What went wrong?
Hi I got a hognose snake for the first time 6 days ago today. Last night he had unfortunately passed. We had a tank set up that had temperatures in the high 85 range in the hot side, And plenty of access to water. He ate a Day after we got him and seemed to pass the waste normally. He was active. Last night we were going to bed and my boyfriend was looking at him. He was limp and stiff no reaction to touch, handling, and water. Also no tongue flipping or breathing movement. We called the snake breeder we knew who picked him up from someone he traded with and pretty much immediately sold it to us. He said he was playing dead. We didn't think that was true at all due to the behavior or lack there of. We called him late at night and he seemed pretty mad. So I just gave up because he seemed long gone. The breeder didn't know much information other than the morphe and guessed his age at 2 to 3 years. And that he had been living in a container no bigger than one adult shoe. We knew of no medical history or anything that could give us a clue on why he just passed. The breeder blamed us and said we handled him to much and stressed him out so much he died.
We are distraught, angry, and incredibly sad that this happened and would like to know what we did wrong in the future.