Winter Housing?

[SnufflePuff]

It's been quite a while since I've posted, but I've still been stalking the forum and have decided to start posting a little bit

As some of you may have heard lovely little Calgary Alberta Canada has been in quite the deep freeze as of late (apparently we were the second coldest place in the world last week - only second to the south pole I believe) and as such I've been having some heating woes with one of my hedgehog's cages.

Oakley has a Midwest Guinea Habitat Plus Cage - http://www.midwesthomes4pets.com/cat...nu=0&catid=142 - whereas as my girls each have C&C cages. As you can see from the website pics, it's quite an open cage and I had bought 2 x 150 watt ceramic heat emitters to make up for this (my girls only need 1 per cage to keep their cages at a perfect 78).

However his cage has been a bit colder than normal lately. At one point it dropped to from 78F to 68F (Yikes!) but that was because one of the heat bulbs burnt out. Thankfully I caught it quickly - but he didn't seem to be too affected by the whole ordeal. Now one end of the cage is staying at a constant 75-76 and the other end is around 74. That's definitely colder than he's used to but he seems perfectly content.

I should mention that Oakley came from a home where he didn't have a heating system at all. The Calgary Humane Society gave him a red heat bulb while he was with them for a few weeks, but I'm the first time he's ever had a real heat system.

Anyways to my question! Insulating the cage with plastic or choroplast seems quite difficult due to how open it is so I was wondering... has anyone ever heard of anyone switching to a different cage during the winter months? Rather than trying to insulate Oakley's current cage, I'm wondering if I bought a commercial one (maybe a Marchioro Tommy one?) would it be too stressful for him if he had a different cage in the winter than he does in the summer?

Or do you think he is fine as is? Maybe he's just a very temperature tolerable hedgehog based on his background?

Thanks!

[Puffers315]

I would say he's fine if he's not showing any signs of less activity and such, 74 to 76 isn't bad at all temperature wise, my Loki's cage somewhat runs like that, the CHE kicks on at 74 and off at 76 so it kind of bounces up and down all day. If you want to try and keep a good steady heat then I would insulate the sides at least, you don't have to do all the walls but even just the two sides being 'covered' will help retain heat. This is how my cage is, the two sides are covered with towels, the back is left open and away from the wall about 3 inches, the front is open during the day and night time it gets covered in a blackout curtain.

I can't say through my digging around here that I've found anyone that switched cages in the winter, I think most if anything modify to help retain the heat in their current cage. But I'd say you're good since no one else has said anything.

[SnufflePuff]

Originally Posted by Puffers315

I would say he's fine if he's not showing any signs of less activity and such, 74 to 76 isn't bad at all temperature wise, my Loki's cage somewhat runs like that, the CHE kicks on at 74 and off at 76 so it kind of bounces up and down all day. If you want to try and keep a good steady heat then I would insulate the sides at least, you don't have to do all the walls but even just the two sides being 'covered' will help retain heat. This is how my cage is, the two sides are covered with towels, the back is left open and away from the wall about 3 inches, the front is open during the day and night time it gets covered in a blackout curtain.

I can't say through my digging around here that I've found anyone that switched cages in the winter, I think most if anything modify to help retain the heat in their current cage. But I'd say you're good since no one else has said anything.

Thanks! It's been much warmer around here so it hasn't been an issue since