I'm pretty new to the hognose breeding world and I was just wanting to check on some things.
1. I have a male who is about 70 grams and he has been a fairly horrible eater. he will occasionally take a frozen thawed but mostly he only wants live and even that is hit and miss. I was wondering if he was big enough to start breeding? most sites say 60 grams is big enough so i was just wanted to see your opinions.
2. I placed him in with each of the females only for about 15 minutes each to see what would happen. he doesn't seem interested in the girls but the girls come up to him and sort of nudge him with their heads and then they start...I guess you would call it twitching. is this a breeding behavior or is she not happy he is in there?
3. any tips to get him in the mood or do you think he is not ready yet?
I did not actually brumate them but I did drop the temps about 15 degrees down to 70 in the room and I recently brought it back up to about 80.

thanks everyone.

At 70 grams your male is way large enough to breed... I have a male doing the job right now who is only 45 grams...

The twitching you see is normal behavior when you introduce a pair... It is breeding behavior if the female is receptive... If the female is not receptive, they will still twitch but the female will thrash her tail to avoid being bred...

Sometimes males will not be interested when first introduced... I would not separate them every 15 minutes... In order to be sure they will copulate, you should keep them together for a few days... Then you can separate for a day or two then re-introduce the pair...

In my opinion, brumation is very important when it comes to breeding hogs... It is proven that brumation increases healthy sperm production in males and MAY improve fertility... It is also good to brumate females so you can predict their ovulation better...

With that being said, I know people who have had great success breeding them without brumation... Personally I have not had any luck with un-brumated hogs yet...

Hope this helps...

As Greg said, normal behavior but you need to leave them together longer. I am one that does not burmate, which makes the breeding "season" not so predictable :) I have eggs due to hatch in a few weeks when others are just now pairing animals up....