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6 Posts
Hi Everyone -
I've recently considered making a hedgehog a new addition. I currently own 4 rats and a cat. I probably wouldn't be for a while and I'm making sure I do my research before I decide. I have a couple concerns/questions.
1) I live in NH so the winters tend to be cold and the summers hot. I think my best bet for heating is to have the ceramic heating lamps because we live in an apartment so our living area is one big room (living room/dining room/office). We do keep our apartment pretty warm in the winter, but probably not enough for a hedgie (two of our rats are hairless so we try to keep it on the warm side). We have electric heat so I don't want to be cranking it up too much.
In the summer we do run the air conditioner because it gets unbearably hot. If we used the ceramic heaters, would they still give off enough heat even with our ACs running?
2) As I said I have 4 rats and a cat. We take the rats out for playtime every evening. In my brief research so far I've heard that they can be ok around other animals, rodents included? I'm certainly not going to house them together, but I figured if we could kill two birds with one stone with playtime that'd be great. Also, do they need special playtime outside of the cage daily like my rats do?
3) As I mentioned, the living area of my apartment is pretty much one big room so the cage would be by my rat cage and amongst the general "noise" (TV, computers, etc). Since hedgies tend to be timid, would this be too much for them to handle?
Thanks in advance for your help!
-Rachel
I've recently considered making a hedgehog a new addition. I currently own 4 rats and a cat. I probably wouldn't be for a while and I'm making sure I do my research before I decide. I have a couple concerns/questions.
1) I live in NH so the winters tend to be cold and the summers hot. I think my best bet for heating is to have the ceramic heating lamps because we live in an apartment so our living area is one big room (living room/dining room/office). We do keep our apartment pretty warm in the winter, but probably not enough for a hedgie (two of our rats are hairless so we try to keep it on the warm side). We have electric heat so I don't want to be cranking it up too much.
In the summer we do run the air conditioner because it gets unbearably hot. If we used the ceramic heaters, would they still give off enough heat even with our ACs running?
2) As I said I have 4 rats and a cat. We take the rats out for playtime every evening. In my brief research so far I've heard that they can be ok around other animals, rodents included? I'm certainly not going to house them together, but I figured if we could kill two birds with one stone with playtime that'd be great. Also, do they need special playtime outside of the cage daily like my rats do?
3) As I mentioned, the living area of my apartment is pretty much one big room so the cage would be by my rat cage and amongst the general "noise" (TV, computers, etc). Since hedgies tend to be timid, would this be too much for them to handle?
Thanks in advance for your help!
-Rachel