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am i understanding this right

3K views 12 replies 7 participants last post by  HappyHedgies 
G
#1 ·
read this on a breeders site.

Each of our females are bred maximum 2-3 times per year. This allows them to have a minimum 3 month break in between each breedingi thought the standard was min 6 months between litters, meaning minimum of 5 months between breedings?
 
#2 ·
Yes, the standard is usually 2 litters per year (every 6 months). Only people that really know what they're doing and can gauge how their moms are doing should try breeding with any shorter of a break than that. I wouldn't breed again as soon as 3 months, though.
 
#6 ·
I searched that quote you used and found what breeder it's from, yeah, it's concerning that they are breeding their females so often. Definitely says something about their practices and desire for quantity over quality...
 
G
#7 ·
i just searched this quote. i was on the waiting list but i will be removing myself

some other things i found when i looked closer,

Make sure that the cage has at least 2 square feet of floor space and that the cage bottom has a solid surface and sides have no wire grates that hedgehogs can climb or escape from.

•Kitten food is never recommended for an adult hedgehog 1+ years old. Kitten food is only ever used for pregnant mothers, nursing mothers and weaning babies.

•Hedgehogs don't have very large stomachs so only require small amounts of food. Never "free-feed" your hedgehog as this results in stale food that a hedgehog won't eat.

Hedgehogs go through two sets of quilling, one when then are 6-12 weeks old and then again between 6-12 months old. This is a completely natural . actually thought they went throught quilling at 4,6,9, and 12 weeks
You may want to be concerned if your hedgehog loses more than 15 quills per day or if you notice your hedgehog's quill density is thinning.

2 square feet is way to small for a grown hedgehog
Hedgehogs are always supposed to be free fed you dont restrict there food,
There own mix they sell contains a kitten food?
ive never heard of a full grown hedgehog quilling and if mine was losing any more then 3-5 quills a day when not quilling, id be concerned

glad i saw this, i searched the post here and i wont be giving them my buisness
 
#8 ·
Just out of curiosity-- I noticed they have rather small litter sizes with all of their litters. Does this have to do with the frequency of breeding do you think, or is that just nature being nature? I've never had a litter smaller than 4 before, but maybe certain lines just produce more prolific litters than others?
 
#9 ·
When I was looking for a breeder near me to get a baby from, I almost went with that place! SO GLAD I changed my mind and went with a different breeder, even though she is farther away. I am very relieved that I came across this post :)
 
#10 ·
DasIgelPoggie said:
Just out of curiosity-- I noticed they have rather small litter sizes with all of their litters. Does this have to do with the frequency of breeding do you think, or is that just nature being nature? I've never had a litter smaller than 4 before, but maybe certain lines just produce more prolific litters than others?
It may be the frequency of breeding but it may also be the individual girls. I had a couple that never produced more than 1 or 2, and others that consistently 4 or 5. :)
 
#11 ·
Hi, im just defending myself and upset that no one would come to me first for questions.

About the breeding schedule I was understood that it was 6 months a female can be bred. So like if i were to breed a female in january, it would be 3 months for the pregnancy and the weaning of the babies then a 3-4 month break before they can be bread agin? Thats 6 months total or did i completely misunderstand? I would like to be told the right way to this because if there is problems I want to fix them. People like Larry and Nancy know how far we have come from the beginning and all we want to do is be right.

We are sorry and if you could let us know about the proper rotation we would like to change to that.

Also abot the sq ft thing on the cages, we have all of our hedgies in 2x2 c&c cages all allowing them in 4 sq ft....i know people use bins and i know they arent more than 2 sq ft usually...so thats why I said that. Sorry i will change that too.

And about the smaller litters we dont know what we will get. One of our males has produced two seperate litters with two different females and they both only had 2 babies.

So if someone could help us out we would like to change things that we may have wrong. Thanks.
 
#12 ·
Some breeders will wait a full six months to breed again, others will breed again 8 to 12 weeks after weaning depending on litter size and how mom did and stuff. IMO it's not that bad as long as mom is getting a rest in between litters and not being rebred soon as babies are gone, over and over. :)
 
#13 ·
I feel our breeding practices are fair and proper. All of our hedgehogs are pets over everything else and we would never sacrifice quality for quantity. All of our girls are given proper breeding breaks in between litters. We do extensive planning for each and every one of our breeding's. We wouldn't be posting our breeding schedule online if we were doing something inappropriate, wrong or trying to hide things.

Like Larry said, some breeders will breed their hedgehogs as early as 8 weeks from their last weaning date. People wouldn't really know this because the majority of other breeders don't share their breeding schedule, but it seems like because we share ours, people are starting to nik-pik possible problems. If this is the way it's going to be, we will just take down our schedule so this won't be happening again. At least our hedgehog's are given 3-4 month breaks in between. If we felt they had a hard time with their previous litter or think it's time to retire them early, we would do so. We do not push our hedgehogs to have babies when we want them to. We are in good nature with our hedgies.

Its people such as yourselves above, who are quick to react and judge others without proper information. You are slandering our very reputable business. You would know that any female can have any size litter, another thing you need to know is it was just winter out here and that can also have an effect on litter size as well. Some of our females are naturally petite and only able to have so many. Most of the litters we just had were also first-time-mommys. As Nancy mentioned some females produce smaller litters while others may always have bigger ones.

If we didn't care about our hedgehogs and our lineage we wouldn't of gone as far as shipping our breeding herd in from the states. We paid a lot of money for the hedgehogs we have now. If we didn't care about our animals or this species, we wouldn't go to this extent to try and better the genetics and lineage out here.

As for FOOD. We do not free feed our hedgehogs due to the waste it causes. We give them a reasonable amount of food every night and usually the hedgehogs do not finish all there food. If they do clear there bowls we give them a little more the following night. Its not like we are restricting our hedgehogs food consumption, we are cutting down on food waste.

Thank you,
Vanessa and Stephanie
 
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