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New hedgehog owner with a few questions :)

2524 Views 11 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Cavepainter, 
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Hi, my wife and I are new hedgehog owners, we read up quite a bit on them, and just bought our first lil guy on sunday. I just have a few questions.

1) We are handling him every day cuz we want him to get used to us, but so far almost every day he has pooped on us when we have him. Is this a common thing? Is it just cuz we are new to him or he is still getting used to things?.. Or do some just tend to do that.

2) Also we have noticed he is losing some quills, they are about 1/2 an inch long or so. I remember reading up on quilling but i just forget when it is and the people at the pet store believed this guy to be about 2 - 3 months old. Anyway I'm going to be looking that up after I post this anyway..

3) And one last thing. This is kind of random, and if it is totally dumb or would be harmful to the hedghog, I dont want anyone to think I want to do something that would be bad for him. I was wondering: If I slowly changed his lighting schedule by like an hour each day, so that eventually I would turn his lights on during the night, do you think he would be active during the day? We live in a basement apartment so there is not a lot of light that gets in the room during the day.. but still some, if that would make a difference too. Again, I don't want to do that if it would be bad for him, it was just something I was wondering cuz I like to see him running around, he's funny lol.

4) One last thing lol.. Do they ever get to the point where they enjoy to stay awake for a bit during the day to explore or just to be handled? I'm just asking cuz this little guy is always grumpy when we first wake him up, once he's awake though he doesnt mind being held, all he does though is try to find another place to go back to sleep. Usually he climbs up my arm and tucks his face into my armpit and goes back to sleep lol.

If anyone is wondering about cage set up, I have a 4 foot by 2 foot enclosure that I built for my bearded dragon that I used to have. So he has lots of space, for heat I am using a ceramic heat emitter, I will be getting a thermostat very soon to keep the temperatures fully under control, but for now I am monitering the temps closely and they are staying right around 75 in the cooler side and 79-82 in the warm side. I have a big solid running wheel. For substrate I have softwood shavings, they are not dusty, a couple of inches deep everywhere. And I built him a lil house out of lego. :lol: He also has a pringles containter that we covered in duct tape that he likes to push around and play with. Food and water bowls too of course.

Overall I think he's awesome.. if only my wife and I could agree on a name.. :p haha

Oh here are a couple of pics, I know his feet are dirty, we just gave him a bath today and the pics were taken last night. Thanks for any help you can be![attachment=0:eyfi00zj]SDC10781-resize.jpg[/attachment:eyfi00zj][attachment=1:eyfi00zj]SDC10779-resize.jpg[/attachment:eyfi00zj][attachment=2:eyfi00zj]SDC10787-resize.jpg[/attachment:eyfi00zj]

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Nicole said:
congrats on your little guy!
everyone has answered your questions quite well but I thought I would give a suggestion about the substrate. I'm sure if you explored the site you'll see that almost everyone likes to use liners. It's just a fleece or chorduroy(sp?) blanket that you can buy at Target or Wal-Mart or one of those stores, and you can cut it and get plenty of liners out of one blanket. Liners can benefit you and your hedgie, there's no possibility of mites or any respiratory problems. They save money and make it way easier to keep the cage clean (just throw them in the wash) as well as keep an eye on your hedgies health because you can see if there's any odd looking stool or blood in the liners. Just a suggestion, I know it's made it a lot easier for me :D

Oh by the way,
he's verryy adorable :D
have fun with your new friend!
Click to expand...
Was going to post the same thing (and you worded even better and more detailed).

As far as my input goes:
1) Age contributes to this greatly. My guy is new to me, but 5-6 months and does not defecate on me.

4) I wake my guy up in the evening between 6-8 everyday. Granted he is older and wont be sleeping as long... .but I'm really working on getting him to be social around this time. However, he usually tries to run for any sort of burrowing/sleeping space right away if I wake him up (after a hissy fit after waking him of course). If I give him a space to sleep, he will huff at me and go back to sleep. If i move around too much, he puts on his tough persona. On some few recent occasions, he has fallen asleep in my hands.I've only had him for 5 days, and he is still "huffly" once he is settled, but the second he smells my scent I can snag him up in any position. He's learning that 6-8pm is more of a play time and has recently started to explore and run back to me when he gets to far. Amazing little guy.

So, they can adapt to your "training".... but be patient with it.
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