How I feed my Hognose Snakes
Drop feeding Alan a frozen/thawed small pinky, who then proceedes to eat it sideways, taking a long time. This is why I prefer feeding from tongs, but will leave on their plate if necessary.
When I feed my snakes, I usually try to offer their meal directly from tongs. This allows me to guide the prey item into the right position—nose first—which helps them eat it more easily. But sometimes, one of them isn’t interested in taking food from the tongs. When that happens, I resort to what’s known as “drop feeding”—leaving the thawed mouse on their “plate” and letting them find it on their own.
I always try to feed them on a smooth surface to avoid them accidentally ingesting Aspen bedding. While a little Aspen isn’t harmful in most cases, it’s still something I’d rather minimize. You’ll see in the video that I left Alan’s meal on his plate, and he decided to go for it—but not in the most graceful way.
Rather than eating the mouse head-first, Alan grabbed it sideways. That’s one of the drawbacks of drop feeding—it gives them the chance to make it unnecessarily difficult on themselves. As you’ll see, it took him a while to figure it out, but he was determined. You can also see a bit of venom dripping from his mouth as he works on the meal. Hognose snakes are mildly venomous (to humans, it’s harmless) and they use their rear fangs to chew the venom into their prey, helping subdue it.
About half the time, my snakes eat from tongs, and the other half they take meals from the plate. Fortunately, all of them are solid feeders and reliably take frozen/thawed pinky mice. Right now, I’m feeding them every four days. The pinkies I’m offering are on the smaller side for their size, but that’s intentional. When they do grab a mouse sideways, like Alan did here, it becomes more of a struggle. I’d rather they eat smaller meals more frequently than risk a choking hazard or undue stress.
And yes—after the video ended, I made sure to gently remove the Aspen that had stuck to Alan’s face. He didn’t seem to mind.
