Hognose Help Plz

[KatzenoftehEast]

Hello!

I'm encountering the age old problem of a baby hognose refusing to eat, and could use some advice. I have gone through just about all suggestions I have read online?

Hognose:
- Female
- Born around Dec
- Captive bred
- Was eating F/T when I first got her in Feb, was eating regularly until April.
- Calms down when being held, but freaks out whenever her bin is opened.
- Full shed ~ 2 weeks ago.

Enclosure:
- Still in her quarantine bin, which is a plastic tub.
- Heat pad on one side.
- Currently ~ 90 f on her hot side, varies between 75 and 80 f on the cool side.
- Indirect sunlight
- Aspen substrate ~ 2 in thick
- Tube hide in cool area, traditional hide in warm area.
- Humidity is probably not ideal, as she's on my upper floor (my corn snake is on my main level, and I don't want to risk his health if she has an issue so I'm keeping them as separate as possible).

How attempts at feeding goes:

- Open bin, hold pinkie with tongs, and she flips out. False striking, otherwise making a ruckus. Yesterday, she even "died". I then leave it in with her, and she never eats it.

Things I have unsuccessfully tried:

- Tossing it in her bin and leaving her alone.
- Putting her in a smaller container with it.
- Scenting with tuna, salmon, or beef.
- Braining.
- Warming it up in hotter water.
- Slicing the pinkie's nose to get just a bit of blood.

I've looked her over for mites, and checked for signs of a URI. Nothing obvious. She's now visibly losing weight, which is what is really concerning me. I know that Reptilinks has a frog link and frog juice, but their minimum order of $75 makes it not really feasible. The reptile shows in my area are also all closed, so I don't have access to live pinkies.

I've considered going out and catching a toad to rub the pinkies on, but naturally I haven't seen any during this time. I also called the local reptile vet, but they're only seeing emergencies at an extremely inflated cost.

At this point, any help would be appreciated!

[craigafrechette]

How much does she weigh and what size is her tub?

How old is she? Has she eaten at all for you? When was her last meal?

How often are you offering? Offering too often only adds stress and leads to further refusals.

You also want to be consistent with how you offer. You're all over the place. You ideally want to mimick how she was eating previously.

Are you handling her?

I'd also drop the hotspot down to about 87-88.

From my experience and what I've heard most juvenile hognose won't accept from tongs til about 50 grams or so. Some do, of course, but most won't.

With my hognose I typically just kinda use my tongs to get his prey in the enclosure and get the scent in there. I don't even alert him I'm there, cause that leads to the whole Hognose show. I wait til he's burrowed or hidden and place it in gently and I'm out the door, lights out. It's almost always gone when I check.

I've also experienced and heard that hogs don't need their prey all that hot, so maybe don't worry about getting it so hot?