Weight and Condition for a Small, Secretive Snake
Begin your hog-nosed snake visit note with the weight and the vet's body-condition findings — how the spine felt, whether this stout little burrower is holding good muscle, and any comment on its upturned snout and the skin around it, which does the digging. Record mouth and breathing findings and any faecal sample taken or advised. A hog-nosed snake spends much of its life under substrate, so clinic measurements are rare fixed points in a mostly unseen life. Written down, they anchor the feeding diary you keep at home and give the next visit something solid to compare against.
Feeding History Is Half the Appointment
Write out the feeding discussion from your hog-nosed snake's visit in detail, because appetite is the question this species brings through the door most often. Record what you reported — prey offered, scenting tricks tried, meals refused and for how long — and the vet's reading of it: a seasonal fast, a fussy toad-specialist preference, or a pattern worth investigating. Note the prey type, size and schedule the vet advised going forward, exactly as given. A hognose can refuse food theatrically while perfectly well, and the vet's written judgement on your snake's specific history is what separates patience from delay next time it happens.
The Theatre, Judged in Writing
Note what the vet said about your hog-nosed snake's dramatic repertoire: the cobra-like flattening and hissing, the musking, and the famous roll-over play-dead performance with mouth open and tongue out. Get the vet's line between normal display and genuine distress into your record, including anything specific they observed during the examination itself. Owners new to this species rush in frightened by behaviour that is pure bluff, while experienced ones can grow blind to a real change hiding inside the act. The vet's written baseline for your individual snake settles arguments in both directions.
Enclosure Advice and Follow-Up Triggers
Record enclosure guidance from your hog-nosed snake's visit: substrate depth for burrowing, warm and cool ends, humidity, and any change the vet tied to shedding or appetite. Then write the follow-up plan — recheck date if set, results awaited, and the exact signs the vet said should trigger a call: weight dropping past a stated point, a fast extending beyond the agreed window, wheezing, or a shed that fails. With a snake whose normal includes refusing meals and faking death, pre-agreed written thresholds are not bureaucracy. They are the whole decision system, made calmly in advance.
Meals After the Visit Complete the Record
Finish your hog-nosed snake visit note across the following weeks: each prey item offered, whether it was taken and how quickly, sheds, and any repeat of the behaviour that prompted the appointment. Date the entry where the vet's advised change — a different prey presentation, a warmer spot — met its first test. When the next visit comes, this follow-through shows whether the plan worked, which no memory reconstructs reliably. Filing the visit summary and the feeding follow-through together in the KinsLe Pet Passport keeps this snake's records in one portable packet, ready for any vet who has not met its act before.