Hedgehogs

[sunset]

Could someone please tell me if a hedgehog makes a good pet?
My friend told me they smell real bad. Is this true?
I have been reading a lot about them, but they never say if they have an odor or not. Please help if you can.

Thanks.

 

[mycurlylocks]

Hedgehogs can make very good pets. They can be fun to watch them roam around and sniffle.
Each hedgehog has it's own distinct personality. Some are very shy even though they have been hand raised and will always ball up, most do just fine.
They are not a pet that everyone can handle. Some hedgies roll up as soon as someone new touches them and of course, those quills hurt!
As far as odor. You do have to clean them quite often. Some of the hedgehog self annoint themselves and it does smell quite badly. They tend to walk through their food, and everything else. Be prepared to wash them from time to time.
I can recommend this site to get more information from as to the care of hedgies:
http://www.hedgehogvalley.com

Tig has very helpful information on her site and you get to see the different colors that hedgies come in.

Hope this helps you a little,
Candy

 

[PaulSage]

I know this is an older thread...

but when I came across it, I couldn't resist. I used to have three hedgies (1.2) living in a 24"x24" Super Pet rabbit cage. I thought the height of the cage might be wasted, but they're remarkably agile, and took advantage of the ramps and shelves. The male was an albino, and he had that wonderful habit of decorating himself with his favorite foods (I'm still not sure why some of them do this). It was kinda funny if we fed them a few colored pellets from the parrots cage, because by morning he would be completely covered in different blotches of all the colors. The females never did this, so maybe the males do it to show off???
If at first they don't want to un-curl, try dropping a drop of water from their water bottle near their head. 99% of the time they'll un-curl and start wandering around, seemingly fearless.
As far as odor - it seems to correlate with what you feed them. Mine loved superworms, but they always seemed to have smellier waste after eating a few. Canned cat or ferret food was the worst. Recycled paper bedding seemed to control odor much better than any wood chip beddings. I put a few layers of newspaper underneath the pelleted paper bedding... "good mews" cat litter I think.
Best luck!
Paul

 

[John Apple]

'hogs' annoint themselves as a defence mechanism, one of the favorite foods is toads and the 'hogs' will annoint the back quills with the parotid gland secretions of toads, effecting a very good and distatsful defence against any larger predator......now what does this have to do with insect and arachnids????? this should be in another forum