Do any of you own a pet hedgehog?

[newcriminal]

Any tips or advise? I am thinking of getting one for my daughter for Christmas.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

1. I do not own a hedgehog

but my dog Piglet made several attempts to eat them. My advice...get some band aids. They are sharp little creatures. And very cute too.

[hedgehog]

2. My understanding is that while they are very cute, they don't really

relate to people very well. They really are a little wild animal.

They are a nocturnal animal, and they defecate while walking, which makes the exercise wheels a thing of beauty.

I love them myself, but the only hedgehogs I own are little figurines.

[rurallib]

15. My daughter had one for a long time

And that was her feeling. They are not really people-loving critters.
After the little fellow died, she said no more 'exotic' type pets. Cats and dogs only.

It was a cute little thing though.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. I don't, but my nephew does.

Axel really loves the little critter.

[seemunkee]

4. None right now but have had several in the past

I showed mine a few times and knew several breeders. I wouldn't recommend one for little ones, pre-teen/teens would be best. They can be good pets if you're not scared of the prickles and get one at a young age so it can be socialized. I had one that never put up her prickles and very rarely balled up. Never use gloves so they get used to your smell. Take a tshirt or some other object you have worn and put it in the cage. They are nocturnal and MUST run. Some people have put odometer's on exercise wheels and have seen logs of 5 miles per night. They can't use a standard mouse/hamster wheel because their feet are different. The bad thing is that they poop when they run, so the wheels get a bit messy and need to be cleaned often. We would let them free range at night sometimes and they will general follow the safe route over and over.
They are omnivores, you can't feed them seeds and ferret/cat food has too much fat. You need to find one of the commercial hedgehog foods that are available. Treats can be any human food or meal worms.

These are the last two that we had
Koko


Jinger


PM me if you have any questions

[hedgehog]

5. Were Koko and jinger two different species or just different colors of the same species?

They do look darling, don't they?

[seemunkee]

6. They were actually sisters from the same litter

Different color variants. Ginger was an apricot, Koko was a chocolate

[hedgehog]

11. The different angles on the noses had me fooled.

Are those African hedgehogs?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. oh man.those are cute

[Demoiselle]

9. Wow, what a lovely primer on hedgehogs!

They are adorable. How long do they usually live?

[seemunkee]

13. 5 years is doing good for a hedgie

[Blue-Jay]

8. No. Do they fetch?

[geardaddy]

10. No, but they're very tasty.

:hide:

[AsahinaKimi]

12. I had this one but

Sonic Team took it back...


Something about copy right infringements ... meh, attorneys!
:rofl:

[blueamy66]

14. My boss had a chinchilla...

until his Siberian Husky ate it.

:-(

[hedgehog]

16. Sort of off-topic, but Jan Brett has a web site:

www.janbrett.com

http://www.janbrettvideos.com/how_to_draw_a_hedgehog_high_bandwidth.htm