Axanthic Hognose Transformation

[DeadMouse]

Well, our little hoggie monsters are growing and have given us their first sheds while in our care. Our female, Athena, was the first to shed last week and what a shock it was to see how much she's changed!

Here's what she used to look like:

This is what she looks like now after shedding:

Here's what our male, Zeus, looked like prior to shedding:
(you can see he actually has quite a bit of brown in him)

Here's after he shed this week:
(doesn't appear to be any more brown)

These two are doing great for us, they've doubled in weight since October from 7 grams to 14 grams. They are pretty harder eaters and very active. Athena however is very flighty and lightning fast for a little squirmy worm, fairly difficult to keep a good handle on. Zeus however is a lot more laid back and fairly easy to handle.

We're hoping that 2009 will be the year when we can cross breed them with our albinos so that we can get into the snow hoggie project that has already proven itself.

BHB Snow Hog:

 

[toyah]

They are amazing ... I thought they were pretty before the shedding, but now that I've seen the post-shed photos I am just overwhelmed by how gorgeous they are. Definitely on my "must have" list.

That reminds me, I took pictures of my hoggies last night - I must sort them out and post them Hognose fans unite!

 

[Tula_Montage]

Those are beautiful! Perhaps one of the few axanthic snakes I like. The female has really lightened up, she almost looks like a ghostie lol.

 

[DeadMouse]

They are amazing ... I thought they were pretty before the shedding, but now that I've seen the post-shed photos I am just overwhelmed by how gorgeous they are. Definitely on my "must have" list.

Thanks! From the few pictures of axanthic hoggies I've seen, I've yet to see one get as light as Athena. It really makes me wonder what she'll look like after another shed or two!

That reminds me, I took pictures of my hoggies last night - I must sort them out and post them Hognose fans unite!

Yes, please do post them, I always am happy to see more pics of hoggies

On a bit of a sad note, a few weeks ago our female Bicolor South American hoggie died under strange circumstances. I was brumating her and the male along with my adult Westerns and everybody seemed to be doing fine, then one day I was checking on them and saw her on her side with her mouth full of rabbit pellets (which I have used as a substrate for 15 years). It seems as though she might have tried to eat a bunch of them and they lodged in her throat. I desperately and carefully removed what I could with a hemostat as she still had a little life in her, but unfortunately she just didn't make it. This is the first time in all my years of using rabbit pellets that I have ever had a snake willingly eating any. I use them instead of wood shavings so that if they do accidently ingest some while eating mice, they can easily digest them without much if any risk of impaction. The only thing I can ascertain is that even though she was brumating, she still got hungry after several weeks of not eating and tried to eat the rabbit pellets to satisfy her hunger. I guess from now on, I'll just use paper towels when I brumate them. So much for my hope of breeding Bicolors this year. Man was that a bad week

However, the week prior to her untimely death, we managed to find another pair of Bicolor's from a different breeder and picked those up. So now I have 2.1 Bicolor's. The female is still fairly small though weighing in at only 44 grams.

RIP Twilight

 

[toyah]

On a bit of a sad note, a few weeks ago our female Bicolor South American hoggie died under strange circumstances.

I'm so sorry to hear that :-( Poor Twilight ... but I hope the new girl you've got grows up big and strong so you can start your bicolour breeding program.

 

[DeadMouse]

Those are beautiful! Perhaps one of the few axanthic snakes I like.

Thanks!

The female has really lightened up, she almost looks like a ghostie lol.

You know, that's really what I was thinking but I'm extremely hesitant to call her anything other than what I purchased her as. But I know one other breeder (in some of his ads on KS) has vaguely mentioned something about ghost hoggies. In fact, I bought the male from him and he does have an adult that is light in color, but nothing as light as Athena is. Again, it shall prove interesting what the next few sheds will reveal

 

[DeadMouse]

I'm so sorry to hear that :-( Poor Twilight ... but I hope the new girl you've got grows up big and strong so you can start your bicolour breeding program.

Yeah, we're still very determined to get this Bicolor project off the ground. The thing that really added to the frustration was that Twilight had given us 2 clutches of eggs, out of 12 eggs, 1 looked fertile and healthy. We were so excited and it seemed good for a week until our fancy new incubator crapped out and didn't keep the humidity up. It seemed to work fine when I tested it weeks before prior to this last clutch going into it, but something went haywire I guess and we lost the egg. Then this with Twilight, I just wanted to cry my eyes out I was so frustrated. But we'll persevere and make Twilight proud!

 

[tanner123]

wow i had no idea there was that many differnet varieties of hoggies i love those cute little guys i need one

 

[djfreebase]

Lovely little Hoggies. Your little snow hog is adorable

 

[DeadMouse]

Lovely little Hoggies. Your little snow hog is adorable

Ah, do I wish that was my snow hoggie. Unfortunately that's a brand new proven project and there's only 2 snow hoggies in the world and they belong to Brian Barczyk and he wisely is not selling them (even though he was offered a lot of money for one of them). I purchased our pair of axanthics so that we can get into cross breeding them with our albinos so that we hopefully get some snows within the next 5 years. I think he told me it took him something like 7-10 years for him to produce them considering he also was the first to breed the axanthics and sell them. One of these days...

 

[Eriathiel]

Wowzers! Those are two good looking snakes! Not too mention cute

 

[hartsock]

my little hoggie tried to strike at cage last night and then flattened out his head and neck. He looked like a little 6" cobra...cutest little thing I have ever seen. The pics didn't turn out well, but it was cool. I didn't realize that they could do that so well.

 

[DeadMouse]

wow i had no idea there was that many differnet varieties of hoggies i love those cute little guys i need one

Believe me, there's a lot more color morphs out there than you can imagine. It makes my head spin, that's for sure. Here's a list off the top of my head of what's out there:

Normals
Normal Phase
Red Phase
Green Phase
Blond Phase
Anaconda Phase (I don't know if these ever proved out)
Tiger Stripe Phase (Another morph that has yet to be proven)
Spider Phase (I really question this one)

Albinos
Yellow Phase
Orange Phase
Extreme Red Phase
Pink Pastel
Hypomelanistic

Others
Axanthic
Ghost (Not sure if this is just an axanthic coloring or not)
Caramel
Leucistic (Good luck ever finding these again)
Lavender
Hybino (This is hard to tell apart from some of the other albinos)
Snow

And that's just for the Western hoggies

Hypo

Caramel

Leucistic and Red Phase

Lavender

 

[Nanci]

Athena is looking amazing! I like the lighter color a whole lot more!! I wonder if the bi-color actually ate the rabbit pellets, or if something else happened (like she had her mouth open because she was dying) and pellets just got in. I'm sorry, she was beautiful.

 

[DeadMouse]

Athena is looking amazing! I like the lighter color a whole lot more!!

Thanks! Me too, but it did shock me a bit and I kinda was a little bummed at first cuz I thought she was so beautiful to begin with. But that only lasted a few minutes

I wonder if the bi-color actually ate the rabbit pellets, or if something else happened (like she had her mouth open because she was dying) and pellets just got in. I'm sorry, she was beautiful.

Thanks for that Nanci. You know, it's hard to say just exactly what the specific cause was, but some of the pellets were actually down a bit further than just being right in her mouth although there was a lot of those there too. I mean, it's possible that it could have been something else, but without having done an autopsy (which I planned on doing but in the end I just couldn't bring myself to do it considering how upset I was over my loss), it's just totally hard to say. Believe me, I'm hoping it was something else otherwise I feel really guilty if it was the pellets and thinking there should have been something different I could have done to prevent this. Oh well

 

[Nanci]

I just can't believe she'd eat pellets. You know, if I stick the head of a silkworm in my dragon's mouth, she automatically swallows the whole thing. I think swallowing is a reflex.

 

[DeadMouse]

I just can't believe she'd eat pellets. You know, if I stick the head of a silkworm in my dragon's mouth, she automatically swallows the whole thing. I think swallowing is a reflex.

If it wasn't for the fact that I pulled some out with my hemostat that were pretty far down, I'd totally agree with you. Never in all my years of keeping snakes in rabbit pellets have I ever witnessed this. But then again, seeing pictures of kingsnakes and cornsnakes dying by eating themselves also sounds absurd and yet there's the pictures out there of them doing goofy stuff like that. I guess by not having done an autopsy, I'll never truly know the reason.

 

[v_various]

pssssst
hey, how much you gonna sell those snows for, when they happen?

I want a high end hog, if I have to have a 'just' a normal and amel corn. >: (

 

[Tom Tuttle]

Ah, do I wish that was my snow hoggie. Unfortunately that's a brand new proven project and there's only 2 snow hoggies in the world and they belong to Brian Barczyk and he wisely is not selling them (even though he was offered a lot of money for one of them). I purchased our pair of axanthics so that we can get into cross breeding them with our albinos so that we hopefully get some snows within the next 5 years. I think he told me it took him something like 7-10 years for him to produce them considering he also was the first to breed the axanthics and sell them. One of these days...

Beautiful Pair of axantic's!!!:cheers:
They would've been out much sooner had the USF&W not confiscated one that Brian had awhile back.They claimed it was from Colorado,where they are protected. I'm pretty certain Brian had a leucistic too at that time.:shrugs:

 

[ArpeggioAngel]

Those Axanthics are fantastic! I currently just have my one little normal western hognose but would someday like to branch out more. Seeing those Axanthics and some of the others you posted really is pushing me to follow up on that this year.
Please keep us updated as these guys and your breeding plans progress!!