Just got a hedgie very excited! :-0

[HogHedge]

I am new here and new to hedgehogs. My only pet experience has been with dwarf hamster i had 2 and 3 litters later (in a 2 month period) i had a total of 21! i been up and down thru everything with these little guys and i love them to death, unfortuneatly a disease spread thru the cages and at just a few months old wiped out alot of them, 1 right after another just weeks apart from each other. it finally stopped leaving me with a few, the original mother had recently passed away and soon after the father, i think the father was the only one to have died from natural causes :cry: i am now left with 3 hammies. RIP to all.

Saturday i decided to go to the pet store and saw this adorable hedgehog and decided i have to have him. i went home and did a little research on them and not long after went back to the pet store and bought him that same day (i say him but im not certein of the sex yet). The pet store i bought him from is pretty shadey. they offered no information on him at all. i really dont like this pet store, they placed a dwarf hamster in this stupid little 8"-9" long 5"tall "school bus" to try and promote it to little kids. he had NO place to move in it just tore my heart, especially thinking back to my hammies, they had fish in cups smaller then coffer mugs... i will be calling **** and complaining about that, but thats another story. So i bought this little hedgie, paid $150 for him, it said "baby hedgehog" other then that they dont know his actual age nor sex. I brought him home and set him up a huge pen to play it. I did not get him cage but instead setup fencing in an 8'X8' area in my house. I opted for a water bowl rather then a bottle, i feel it is a more natural way to drink for them or any animal. and picked him up some kitten food + mealworms + crickets. For floor i layed down these huge hard plastic sheets i got from home depot for $100 and dumped tons of aspen over. I made him a soft bed out of some really nice material.
My concern was, the first day he was here, he ran like crazy every forward and back just pacing around but running. he wouldnt eat the meal worms, (maybe wasnt hungry?) and wouldnt eat the cricket. he drank tho and about 2 hours later i put out the cat food and he ate it. he took a nap and a few hours later awoke. He must have ran like 200 laps around his new area, i dont think he knew what to do with all that space, esp. after his previous living environment. he would run, eat, drink and run again and repeat. heard hium crunching and running all night. today i woke up at 11Am and he was still up but had slowed down. I went to pick him up and he balled huffed and puffed i felt so bad knowing he was scared wished i could just show him, i mean no harm, and im not going to eat him! i picked him up and 20 seconds later he unraveled and quickly jumped out my hand and ran away. he hid and went to bed... i tried waking him at 9 PM today and picked him up and he balled,... and wont unball even after several minutes, so i just place him back and he is still sleeping... its now 12:30 he has sleped almost 14 hours straight, without drinking or eating or anything... is this fine?
a wheel isnt really neccessary if he has this much room is it? and i swear during the time i did see him run i would almost think he blind how he just paces forward and back, almost running into the wall and ignored the cricket as if he wasnt here, cricket jumped almost on his face numerous times... i just wanna make sure he is ok, i want to do an initial vet check but im kinda low on $$ at the moment. but will do soon as i get a chance. BTW i think i may have seen a little something in his spikes like a mite or somethin but physically he looks 110% perfect, just weird behaviour, atleast i think. i know getting his trust is a lengthy thing but i cant wait to be able to play with him, want to give him a bath too but cant get him to give me any trust whatsoever.
lol sorry for the long novel of a post but it was my first one so i wanted to get everything down. :-)

[herbiesmom]

A hedgehog is a wonderful pet and I am sure you will enjoy him. First to tell what sex the hedgehog is. Turn him over and look at his tummy. If he has a belly button, that is a penile sheath and you have a boy. If there is no belly button, the hedgehog is a girl.
Second, balling and huffing are normal behavior until he gets to know you better. He is frightened of all the new smells and needs time to adjust. Sleeping hedgies put their quills up and ball up to protect themselves from predators. So if you touch him while sleeping, he will do what comes naturally.
A wheel is important. It is fun for them and decreases their stress. Also does he have a place to hide in to go to sleep or is he trying to sleep in the open? They need a hiding place to feel secure. My boys sleep in toasty tents or under their wheel burrowed in the bedding.

[Nancy]

Not being up and active and not eating or drinking for 14 hours is not normal. I suspect he is not warm enough. What temperature is your house? I suspect being in an 8' x 8' enclosure he is on the floor. Unless you have radiant infloor heating a floor is not warm enough for a hedgehog.

Hedgehogs require minimum 73F and some can require as much a 77 or 78F or they will attempt hibernation. I suspect by your boys behaviour, this is what he is doing.

If he is a baby, he should be up and eating and drinking every 3 -5 hours. Babies are like human babies and need food often.

I'd put him in a smaller cage and up the temperature. It is very difficult to keep a cage that large at a suitable temperature. Hibernation attempts weaken their immune system. If the hedgehog is not warmed up and kept warm, it leads to death.

[LoriL]

I agree with what others have said here. I just wanted to add my experience with Lucy.

I think it's wonderful what you're doing for your new baby! Obviously you love him/her very much! :hearts:

My Lucy doesn't care for pens, she kind of "freaks out" by them and does exactly like you've described-runs around and around, desperately looking for a way out or a place to hide. She hits her nose on the side of them like she can't really see where she's going-she doesn't see her toys, doesn't see her food or litter box. When we have play time-she prefers to "free roam" in a room and I place the play pens along areas where I don't want her to go (in front of the entertainment center so she doesn't get behind it, etc.). She doesn't seem to panic as much.

She does love her smaller cage though (go figure). I have it set up with her igloo, wheel, food, water bowl, litter box, and a couple of small toys. Maybe she prefers the security of a smaller enclosure all the time? I'm not sure. :dunno: Of course, it's not tiny, tiny. I have a 116 quart sterilite container, so she still gets some space.

Something to remember too, when you first bring your hedgehog home, they are pretty scared of all the new things-including you. It's important to give them a little time. I was told to leave Lucy alone for 24-48 hours and then slowly start to introduce myself to her.

Make sure he/she has a place to hide and he/she is warm enough.

[HogHedge]

its anywhere from 70-72 in the room, usually more like 70 tho, i will look into getting a heater the house heater is excellent but doesnt hit this one room the hedge happens to be in and unfortunetly thats the only room i can give him so im actually making the rest of my house hot as **** to give him that 70-72 environment but will look into a heater, so i can make his place even warmer a bit but not have to waste so much energy to heat the rest of the house, and make it too warm everywhere else. I managed to play with him a bit today :-) i was very happy with the time we spent, i got him to sleep in my lap for a bit and then i kinda had to wake him up as i was in a very uncomfortable posistion, i gave him a bath and at first he just relaxed in the water didnt bother him but after about a min he tried desperately getting out even went so much as to run onto my barehands and didnt ball up i got to feel his tummy, and it was so soft :) . i know how to check for sex but i havent been able to because i cant get to his underside, that would have been the perfect time to check cuz he was so worried about getting out he stopped to think he is exposing himself... unfortunetly i didnt check.. ****, maybe next time. The bath was actually the first thing i did with him as he wouldnt really open up, after the bath and he was pretty much forced to run into my hands, is when he kinda chilled out and let me hold him more and thats when he napped on me. really i dont think their is a difference between a pen and a cage or tank, i think the real issue lies in that their is too much free area and i need to fill it up with more junk for him, some toys and more hiding spots and just clutter the area up kinda. Right now the bed is basically a big bowl shaped soft thing, i made it from a combo of a friends ferret bed (this thing was almost new and i cleaned it very well first) a big low rise bowl, and i just kinda sewed it to in and around with other fabrics, i threw 1 of my plain white crew shirts in their after i wore it so he could maybe get used to my scent more? he seems to love that shirt now and wont lay in the bed without it. maybe i can get him a small cage and fill it up with stuff and put it inside his pen house he has now but leave the door open so he can leave his cage into the open pen area anytime, kinda like a back yard for his home. seems to still be eating fine but will eat cat food only doesnt touch his crickets or mealworms, strange cuz from what i seen mealworms are a hedge favorite. he got up last night but only for a few hours, i was asleep but could hear the noises kinda half awake half asleep. i went to bed at 1:30 he probly got up at 2:30 and went back to bed by 9:00. he did manage to eat alot. all in all i made alot of progress with him today with bonding. I will probly keep the pen but make alot of adjustments to it, and possibly add the cage inside the pen and fill it up with stuff + get a heater!
anything else i should know? all sound good? his back nails look like they need a trim but i will wait a little bit for that, as to not freak him out just yet

[Grimreaper2112]

He needs to be off of the floor especially if it is the ground level of the building. Because heat rises the ground floor "floor" is the coldest of the building. Get him up on a table so he can benefit from the heat already in the room.

[HogHedge]

his room is actually the upstairs room i think most of the heat is sinking in from the roof and through the windows (theirs like 5 in this room) i just bought a really nice space heater, my god this thing pumps air like crazy. i set it away from him so the heat doesnt hit him direct but i now got my room nice and toasty at 74*F very well maintained i love this heater! heat is not an issue anymore, but he just doesnt seem to want to be very active i take him out and try to play with him but all he wants to do is just curl up in my sweatshirt and sleep, i put him down to run around and he just goes to sleep, sleeps all day really, i mean i only had him like 2 days total now and by tomorrow will be the 3rd day, but day 1 he was pretty active and wore himself out + new environment i could understand him sleeping alot yesterday, but now today he has been sleeping for most of the day except 2 hours of which i woke him up earlier to give him a bath and interacted with him, he sometimes lets me pick him up now but it takes me a few minutes of holding my hand steady in front of his face before he fully relizes its me and im still not out to eat him!! :dunno: other then that he seems to be eating and drinking well and crappin places lol the are dark brown, solid yet moist (not dried up) so everything seems to be in check, and looks very healthy moves around healthy when he does move. i guess i will wait and see how he acts tonight although its already starting to get late. what would cause him to sleep all day?

[Zoomom]

HogHedge, I think your plan sounds fine, giving him a den or smaller cage and leaving access to the larger playpen. I do sort of the same thing with Sophie. She lives in my "animal room" a room set up just for my smaller pets, along with my tortoise and a tropical aquarium. Since all of those guys like it warmer, I set up a space heater for that room that has a thermostat to keep the temperature relatively consistent, and the whole room stays about 75-80 degrees, I have a couple of digital thermometers around so I can always tell at a glance what the temp is. I was going to let Sophie have free roam of the room, but although it is a "hedgie proof" room, I decided I would rather know exactly where she is, so she only gets free roam when I am there with her. As you can see from my picture, I have given her plenty of spaces to play in/hide, actually, since I took that picture, I added more PVC pipe and started using a water bowl instead of a bottle. I would suggest for your large playpen- setting up a heater to keep the temp. up, and using PVC pipes, and maybe igloos, other houses, and blankets, hedgie bags, so there are plenty of places to hide in and like you said, crowd up the area so that it is not so open. In the summer Sophie sleeps in a hedgie bag, like in the picture, as it gets cooler, like now, I put several fleece blankies and maybe a hedgie bag in the middle, and she makes a nest in the middle of them. Sometimes when I lift up the edge of the blanket she's under to say hi, I can feel the heat escaping from her warm little burrow. As long as I keep the room temps in the mid to high seventies, Sophie has never had any problems.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/Zoomom/sophienewcage.jpg

[LoriL]

...and try to play with him but all he wants to do is just curl up in my sweatshirt and sleep, i put him down to run around and he just goes to sleep, sleeps all day really, i mean i only had him like 2 days total now and by tomorrow will be the 3rd day, but day 1 he was pretty active and wore himself out + new environment i could understand him sleeping alot yesterday, but now today he has been sleeping for most of the day except 2 hours of which i woke him up earlier to give him a bath and interacted with him, he sometimes lets me pick him up now but it takes me a few minutes of holding my hand steady in front of his face before he fully relizes its me and im still not out to eat him!! :dunno:

When you say sleep all day, are you talking about sleeping during the daytime hours? Are you aware that hedgehogs are nocturnal? They will sleep most of the day. So you could be waking him up in the middle of his night when he normally would be, and should be sleeping.

Lucy's usually asleep by 7:00 am, and we will wake her up around 5:00 pm for some social time. Then put her back after about an hour or so (she's been crabby lately) for her to nap. Then she's awake on her own around 8:00 or 9:00 and we socialize again. She does most of her activities though in the middle of the night.

[HogHedge]

sorry for my poor phrasing, i meant he sleeps all the time, he slept from like 11 am or so all the way till like 2 in the am. I think all is fine now, i think i just was looking too much into it i mean he is new here, cuz yesterday he slept from about the same time 11am till about 3pm when i woke him from about a couple hours, not on purpose but thought if he is up i will see if we can make some progress on our bond, so i gave em a bath and played with him for a bit and he finally let me hold him for the first time (the bath really helped me to let him know im on his side) and then he slept on my lap and i put him in his bed and covered him up a little for him, and he slept right their untill about 10PM last night to when he came out and ran like mad up until about 6-7 he was running :hyper: , stops to eat drink, and rest for like 30 seconds and runs again, he keeps running the same paths tho almost like he is trying to develope a map in his brain. so i kinda confused him and put another hiding spot down and it was funny cuz he ran and where he would have kept running he came to a screeching halt and just slowly sniffed out walked inside the hide out and thru the other way, then went about jettin around the pen again, he returned and resniffed out that area like 5 more times. at about 7 i was awake cuz i had went to the b-room and he was still up just mellow, still checking out all of his hideouts, and im very happy cuzzzzz.... he ate his mealworms!!! :applause:
i think he is just fine, sometimes we worry over nothing and think too much into things. im away at college right now but i miss my dwarf hamsers, i still miss all that passed, and the ones i have, i feel bad cuz im missing out on their lives, they only live to be like 2 - 2 1/2 years and so half of their life i missed while i was here for a year :cry:

Here is a pic from my dwarf hammies and some of their kids. Its the mom, the dad, and i cant member if that was the 2nd or the 3rd litter that i have there. And the pic of my holding my hedgie, cute little leg hangin off the side. If its a He, his name will be Diesel lol if its a girl, crap i havent even thought of what to name her. I really need to check someday and find out

When you say sleep all day, are you talking about sleeping during the daytime hours? Are you aware that hedgehogs are nocturnal? They will sleep most of the day. So you could be waking him up in the middle of his night when he normally would be, and should be sleeping.

Lucy's usually asleep by 7:00 am, and we will wake her up around 5:00 pm for some social time. Then put her back after about an hour or so (she's been crabby lately) for her to nap. Then she's awake on her own around 8:00 or 9:00 and we socialize again. She does most of her activities though in the middle of the night.