Short Trips Need Checks, Not Meals
A hog-nosed snake is a stout little burrower with a slow snake metabolism, and for a typical holiday it needs supervision rather than service. Feed it on its normal schedule a few days before you leave, then arrange for a trusted person to visit every couple of days to check heat, water, and security. There is no need to schedule a mid-trip feed for a short absence, and good reason not to: hognose snakes are famously fussy feeders even for their owners, and a stranger offering food to a settled snake usually achieves nothing but a refused meal and a stressed snake. For trips stretching beyond a couple of weeks, line up an experienced reptile keeper or boarder and discuss feeding honestly, including the exact prey and any scenting tricks your particular snake requires, because a generic promise to feed it may not survive contact with a hognose's opinions.
Warn the Sitter About the Theatre
The most important page in your handover is the behaviour page. A hog-nosed snake confronted by a stranger may rear up, flatten its neck like a miniature cobra, hiss loudly, and strike with its mouth closed. If that fails, it may roll onto its back, open its mouth, let its tongue loll out, and play dead. An unbriefed sitter will either panic and phone a vet about a dying snake or, worse, keep flipping the "dead" snake upright to check it, which only prolongs the performance. Explain that the correct response is to close the enclosure, leave the snake alone, and note it in the visit log. Also mention the upturned snout and the burrowing: a hognose spends much of its time under the substrate, so an apparently empty floor with a snaking tunnel pattern is normal, not an escape.
Do Not Dig Up the Snake
Deep, diggable substrate is this species' furniture, security blanket, and hunting ground in one, and the sitter should leave it alone. Daily welfare is confirmed by fresh tracks and tunnels, a disturbed water bowl rim, and glimpses at dawn or evening when hognoses are most active. Instruct the sitter not to excavate the snake to prove it is alive; being hauled out of a burrow by a stranger is exactly the sort of event that triggers the full dramatic routine and can put a sensitive snake off its food for weeks after you return. Spot-cleaning waits unless there is obvious mess at the surface, and the water bowl gets rinsed and refilled at each visit, since burrowing snakes drag substrate into their water with enthusiasm.
Heat, Security, and the Usual Checks
Show the sitter the warm end and cool end readings your setup normally holds, the thermostat that governs the heat, and the probe they should confirm is still in place. Hognoses push, nose at corners, and test lids like other snakes, so the closure check matters: doors or lid latched, cable ports covered, no gap at the rim. Ask for a photograph of the enclosure at each visit and a one-line note on temperature and water. If the snake is mid-shed, dull, and hiding more than usual, that is expected and not a concern to escalate. What does deserve a call is a snake found outside the enclosure, a heater failure, repeated wheezing or open-mouth breathing noticed during a sighting, or a snake that looks visibly thinner than the reference photo you leave behind.
The Feeding Reputation, In Writing
Even though the sitter will probably not feed your snake, write the feeding profile down anyway. Note the prey type and size, how it is offered, how often your snake normally eats, and the fact that refusals measured in weeks can be normal for this species, especially for males in cooler months. That context stops a covering sitter from treating a routine hunger strike as a crisis or offering unsuitable food. Your reptile veterinarian's details and your written consent for emergency care complete the sheet. Recording all of it in KinsLe Care Pass gives your sitter the bluff briefing, the temperatures, and the feeding history together, only while you are away.