I'm having a little freak out...

[Karlsmom]

Hello all! My name is Julie, and I'm new here. I'm having a moment! And I really just need to vent to people who understand. My first hog Karl comes home next week. I've gotten him two large sterilite containers connected with a 6" PVC pipe for a cage. He will have an igloo, extra pipe to hide in, and a Carolina Storm bucket wheel. Blue Buffalo food, snuggle safe disk, emergency handwarmers, kitty toys, freeze dried mealies, huge stock of toilet paper rolls. I even bought a sewing machine to make him fleece liners and snuggle bags! Hedgie Daddy is even excited. Ive read LizardGirl's book, twice. Lurked around the forum for weeks. The room he will be in usually stays a pretty consistent 70 degrees, but I bought a CHE with a 10" dome and a reptitemp 500 just in case. I plug in the CHE, works great. I plug in the reptitemp, green light comes on. Plug them up together, like the diagram says, no heat from the CHE whatsoever. Even worse, plugging the CHE into the thermostat results in both metal prongs melting! Back in the box goes the reptitemp, and I spring for a Spyder Robotics thermostat that I hope will be here before Karl is. Then today, my heat pump blows up. It's 30 degrees outside, blowing snow in April, and I live in the south! It's cold in my house, and would be freezing for poor Karl. Karl's not even here and I feel like the worst hedgie mom ever! Please tell me it gets better Thanks for listening, my coworkers are convinced I'm crazy and may call the looney bin if they hear me say "hedgehog" one more time!

[zombiewoman]

Julie you are not crazy and Karl is a lucky hedgehog. Just think of it as a practice situation if Karl had been home and now that is out of the way. You are being a great hedgehog mom. Deep breath, chin up and smile, Karl will be home before you know it for wonderful snuggles.

Lisa

[GoodandPlenty]

It's pretty obvious that you are doing all of the right things with regard to research, preparation, assembling your hedgie gear . . . . . You can do little to nothing as far as predicting the unpredictable. The 150 watt CHEs that I use are rated for like 25,000 hours or 5 years. But I had one short and go bad this first winter. Worse, it was apparently an intermittent short, which is downright dangerous. I discovered it half by accident. I was checking in on Sophie at night and giving her CHEs a feel. They were off at the time, but had been on recently - except for the one that was stone cold. I replaced it with an extra CHE that I had in reserve (which I shouldn't have even needed). The next day I tested the bad one and was able to make it work - and able to make it not work. Straight to the trash with that one. (There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that QC on CHEs (even the best ones) is not optimal. The defect rate appears high.)

All you can do is all you can do, and you can ask no more of yourself than that.

Pay attention to everything, but understand that life happens. You can't control it - you can only do your best.

I live in the Smoky Mountains, and know all about very low temperatures 24/7 for days or weeks at a time. I am well prepared, but cannot possibly defend against every possible scenario.

[Karlsmom]

Thank y'all for the encouragement! I'm very OCD and all my careful planning went haywire. I want my Karl to be super spoiled! I live in the Smokies too, near the casino in Cherokee! Nice to meet you and have a hedgie neighbor!