comments:
Looks good. However, you are going to need actual hides. Something with a single entrance/exit where they can press against all of the sides at once, if they choose to. One for each side of the enclosure. This is very important for hognoses in general but especially young hognoses. Lack of proper hides can make them feel insecure in their enclosure and an insecure snake might go off food. And hognoses can do that well enough on their own without us helping. I’d suggest you remove two of the log chunks to make room for two hides of your choosing. Those logs are good enrichment but unless they are closed at one end, they make a poor hide for a snake. We use these: https://www.amazon.com/CAVACHEW-Detachable-Essential-Terrarium-Accessories/dp/B0C585B6Z2 and particularly like them because they are fully enclosed (raised from the substrate floor), which means they can also be used as a humid hide during shedding. The rest of the time we leave them partially filled with dry sphagnum moss for him to crawl into. Deeper substrate level. Go all the way up to the black line/where the door starts. They are going to appreciate and use every millimetre of tunnelling room. Also suggest moving the water dish further away from the heat source. Two related reasons: so that it doesn’t evaporate as often, which means you might not have to fill it up more than once a day (cleaning each time), and so it then also doesn’t boost the humidity too much. Hognoses are a drier species. Your digital hygrometer should measure 30-50% on average, though spikes are fine occasionally. All other humidity requirements (like for example shedding, or perhaps low ambient humidity) can be taken care of via humid hides. Keep this in your back pocket (especially the parts about temperature) for if they stop eating and all other attempts aren’t accepted by your hognose. https://reptilinks.com/blogs/news/why-wont-my-hognose-snake-eat And finally, unrelated to the enclosure, start exotic vet hunting now if you haven’t already. You want one as your main vet, that’s within easy driving distance or however you travel. This will be used for all general appointments and should be ideally visited once a year for checkups. They will also be used for emergencies. Then you want at least two more to add to the emergency vet list. Find all of these now and keep their numbers handy. When something is time critical for the health of your hognose, you don’t want to be also trying to find who can help you. Start saving now. Put aside a small amount each month if you can into a pet fund. Exotic vet appointments and treatments are usually higher than regular vets. And if you ever think something is wrong or your snake is acting oddly (for them) over a long period (several days), if their weight drops by ten percent (buy a gram scale and start measuring that as often as you can too) while they are refusing food, or you notice injuries on your snake etc: Call The Vet. Let them listen to the symptoms you are observing and make a professional judgment call on what happens next. Do not come here with those questions. We are not vets, would be guessing as to what it might be, and the answer you’re going to get is “get them to a vet”. So save yourself some time and potential worry; just call the vet to begin with. You wont get a bill for consulting with the person on the other end of the phone about whether this is appointment worthy, or not. And finally, please show us photos of them when they are arrived and set up in their new home.
Two suggestions: Swap to a humid hide (a small, contained, area with higher humidity) instead of trying to increase humidity within the whole enclosure. That way she gets the 30-50% levels that they are comfortable with and gets to choose if she wants to go into the humid area. We have two of these that function as his regular hide - https://www.amazon.com/CAVACHEW-Detachable-Essential-Terrarium-Accessories/dp/B0C585B6Z2 - one on each side of the enclosure. Because they are fully enclosed and raised from the substrate, we keep them partially filled with dry sphagnum moss at all times and then dampen the moss if he goes into shed. He knows to go to his hides for the humidity in these moments. Second suggestion: get her seen by the vet anyway. It might not be a respiratory infection. It might just be shed you are seeing interfere with her breathing. But if it is a respiratory infection, you want it diagnosed and treated as soon as possible. We were lucky with ours when he got one. The first round of antibiotics worked. His was caught in the very early stages and the only symptom was a very faint wheeze that we could only hear if we held him up to our ears. Otherwise he was acting as normal. It was that wheezing that led us to calling the vet and getting him seen the same day. They were optimistic about his chances but also said that we wouldn’t know until we started if the antibiotics would work against it. Luckily for us, it did, and we had a healthy snake again in a couple of weeks. The antibiotics were administered orally by us once a day for two weeks. It was easier with two people, though we were shown how to do it solo at the vets. One holds the snake still and gently uses something soft (we used a kitchen silicone spatula) to slide the edge of the mouth open. Second person measures and administers the antibiotics. Don’t be alarmed to see blood as that’s a defence mechanism to bleed from the mouth. It’ll stop, we were told. Although we never saw him do that. It was quite easy at first to do, but as the meds started working and he got his strength back, he started squirming more. Again, not that your girl has a respiratory infection, but it is treatable if she has and easier to do so the earlier you catch it. If you have the funds and time, I highly suggest ruling it out through a vet checkup.