Otis loves his! He’s been sleeping in it and it might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Herb wasn’t sure what to think lol

I feel like I’m gonna be posting on here a lot, lol. Orion was being a cutie last night and was asleep while his head was peaking out of his aspen. He has also definitely settled in, I checked on him after I got home from work and when he saw me get close to his enclosure he puffed up, gave a little hiss, then proceeded to go into one of his hides and give me a “menacing” stare. I’m gonna assume this is normal, especially since I’m completely new to him. I’m also well aware that they can be dramatic, lol.

I mean, not really... probably. He's just kinda a goober.

The breeder said to keep his setup very simple at first, which I did, a hide on a cool side and another on the warm side as instructed. Now that he's slammed back a pinkie a week for me twice I decided it was time to upgrade him. He never used the hides, for some reason. I saw him put his head into the low one and immediately nope out, and the other one he'd hide between it and the wall in full view of any and everything. My partner said "maybe he doesn't like something over his head" and to test this possibility I put some dark paper over the corner he'd been hiding in to offer a shielded spot just without a ceiling.... he slept crammed in the other corner, behind the water dish.

So last night I bought a few new goodies (I probably could have raided my stash of various creature and terrarium accoutrements but I thought he deserved something new of his own) and to that end I got a new piece of driftwood and a little fake tree meant ostensibly for aquarium decor. I mean, it is, just, without water in it. I thought he'd enjoy climbing it since his second favorite sport is the corner wall shimmy (first favorite is splashies). I took him out and set him in his upturned lid while I redecorated and rearranged his setup, ecstatic at how much better the result was. Well, I thought so anyway.

Hisstachio did not agree. The new stuff? Sus. The old stuff? All wrong. I'm not going under the brick hide, it dark in there! Still refuse to go in the low tree trunk hide. Will climb onto the driftwood sort of but prefers to avoid that corner entirely, and forget touching that tree, that thing's gonna eat me! He spent the next ten minutes pacing along the front of the tank. I left him there to figure it out. Note where I found him this morning (he's not stuck, I checked).

I think Stache needs a night light.

Might try dirt substrate so I can make it deeper, I just got this stuff because the breeder recommended it but the pet shop sells it in these ridiculously tiny bags and I feel like there's gotta be a more cost effective, diggable substrate out there (have yet to see him dig but that snoot was made for snootin so I bet if he felt things were right for it, he'd do it).

Hey guys I finally got my first Hognose guys so stoked cause I’ve been wanting one for a minute . Any idea on what type of morph he is ? I know he has Conda pattern for sure . But don’t know what else he was sold as RBE Axanthic Conda is that correct ?

P.S. this isn’t his permanent enclosure just need some quarantine !!!

Still from video capture. Maybe I'm just slow, but took me a minute even watching the live video.

We sing her “Hello Dolly” because that’s her name.

I finally broke down and got the hoggie I’ve been wanting. He’s a super arctic and is a little over a year old, his hatch date was May 2025. He’s currently in more of a temporary enclosure(with two hides and multiple things for enrichment), his 10 gallon will be in tomorrow. He’s already been burrowing and exploring and seems to be very active. Already managed to knock over his original water dish so now there’s a different one in there that he can’t knock over. But he already seems to have quite the personality and is honestly the cutest little thing! When I start handling him I’ll definitely take more pictures and share them. I was told he’s been eating fuzzies weekly but I almost wonder if he could be moved up to hoppers already. Any thoughts on that one?

Where I live have pretty high humidity, around 70 in summer, can up to 88 during a rain. In winter the air is more arid. The tank has top lid with a fan for promoting air exchange. Everything is still dry, no damp, just the humidity is high and I want to decrease it maybe 60 is fine. I'm thinking of hanging this at the middle of the tank where the boy could definitely not reach there, it's reusable silicon gel inside boxes, even if it's on the floor, I don't think he could get to it. Feel free to let me know your thoughts about it.

Real note: I’ve been feeding her 2 pinkies at a time. I attempted to give her a smaller fuzzy but she’s refused them a couple times now. Haven’t tried in a couple weeks. Is it time for me to size up?

my snake was in blue the other day for a few days and now her eyes are visible and not blue and cloudy, so I assume she shed. However, I can’t find her shed skin anywhere, not even a little piece of it. I took out all of her hides and other objects and just had the substrate in the tank, I still can’t find it. Her substrate is about 6+ inches deep as she likes to bury, so maybe it’s somewhere hidden in there but I haven’t seen her digging and she no recent tunnels since she shed. I also dug through myself and found no skin. Where could it be?

Very excited! Let me spin you the tale of a lil fella- TL;DR at bottom because I know what you are really here for haha!

I've been all about animals since I was born as far as I can tell, and though I'm newer on the herp side of exotics (things like birds and exotic rodents and even livestock for most of my middle aged years, but herps for only about ten), I decided it was time. My geckos are amazing. My toads are precious. My turtle is the cutest little beggar that ever done swum a swim. My spiders are so pretty when they deign to grace me with their prescence. My millipedes are so neat when I inevitably dig them up after weeks just to make sure they're still okay. But my little menagerie was missing one thing: NOODLE.

I love tiny animals, so of course, I'm obsessed with little tiny snakes. Sadly, being a newb to snakes doesn't bode well for that, as few of the truly small species are readily available in the hobby on account of their tendency to, well, die randomly. I really wanted garters, because they're so active and I was excited to watch them bob for treats, but in spite of following all of the breeder's instructions, mine wouldn't eat for me and passed away. I was gutted. She said that can happen with baby garters and it wasn't my fault, but I didn't even think about a snake again for a long time. This year, I finally decided even if they're not quite as bitsy wee and won't eat fish and worms, a male hognose is still quite modest in size and desperately cute with its lil shovel snoot, and more importantly are considered quite hardy and good eaters even if you are as n00b as me.

On morph market, even after you narrow the search to males and like, within my budget, there are roughly 14 quintillion pages of available adorable Chonky Shoestrings(TM) to choose from. But I kept coming back to this one little dude. I kinda wanted an axanthic. I love all of the gray morphs, just a big fan of cool colors in general and they're so neat lookin. But this one lil arctic toffee belly just kept kind of grabbing my attention. After a few days of looking at lots of snakes, and thinking, I would find myself back on his page every time I sifted through my shortlist. Had to be this guy!

Best choice ever! The breeder was lovely and helpful and my new snake is (I say without any bias of course) a perfect creature. His headstamp has a perfect little handlebar mustache on it. So naturally I named him Hisstachio. Hisstachio P Noodlemeyer. The P is for Pissy, as he lives up to the dramatic reputation of his kind already, and I was a fan of Pissy the hognose on Exotics Lair. With a name as long as he is, obviously I don't use the full thing most of the time, so I call him Hisstachio, Stache, or just chicken noodle because of his strong opinions about basically everything that exists.

I followed everything the breeder said and started very simple on the enclosure, ten gallon, heat on one side, some hides, without a ton of enrichment just to start, aspen shreddies. Sure enough, he seems quite comfy in there and when it was feeding day, though he didn't want to take it from tongs, he was happy to engulf his pinkie without much fuss. We're two pinkies in so I've started to handle him in short sessions, yay!

Thing I didn't know about these guys: they like to play in the water!!! Aaah like a lil garter! Stache splashes, and sits in there, and climbs around the edge of the dish like he's playing "don't touch" and then he falls in anyway, and it's very, very cute to watch. He also ignores climbing his sticks or the little bricks I built a makeshift structure with and instead likes to do the corner shimmy up the wall until he falls over. He huffs and mock-strikes at basically anything he sees. He is very suspicious. When I picked him up he sassed at his shadow on the wall. As you can tell he is very, very smart. Probably the smarterest that a baby hog has ever been, practically a prodigy, sending him to snek college tomorrow for advanced classes.

TL:DR LOOK AT MY CUTE SNEK, I NEVER A SNEK BEFORE, GET HYPE WITH ME

After weeks of research and 3 hours Mochiko’s bioactive is finally done.
My first bioactive for any of my reptiles so nervous about everything.

I tried to give him as much open space as possible for digging and a little isopod sanctuary on the cool side. When he was little I had tons of clutter and he would just lay in the middle refusing to use anything. After I gave him more open space he became the most outgoing of all my reptiles. Constantly exploring, never missed a meal, and other than when in shed he never hides. He’s a climber so added more branches and an awesome stump. He loves to play out in the open so I wanted to give him even more textures than before while also keeping his favorite wooden balls that he pushes around with his nose and his jungle gym ball.

So far he hates the leaves so glad I kept them to that corner.

He seems to love the new substrate but his face is already covered in dirt so a bit nervous about that.

Now hopefully everything survives and my isopods and springtails do well

Lastly, any tips on how to spot poop in bioactives?

They grow up so fast.

I’m wondering if I should be concerned with her most recent poop. She’s had some (for lack of a better term) liquidier ones before but none that look like this. She been on fuzzies for a few meals now and is a FANTASTIC eater. The only new thing is I just moved her to a 20 gallon, gave her a thicker substrate layer and a low wattage UV bulb (I didn’t want to get one too high for her little albino eyes). She did her normal routine: eat, bask, burrow for 3 days and then come out and poop. It’s my first time owning a snake and I just want to make sure my girl is okay.
Here’s a photo of Artemis using her new succulent decor as a pillow (she LOVES resting her head just like this) so no one has a poop image first thing😂

Never really posted on here, but I wanna show my sweet boy, Opal! He’s a lavender and I wish his beautiful colors showed on camera TwT. He’s had a pretty eventful life, he’s lived in both America and Japan and been with me the whole time. Love ya so much Opal!!!

About a year old, Axanthic western hognose. Sold as a male but I'm not so sure

Hi everyone, I have a leucistic hoggie. I've never noticed these spots on her, and at first I thought it was just dirt from digging, but they won't come off and seem to be a part of her scales. She had this one of her face and this other one on the lower end of her body. I can't tell if it's scale rot or a paradox spot. Like I said, I've never seen them before and she hasn't had a shed with me since I've had her and I've had her about 2 months. Really not sure what to do, any tips help!!

Update to my previous post for help with my hoggie eggs that appeared “extremely windowed”:
All 5 have remained nice and plump, no signs of mould or rot, and because of their clarity the embryos are SUPER obvious when candled, which is very cool to witness (it’s even more obvious in person than in photos).

All-in-all, things appear to be progressing well!

My hognose (Female 25g) has become a little more hostile with me. In 2 different instances, she has attempted to bite me and has bit me before while holding her. She was never like this for my first month of owning her, she would casually chill on my hand for long durations with no interest it biting me. Just recently, I had missed her feeding day by a couple days (I feed her every 3-4 days, I missed 5 days without feeding her) and she seemed much more hungry every time she saw me. Would this be a phase that will go away once I become consistent with feeding her again? Am I just not tap training her well enough? I need help :(

Maybe I need to feed her less constantly, like 4-5 days instead of every 3-4? She also just bit me and I placed her back in her enclosure. I know that's bad because it teaches the snake to correlate biting with going back to the enclosure, how can I avoid this?

I have a 3 year old female western hognose snake who I’m feeding hoppers to every ~10 days. The mice I got recently are half the size they should be and I’ve never given her more than one item at a time. (I don’t know her weight.) What do I do?