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Pretty general questions about new hedgie!

2K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  LarryT 
#1 ·
Hey guys. I've been doing my best to research here without doing a new post but I would just like some fairly direct answers to some specific questions that I have about hedgehogs. I am a horse/dog person, have never owned a small animal before of any sort (except a bird, hehe) so I am VERY clueless when it comes to the whole light/heat thing.

1) Can someone explain to me exactly how a CHE works? How long it stays on, how exactly using a digital thermometer works (does it turn it off when it reaches a certain temperature?) I know this sounds REALLY dumb but hey, everyone has to start somewhere right? hehe. Does this also work as the "light" for the hedgehog, or can someone explain that as well?

2) What is a good "starter" cage? Eventually I'd like to do the whole "cube" cage type thing (not sure exactly what it's called) but for starters, I'd like to use something I can pick up off Craigslist or at Petsmart.

3) Do hedgehogs smell at all? I know animals like ferrets and rabbits tend to carry an odor but I'm curious about hedgehogs. Is keeping one in someone's bedroom going to be noticable? Also, how noisy are they at night? Do they make little sounds as they get hyper and whatnot? Just merely curious on that one.

4) How do hedgehogs associate dogs in the room? If a dog is around, is the hedgehog going to "sense" danger and be less willing to be friendly? The hedgehog will stay in my room 24/7 but the dog is only in there at night as the upstairs of our house is off limits to the dog during the day.

5) When the temperature is warm outside (say springtime, so 70s F) can hedgehogs go outside? If I set up a little pen for them (supervised, of course), do they enjoy being in grass and whatnot?

Everything else seems fairly explanatory. Food, water, bedding (I am diggin the fleece liner idea), cute little house for them to hide, toys etc.

Thanks, and I apologize again for my ignorance but I am just trying to learn as much as possible before taking one home!
 
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#2 ·
1. CHE just creates heat. Can't explain the physics of it, but you keep it on 24/7. The thermostat will turn it on and off to regulate temperature. The thermometer just reads the temperature. The light can come from a regular desk lamp on a timer switch for about 12 hours (8A-8P).

2. All those cages have their flaws. I've seen people use modified Ferret Nations. A good sized store-bought cage will cost about $80-120, while a C&C cage costs about $30. You may want to look at just going straight for a C&C.

3. If you clean the cage regularly and feed them properly, they smell like any other small animal.

4. Most dogs are usually terrified of hedgehogs, but I wouldn't allow him to go sniffing the cage without 110% supervision. They're prey animals, so they'll be frightened of a giant potential predator.

5. They can, as long as there is no treatment on the grass. 70 is a little cold to take them outside, though.

And check out my site for liners and snuggle bags. ;) Fleece liners are the best.
 
#3 ·
Hey there! :)

1) A CHE gets turned on and off by the thermostat, which measures the temperature and controls the CHE to keep the cage at a certain temperature. You HAVE to have a thermostat, since otherwise the CHE would stay on until you turn it off (and get way too hot). The thermostat does give a range of a couple degrees, but not enough to harm a hedgehog. For example, if you had the thermostat set to 75 degrees, it may range from a low of 74 to a high of 76. At 74, the thermostat would tell the CHE to kick on, and keep it on until it's at 76, when it tells it to turn back off. You'll want to keep a digital thermometer in the cage as well to doublecheck that the thermostat/CHE is working correctly. The CHE doesn't work as the light though - it emits heat only, not light, and you want it that way so that it can be used day and night without disrupting the hedgie. You'll need to use something else for the light, which doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just a lamp in the room near the hedgie's cage will work, and you can hook it up to a timer if you want to make sure you don't forget to turn the light on/off at the same times every day.

2) Something like this would work - http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... lmdn=Brand You just want to make sure that it has a plastic bottom, a top (so they can't climb out and escape), and that it's somewhere between 3-4 square feet, since the wheel and igloo will take up a lot of room.

3) They themselves don't really smell unless you have them by your face. However, their poop and pee can smell VERY strong, especially as babies. If you clean the wheel daily, that should help with that, and generally they poop less and it smells less as they get older. I've had Lily in my room since I got her and never had a problem.

4) I would keep the dog out of your room, if at all possible. Having it in the room might keep your hedgehog from coming out, especially if your dog wakes up and gets interesting in your hedgehog's activity. There's a lot of hedgehogs that won't come out for their usual activities unless it's completely dark and quiet in the room. Edited to add: Another good reason to keep the dog out of the room is just to be completely safe. There was a member on where whose dog got into their room, into the cage, and killed their hedgehog. So it's always better to be safe than very sorry.

5) It depends on the hedgehog. Some enjoy the outdoors, some are terrified and just want to go back to bed. However, you'll want to wait until the middle of summer before taking them out. The weather has to at least be in the 80s. The ground stays cold much longer than the air, so until it's really warm, the ground will still be cold and could give your hedgie a chill. Also make sure you do watch them very closely - they're very fast when they want to be, and there's also plenty of predators and dangers outside. People have had crows and big birds decide that their hedgehog looks tasty and were very lucky to be able to block the bird and save their hedgie. :shock:

Don't apologize for questions, they were all great ones to ask and it's good to get as much info as you can! Kudos to you for doing lots of research first! ;)
 
#4 ·
More general questions about new hedgie!

Hello - Some well-meaning people just gave me a hedgehog who was left at their house for over 7 months by their adult son. Hedgehog (we are calling him Edgar, Eddie, Ed) was in a 20 gal aquarium and they fed him cheap cat food and kept the water bottle full but did not handle him or let him out.
I am reading all I can on hedgies and am thrilled to have him but learning... please advise.

I moved Edgar to a 24" x 30" wire cage with the cage floor covered in a thick pad of newspaper with towels on top. He seems very happy exploring and is getting used to me handling him. He loves to lap water out of a bowl! I will get him a new cage soon.

? Is it okay to pick him up out of his sleep during the day to get him used to handling and let him run around (while I watch him :)... at first I thought hedgies were slow but he zooms around now (it has been a week).

? I feed Blue Buffalo Wilderness cat food to my cats so I have switched him to that. Eddie shows no interest in apple, banana, raspberry, cooked corn or peas, hard boiled egg - or crickets. He loves cooked salmon. :) I will get him some mealworms but they looked so sickly at the store the other day that I am waiting for healthier looking worms. Really appreciate the Fruit and Veggie List viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=fruit+and+veggie and the Safe insects vs. Unsafe (treats) viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15616 lists!
(Including the links for the newbie like me reading this... am still getting all your abbreviations figured out
(CHE???)).
? I am wondering if it is okay to let Ed nose around in a container of dirt from under a rock in my yard... it has some curly bugs (aka pill bugs, woodlouse, rolypoly) in it and some little ants.
Are curly bugs (aka pill bugs, woodlouse, rolypoly) edible and safe for hedgehogs?
I wanted to find him some insects but these ants bite (possibly fire ants???) although the residents in this nest seemed to be tiny. Are biting ants a concern for hedgehogs?
(We do not use any pesticides on our property so there should be no concern in that area.)

Regarding potty training - not so important but nice... when I brought Edgar home, I set him up in the bigger airy cage and put a litter box of cat litter in with him - mostly thinking that he could have something that felt natural under his feet. Within 24 hours Ed had moved all his potty duties to the litter box!... meanwhile I observed his water (in water dish) getting cloudy and I found Hedgehog Central and read how the clumping cat litter can get stuck on Eddie's privates (!) so I pulled that out. The paper towels (even when "primed" with poop or pee) don't seem to attract him - any ideas are welcome - meanwhile, I will clean his cage (changing newspapers and towels) several times a day.
? Do people just change the fleece several times a day? I plan to make Edgar a fleece liner very soon but imagine that it will be soiled enough to change at least once - maybe twice a day??? Do you just have many liners and run them through the washing machine as they are "soiled"??? Ed is peeing and pooping on his towels all over the cage now - I can deal with it and he is worth the trouble but is there an easier way???

Any help and advice is welcome! Thank you!!! Barb
 

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#5 ·
Does the wire cage have a wire floor? If so, he needs to be in a different cage, or put something like coroplast on the bottom of the cage to create a solid surface. Towels aren't adequate because a hedgehog can easily burrow underneath.

It's fine to take him out during his 'sleeping' hours, but he might be grumpy about being woken up.

Hedgehogs can be taken outside (supervised) to explore a backyard, but only when the weather is warm enough, not under 70 F, and preferably higher than that.

Blue Buffalo is a good choice of food for them. The best choice of insects are mealworms or crickets bought from a pet store, because these are guaranteed not to have anything like pesticides in them. What do you mean the mealworms at the store looked sickly? Almost always mealworms in pet stores are stored in plastic containers in a refrigerator, which keeps them dormant, so they would not be moving a lot when you look at them.

Most people who use fleece liners change them every few days, and between then you can spot clean them with a damp paper towel. Does your hedgehog have a wheel? He absolutely needs a wheel, and since hedgehogs will poop and pee indiscriminately as they run on it, if you put a litter tray with a paper towel under/in front of the wheel, a lot of it will end up on there. The wheel will get messy too and will usually have to be cleaned daily.

What heating/lighting system do you have set up for him?
 
#7 ·
Thanks for your replies.

The cage has a solid floor and 1" by 1/2" wire. This is a cage I had lying around... I am looking for a nicer roomy cage for Edgar (probably a big guinea pig cage?).
? Can someone give me a guideline on the maximum bar spacing recommended for hedgie cages?

I am not taking him outside in this weather... I was wondering whether the dirt and insects are okay to bring inside for him to root around in. There are no pesticides in dirt or insects.
Specifically:
? Are curly bugs (aka pill bugs, woodlouse, rolypoly) edible and safe for hedgehogs?
? Are hedgies immune to biting ants and are biting ants safe for hedgehogs to eat?

Re the mealworms: The mealworms at the pet store were dated three weeks ago and many of them were dead, the others were emaciated.
:( I will check back and see if there are fresh mealworms or go to a different store.

Food is Blue Buffalo - Weight Control cat food: Protein 36% Fat 12% Fiber 8% (good?)

I have ordered a Carolina Storm Wheel (with pan).
? Do people use aspen shavings in the bottom of the wheel's pan?

The room Eddie is in is kept at 74 degrees (my parrot sleeps in there at night) and I have been turning the overhead room light on during the day and off at night for Edgar. Is this sufficient?

Thank you. Your help is much appreciated.
 
#8 ·
moxieberry said:
What do you mean the mealworms at the store looked sickly? Almost always mealworms in pet stores are stored in plastic containers in a refrigerator, which keeps them dormant, so they would not be moving a lot when you look at them.
most petco and petsmarts have some really terrible quality mealworms. seen a few mom and pops shops also selling containers with mostly dead worms
 
#9 ·
Yeah, they can, though if you pick a container with the most recent date (within the last week, preferably) and take a look at them beforehand, those are better than others. They look pretty pathetic when they've just come out of the fridge, and also I noticed when we got ours that there were some that appeared 'dead', which I then realized are actually shed skins. Even dormant they'll be going through their life cycle, just at a much slower rate, and the discarded exoskeletons/skins are normal to have in the mix. It's when the mealworms have turned black (fully or part of them, it varies) and don't move at all even after they've been warmed up - that's when you know they're bad. Of the container I got (100 count) when I went through and transferred them into oatmeal from the sawdust when we got home, there were a few (under 5) dead ones, maybe 20ish shed skins, and the rest (about 160, I counted as I went) were healthy mealworms - some plumper than others, but all looked to be in fairly good condition. I got them from petco; I don't know how petsmart might differ from that.
 
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