sorry to hear that. dr jenny didn't have anything to say at all about the quills shedding?

how old is mika?

if the hedgehog is below 6 months of age, that's quilling. the hedgehog is replacing its baby quills with adult ones, if you pick your hedgehog up and look closely you'll find the quills are a little uneven with some longer ones poking out. this will continue until the age of 6-7 months when all the baby quills are replaced with adult quills.

the beauty of hedgehog breeding.

i take pleasure in experimenting hedgehog colour inheritance, and it's one of the main reasons for me to breed hedgehogs. you'll always spot some surprises in the litter of hoglets.

if you know the lineage of the parent hedgehogs, then you'll realize that the colours can be breeded and none are rare. hedgehog colours are inherited, and there are dominant and recessive genes like humans do.

if the male is a pure S&P and the female albino, the offsprings will all be S&Ps or snowflake (the white you mentioned).

if both parents are of mixed (eg. male is S&P with S&P and albino parents, female is S&P with S&P and albino parents), then you may get offsprings with colours ranging from S&P, snowflake and albino, with higher chances of S&Ps being born.

snowflakes are the results from a coloured one mated with an albino. like when you breed between a cinnamon and apricot, they may produce offsprings with 'cinnicot' colour.

but do note that colour breeding is still something that many are researching right now because hedgehogs are only domesticated for about a decade or so, so the colour inheritance may not work exactly like, say human's blood type of A, B, AB, and O. Mainly because there's too many colours and too many combinations, and human have yet to study this extensively to prove the exact process of colour inheritance in hedgehogs.

you don't.

i don't breed mealworms but you can keep them alive for a long time by gutloading them with oat. and keep them away from water. i think there was a thread on this before, or discussed somewhere in the previous hedgehog thread.

i've kept my mealworms alive for over 4 months without a single drop of water, so i believe it's okay. they'll look active and aggresive if you constantly add oat, good source of energy for them.

if you have not been feeding a regular portion daily and didn't monitor the weight gain, then the only option you have is leave it alone and wait until the expected delivery date has passed. although they mentioned it can be as long as 49 days, normally hedgehogs give birth after about 30-35 days after a successful mating.

first time moms will tend to be more aggresive, but that is a subjective description as some hedgehogs are generally aggresive by nature.

also, if this is the first time you try to mate your hedgehogs, there are always chances that the breeding is unsuccessful as your hedgehogs may not really 'know' exactly the reason why they're housed together with the opposite gender.

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Added on July 25, 2009, 5:33 pmin general people would recommend fit32 as the diet content is the closest to a hedgehog's diet. many also start with kitten34 as the kibble are smaller and easier to consume, but do note that kitten34 has a higher fat content and even from the texture you can see that the kibbles are somewhat quite oily.

there is only one specific brand of hedgehog food available in the market in malaysia, you may check it out to figure out hedgehog's best diet in percentage.

This post has been edited by livingmonolith: Jul 25 2009, 05:33 PM

actually, it looks more like champagne. it's different from eric's, although it may also be a snowflake but it's hard to see unless there's a close-up photo of the quills.

snowflake is not a colour, it's considered a derivation from the standard colours. we call them snowflakes when the number of white quills is high in percentage. snowflakes occur in every colour.

and while we're talking colours, the hedgehogs we find locally are mostly algerians, S&P is a common term for hedgehogs we see here, but we can also term them with colours between algerian dark grey, grey and chocolate, although it's a bit hard to categorize since there aren't any experts around.

that's what i thought as well about the packaging sizes.

anyway, depending on how 'luxurious' one want it to be, actually the start-up cost won't have to be so high if you know where to save.

hideboxes can DIY, cage can use toyogo boxes, fleece is a one-off purchase, bedding and food can be cheaper if you purchase in big number.

wheels, if you're as creative as some members, they actually DIY. if you're not so creative, then maybe can purchase 2nd hand items like me.

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Added on August 5, 2009, 5:33 pmdefinitely won't be climbing around, in fact they'd rather you leave them alone in the dark and let them come out to play themselves at night.

cat kibbles that're mentioned are the closest diet to hedgehog, although we do have hedgehog diets in the market nowadays. some owners also feed boiled egg white and chicken meat as well. occasional mealworms as treats.

rarely you'll find a hedgehog fall sick out of nowhere, unless they inherited diseases from parents such as wobbly leg syndrome. apart from that, the more usual situation you may encounter is that them injuring themselves due to their clumsiness (fall off wheels, climbing and tumbling around, etc).

This post has been edited by livingmonolith: Aug 5 2009, 05:33 PM

he released it back to the wild.

just in case if you haven't read the follow up stories, the forumer is living in new zealand (or somewhere), where wild hedgehogs always get stuck in residential area's piping and stuff. so that's pretty common there.

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Added on August 7, 2009, 6:11 pmnormally people will advise the earliest contact with the hoglets is approx 2 weeks from date of birth, or to put it safe, when the hoglets have their eyes opened.

it also depends on how the mother behaves, some are calmer and will allow you to have a look at the hoglets even after a week, as long as you keep your hands off them. advisable to move the hoglets using only clean spoons before the age of two weeks (if it's really necessary for you to move them).

This post has been edited by livingmonolith: Aug 7 2009, 06:11 PM

i remember this hoglet, i think you've posted the photos before in the thread V3 or V4. didn't realize that she's the one you handfed.

people assume it's easy to breed hedgehogs, but are rarely prepared to handle abnormal situations because few mentioned their experiences where things went horribly wrong and there's no guide for them when unfortunate incidents happen.

yours is either a cinnamon or champagne.

can't tell without a picture of the whole hedgehog.

no problem, i'm curious to see how your hedgehog would look like as well without the ears.

yes, fighting among siblings is very normal, which is why breeders should have enough space to keep the hoglets apart when they're old enough to be left alone. while i've seen few adult hedgehogs being housed together (usually in petstores), there's always a chance of injuries if they're kept in the same enclosure.

hoglets open their eyes in about 3 weeks old, so if you got it about a week after that that means it's about a month old only. naturally at this age it will still require mother's milk because it is not ready to consume solid food yet. normally breeders will inform you to collect hoglets earliest at 6 weeks old or when they already started eating solid kibbles. to be safe usually it's 8 weeks before we normally part the hoglet with its mother.

isn't both the same? only difference is the inch and cm measurement, which is the same size btw.

some complained that the silent wheel tends to fall down if the hedgehog's running too fast, but so far i've never experienced such incidents.

there's no pinto in malaysia, not to be mistaken with snowflake colours.

i remember a year or more ago max has posted before that he enquired about bringing in pintos from US or somewhere, but that will cost over 1k. the conversations about this was a bit too distant and i can barely remember the details mentioned by the posters back then.

for ventilation should be fine, but i think you'd probably have to be concerned if it's going to be a bit too suffocating for the hedgehog itself, considering that it will definitely pee and poo in the box.

at 32cm high, i think it's adequate for you to leave the top open 24/7 and won't have to be worried that it'll escape.

what i meant was although there will be air circulation, the smell produced from the faeces will remain trapped in the box and it'll create an unhygienic condition for your hedgehog. also, should the faeces remain uncleared for several days, you'll probably find the box a bit humid as well from heat emission.

and eric's right, the enclosure now may be appropriate for the time being, but if you are going to include a wheel anytime in the near future that will be a little small for your hedgehog once it reaches adulthood.

This post has been edited by livingmonolith: Sep 2 2009, 03:53 PM

harder version of toothpaste.

anyway, good to know that you're prepared for it, at least there's one less thing to worry about.

some owners manage to toilet-train their hedgehogs, it's hard but not impossible. but i think it's safe to say that once the hedgehog realize where is its sleeping area they'll keep that portion in enclosure clean from faeces.

good to see her settling down well, she's the most hyperactive of the lot of hedgehogs i have at home.