Hello!

They are adorable! It makes me want to get a hedgie!

Welcome to the forum.

AWW wow. I have just the one; Oscar. I love being a hedgie owner. Oh and I also have 13 guinea pigs, 1 dog and 1 rabbit! I love them all to bits and all of them but the dog have C&C cages. (well the rabbit is out all day but goes in a 2x3 CC at night.)

Myspoiltpiggies said:

AWW wow. I have just the one; Oscar. I love being a hedgie owner. Oh and I also have 13 guinea pigs, 1 dog and 1 rabbit! I love them all to bits and all of them but the dog have C&C cages. (well the rabbit is out all day but goes in a 2x3 CC at night.)

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CRIKEY!!! That's a lot of little ones! hmy: We think that our 4 hedgies and dog are a lot of work (granted our dog is a Blue Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog)and adopted from Hurricane Katrina so he has some "special needs"...) but wowzers! How do you find the time to clean all that poo!?!?!? Hehehehe... :crazy:

I'm currently looking to (again) re-design our current set-up, since it's all about constantly fixing, changing and evaluating isn't it?!? I'm such a dork!

Lydia, you are not a dork. You have 'cage fever'!! We all carry the disease with us and every few months we have an outbreak and have to redesign our cages. Welcome.

Do you have pictures of your current set-up?

They are so adorable!

Ooo I love hedgies. I really want to adopt this boy about an hour away from me name Sir Lanceolot. But there is no way I can do it with five pigs in a little apartment. Some day though when I have my own house...

Anyway welcome to the forum!

nonamian_girl said:

Do you have pictures of your current set-up?

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I don't have any really good ones, but I'm planning to take some tonight or tomorrow and then I'll post them in the proper forum and see if I can get some feedback on improving it! I'd love your opinions once I get some pics!

This is the best I've got, plus a couple of gratuitous "cute hedgie pics" just for fun! Hee hee!

Here's Bo being too fat for his mini pigloo... oddly enough they seem to prefer the tiny spaces! Notice the pathetically low coroplast borders around the wheel/litter!?? Ergh... He's on level 3 of 4... each boy has his own level since male hedgies CANNOT be kept together. Each of them currently has a 2x3 set-up plus a second level (1x2) at half-height with enclosed ferret fun-tubes giving them access... pics will make more sense! lol

Next is Luke hiding under some vellux (the bedding of choice for many hedgie "caretakers" (the term "owners" creeps me out)...

And lastly another Bo pic when he was smaller and less fat! Hehehe...

Your hedgies are SO adorable. I'd love to have some, but space/money/resources all say no for now. Keep the hedgie pics coming!

Please tell those of us who think they are darling but no nothing about them, some carekeeping facts. How much do they weigh, how long do they live, what do they eat etc.?
I can't stand it, I am going to add these guys to my screensaver pics!

jdomans said:

Please tell those of us who think they are darling but no nothing about them, some carekeeping facts. How much do they weigh, how long do they live, what do they eat etc.?
I can't stand it, I am going to add these guys to my screensaver pics!

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Heheh... yeah; they're pretty cute, and just like guinea PIGS, these guys are hedgeHOGS so piggies and hogs all 'round, hey?!? lol

I'm going to post a bunch of links here to some good websites with proper info on hedgies, but as a general summary, they live between 3-6 years, depending on care, nutrition, existing health status, etc. and hedgies are naturally nocturnal. They can be somewhat trained to wake up earlier, but ours, for example, usually get up around 10-11pm and run around and wheel until around 6-7am.

They're insectivores naturally (in nature they mainly east insects) but in captivity the best things for them to eat are 1) a combination of high-end cat foods which have specific levels of nutrients (ie low fat, high protein, low fibre) and 2) some fruits and veggies to supplement. Ironically I'm a vegetarian and have been for years and so I'm not sure how we ended up with carnivorous pets and I have philisophical dilemas about it all, but such is life, right? Long story short; veggie lady feeding her hedgies freezedried mealworms... ugh.

They aren't rodents, so they have flat foot pads and can't grip with their feet... therefore they need flat surfaced wheels to run on. Also, since in nature they'd poop and pee while running around, you can guess what their wheels look like in the AM! Eek! Very regular wheel-cleaning and foot baths are required.

Quite a few hedgieparents use C&C cages since our little guys have many of the same space/care requirements as cavies (hence why I'm here) and this website is the main point of reference for them!

"Hedgiebags" or "hedgebags" are one of the top most popular accessories for hedgies... they loves to sleep in warm dark little spots and hedgie bags are also great for getting a huffy one out of his/her cage! Hedgies huff and puff and occasionally (if one is reeeaalllly cheesed) 'pop'!

Hedgies self-annoint... an odd quirk about them! If they find something which smells/tastes interesting to them (and you can never really know what constitutes "interesting" to a hedgie) they will lick it, create a froth of saliva and then lick it onto their quills. A little weird at times? Yes! Hilarious at others? Definately! lol lol

Here are some great links for more info:

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https://hedgehogcentral.com/

Oh lordy the wheel bit is not nice at all. I noticed a part of your wheel in the hogture. The little bit I see, it looks like my Chin Spin I have for my chinchilla Buddy.
That is funny about them getting huffy. When I first read it I thought of a blowfish puffing up! Interesting, again my chin gets very annoyed when you disturb him before he wakes to start his 'day'. He makes this spitting sound and tries to make you think your life is in danger! Ha Ha. Buddy wouldn't know what it is to bite anyone.
I wouldn't have a problem with the mealworms as I don't consider them meat. But because they are bugs it is just plain gross. I never could put mealworms out for the bluebirds either.
Do you feed canned cat food or dry or both? I am now going to read up on the threads you posted. Thanks so much.

Lydia, Are most of the pet hedgies the same species?

The site hedgehogclub.com is fabulous. I am intriqued. thank you so much Lydia.

That third picture looks like a professional photo, it's beatiful! What a cutie face!

I almost bought a hedgehog a couple of years ago, before I knew about adopting, but I'm very glad I didn't now. I checked on Petfinder, and there are remarkably few of them to be adopted. Of course that's a good thing. It also lets us be SO much more jealous of your adorable crew.

Oh they are so adorable! I thought about getting one a while back, but didn't know enough about them and with those quills and small children in our house I thought it best to wait. I definitly have hedgie fever now. I love the last picture of the little one in his home with the little igloo over him, how precious!!!

Welcome to the forum! They are so adorable. If I had the time/money/and a hubby who was understanding, I'd probably have a ton of animals including those cutie pies.

Thanks everyone for such a warm welcome; I really appreciate it!

Jdomans – Yes, most pet hedgies are all African Pygmy Hedgehogs. Here’s a link to a hedgies.com page which has more info on the different speciesbroken link removed). To summarise, the white-bellied or four-toed hedgehog (Atelerix albiventris), also occasionally found in parts of southern Europe, is crossed with the Algerian hedgehog (Atelerix algirus) to produce the domesticated African (“pygmy”) hedgehog . Also, I (personally) can’t stand the whole mealworm thing - but they are naturally insectivores and and the LOVE crunching on freezedried mealies or crickets… blech.

Nonamian_girl – Thanks!

Percy’s Mom – Yeah, it’s nice to know that there aren’t many looking for homes right now, but the irony is that because there aren’t many available, those who really want a hedgie often buy from breeders or pet stores. [CONFESSION]: Our boys are from the Petcetera 30 minutes from our home. I hate pets stores and went in there one day to show my husband what they looked like in person (we kept trying desperately to adopt but there were none anywhere within 20 hours+ of our home), saw what deplorable conditions they were being kept in and the ignorant staff and couldn’t leave without them. I know – that doesn’t help the problem; just perpetuates it, but I was weak and would never do it again, regardless… but if nothing else it saved the lives of 2 of our boys who were tiny babies when we got them. They had pneumonia when we brought them home (5 weeks old) and I took 5 days off work, spent hundreds of dollars at the exotic vet’s and nursed them literally around the clock. When I called and gave the store manager "what for" for the uneducated care the boys had been given she offered for us to return them for healthier ones... great; so then they'd just die there. Most “experts” I’ve talked to agree that when they’re bred for pet stores, they're often flown across country and left in their transit cages/boxes/whatever on airport tarmacks for hours on end - even in winter - and pneumonia is very common, with only a 50% survival rate. Both Bo and Luke still have compromised imune systems and poor Luke’s got some strange GI problem which nobody has yet figured out. Argh – never again… lessons learnt though, right? Like the saying goes “When you know better, you can do better”. <sigh>

Buggie_00 – Heheh… that’s a chunky hedgie for you! They love to crawl into the smallest darkest spot even if it’s “too small” for them. Our 4 boys (2 brothers and 2 unrelated) vary tremendously in weight; from Gus at 280g to Luke at 620g (after he lost 50g!). Fatty liver disease due to obesity is a huge problem for hedgies and it’s a constant struggle to have high quality low fat, low fibre, high protein foods, keep them exercising and not feel like a drill sergeant. Bah!

Your hedgehogs are cute. My family had 2 when I was about 12 or so. We got ours from a local breeder who figured he was going to make a fortune off of them. Charging more than $100 canadian for them. He soon learned that they didn't move well in our area and was up to his eyebrows in hedgehogs. I never did find out what happened to his breeding stock and babies but he got out of breeding shortly after we got ours. We paid $25 for the pair, the idiot didn't tell us we had a boy & girl, he gave us no info., and my parents wouldn't spend any more on them then what they already had + basic supplies. There total care was left to a 10 & 12 year old. Any way you all can see where this is going. I now look back and feel very sorry for my little spiky friends. They died well before their time about 1 1/2 to maybe 2 years after getting them and they were probably lucky to live that long.

I feel so bad:sad: even now, my parents should never have let them come into our home without proper consideration for their needs. But all they saw was a great deal on an exotic pet. And still see nothing wrong with what happened!