, a tough call has to be made. Last year was the first time I had to put down a baby, by my hand not with the vet, and it was ROUGH. There are many things that make breeding worthwhile, but it is not always good days.

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There’s a reason there was an infamous Snake Discovery hoggie named Omnomlette :joy:

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And now one called Yumbra :rofl:

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Also @cmills You guys are :nauseated_face: sick!

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But … They’re not the ones that named them… Lol.
Blame Emily and Ed

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Ok they’re forgiven! :blush:

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I didn’t make Omnom decide her babies looked delicious, that’s on her! :joy:

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Lots of good advice so far, especially about all the details you need to not only know but know well enough to instruct purchasers of your offspring (selling is more about conveying good advice than it is about producing animals). I agree that the learning curve on hognose can be steep; figuring out the difference between a sick snake, an improperly housed snake and one that’s on a seasonal feeding strike is hard enough, but hognose also refuse to feed sometimes simply because they’re apparently mentally complicated. Getting hatchlings started feeding is no small task either, and the best situation is that you raise your own mice for timely access to live and freshly prekilled and properly sized day old pinks. That requires some space and time and smell control and a CO2 rig.

FWIW, I sell normals at expos like crazy at higher than online prices (usually, expos are cheaper than online). The main way to make money on hot new morphs is to push snakes to breed in a couple years before the price falls, and that’s not a great model for animal care. Normals (especially nice ones, reds are desired lately) hold their value.

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@noodlehaus @cmsreptiles i’ve been researching brumation and just wanted to check if this site had a good rundown of the entire process, and if there were any steps y’all would change? Brumation - ReptiFiles®

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So my notes on this are as follows:

•Big agree with having a veterinarian on hand before ever beginning the brumation process.

•As far as timing goes it honestly depends on the breeder and environtment. Some will start brumating their snakes in October-January, some will start December-Feburary. Whether you are in a cooler or hotter environment can also play a role in this timing decision. For me personally I dont brumate until December because it takes forever here in SE Texas for it to start cooling down and entering the true winter season, and once they are done we are already practically through all of our winter weather aside for a few off days.

•For Hognose snakes as a North American species they can brumate at 45-55°F. You don’t want to go any lower than the minimum and you will want to preferably stay at 50°F avoiding major fluctuations. If you go higher than 55°F I don’t think it would be terrible but you also don’t want it to stay above that for too long, it may disrupt the brumation process. As far as opinions on whether or not to brumate is so-so, I personally have successfully bred Kings without any brumation besides leaving the lights and heat off for 2 months but they are a South Floridian species that really don’t experience temps that other areas of the US do. Some people end up with bad luck and majorly slugged clutches from not brumating, I honestly think it comes down to the species and locality. For your Hognoses I’d say its fine to brumate.

•Again a big agree with the article is to make sure your Hognoses are ready to brumate. If they aren’t at a good weight and at optimal health brumation can kill them. Make sure they don’t miss any meals before they start their prebrumation fast.

•For safety reasons I personally prefer to fast my snakes 3 weeks before brumation just to make absolutely sure they have nothing left in them that can start to necrose in their digestive tract while they are cold. I will go through and spot clean every day until I see no waste passed at all from my snakes. It may be overkill but my snake’s health takes top priority.

•Once that is done shut off their heat sources as the article states. Any non-heat lighting could also be turned off 2 hours earlier than the norm, this simulates shorter days and may encourage them to enter brumation faster. Give them a week with this routine, this will mark the beginning of brumation.

•Have a container ready for them to brumate in. This doesn’t need to be very large at all, they won’t need as much space as they will very sparsely move outside of getting a drink of water. Let it be a reasonable size though, it wouldn’t be comfortable for them to be cramped and it needs to be big enough to allow for a shallow water dish. Add enough substrate for them to burrow in.

•Once they are added to their brumation chamber do not add them to the chamber being already cold. Add them with the chamber turned off and at room temp, and then turn it on to let it gradually cool. Once you are at this stage all you really need to do is check up on them once a week, top off any lost water and look them over for just a brief moment to make sure they are good and healthy still. You can weigh the container if you wish, you’ll just really need to keep track of those weight parameters and make sure you don’t accidentally miscalculate something.

•On the article it states to not let the temps get below 38°F… I personally would say not to let those temps drop below 40° at the absolute minimum. Anything below that might be dangerous.

•I also wouldn’t reccomend immediately taking the container out of the chamber once brumation is “over” and placing it back in their enclosure. I’d do the reverse of the beginning of brumation and let the chamber warm up gradually with the power disconnected and the door open for a day, and then reintroduce them to their enclosure. Once they are back in I’d gradually increase their temps from room temp back to their normal temps over the course of a week to avoid shock from sudden temperature changes. Once they are warmed back up they can start on their regular feeding schedule again.

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Ok, Thanks so much for all your help and advice! I get what you mean about the temps down here, we’re in the Texas area as well. On a completely different note, are you going to be vending at any reptile shows in the near future? If i’m in the area i’d love to stop by.