I hate to bother you here but your snake blog doesn't seem to have an askbox. I see you have several hognoses and I'm wondering if you have any tips for taming aggressive hoggies down? Mine is about a year old this month and when I got her back in march she was very tame and easy to handle, however a few months ago she bit me out of the blue and has been incredibly hostile since. I've been trying the "lightly worn sock" trick but I am afraid to try to handle her for fear of being bitten.
Ah, unfortunately I do not know how to respond to this professionally. But what I could ask is are your temps correct, does it have enough hiding space, was it in-shed, and/or did it happen to be during or near feeding time?
I have hognoses that will try to bite out of feeding response but will calm down after a little bit of handling when they realize it's not feeding time. Wear gloves to help protect from getting bitten during handling.
Hognoses can bite while they're in shed as well.They're also notorious for having an attitude, but it's mostly just harmless bluffing to startle the predator. I have two hogs in particular that will hiss and strike (close-mouth/ headbutt) anytime I get near them but are completely harmless.The main reason why they usually bite would be due to feeding response or in-shed, more likely feeding response. Otherwise they'll just bluff.
But for now all I would recommend are: be patient, continue to handle probably about 10-20 minutes every 2-3 days with gloves, and check if temps are correct.
Unfortunately I don't know any one who is a professional at hognoses. If anyone out there can help this person out, please do and please correct me if I'm wrong!
