TCS Hedgehogs

FYI

2009-02-22T17:29:00.001-08:00

This site is awesome: www.kellypng2009.blogspot.com

A Tiny, Tiny Baby Hedgehog, Only A Few Hours Old.

2009-01-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

Old Hedgehog Photos

2008-12-27T13:21:00.001-08:00

Hedgehogs No More

2008-08-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

My last hedgehog died while I was in Peru. My mom thinks that I should get another one. I still haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with my animals when I go to college next year. Drew and Josie are both very capable of taking care of them. It's just a matter of will they want to. I'm thinking about going down to the swap the first week of September with a bunch of friends, and I'm thinking maybe I'll get another hog then. They're pretty hard to find now! There were only 2 vendors that had them last time we were down there.

The One Remaining

2008-06-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

Antics is the only hedgehog I have left! I sold off all the babies at the weaning time. Most of the other hogs hit the average lifespan, and then...died! I sure go through hedgehog food a lot slower now!

The Counter Comeback

2007-11-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

The counter that used to be on my site has made a comeback. I didn't realize that I had been missing it for quite awhile. When I first changed my template it kicked the counter off. I just have to go in manually and put the HTML code in when I change templates. NOW I KNOW!

Dropped!

2007-11-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

So I put Scrat and Antics together last night, and they seemed to do alright. Well, I was down in the basement pretty much all day, and she literally kicked him out of the little nestbox! It was so funny! He ended up sleeping under the water bottle, feeling utterly rejected.

Alas!

2007-10-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

I'm down to only two hedgehogs now, unfortunately. I had a couple that were getting pretty old, but still, it's not fun having them die. I'm going to breed the remaining pair in a week or so. I think I might bring Scrat to work tomorrow. He could use a bath though.

Almost Time

2007-07-31T23:50:00.001-07:00

I think I'm going to breed the Towaco and Caramel in a week or so. All the hogs seem to be settling in fine, but I really want to get them up on shelves. We're trying to get back to old house to get the shelving out, which would be awesome. Hopefully I'll get some babies from Towaco this time. And hopefully she won't cannabalize any of them!

Shelving Please!

2007-07-22T20:51:00.001-07:00

I need shelves! I have resorted to stacking my hedgehog bins for the time being until I get a shelving system. My area down in this new house's basement is nice and big, but it doesn't have any shelving. So I got to work on that. It's really nice because the laundry is upstairs so there's no disrupting piles of laundry to deal with. And dad's workbench is not there! It's just my corner this time!

Low-Fat Chow

2007-06-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of switching Antics over to Purina Indoor Formula, which is a diet formulated for cats that are indoors and have very little metabolic activity. These cats have a tendency to be obese. So does Antics. So over to the Indoor Forumula she goes, slowly but surely!

Try the Pinto Again

2007-05-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to stick Scrat and Towaco together again tomorrow. Hopefully Towaco will take good care of her babies this time. If she does decide to cannabalize one or more of her babies, I will leave any remaining babies with her, in the hopes that she will learn to be a good mother. I'm looking forward to see what she does.

2007-04-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

Most of the hedgehogs are ready to sell. I'm quite able to distinguish character qualities for the older ones at this point. There's Chomper, Biter, Taster, Licker, & Snuggles. Not really, they are actually all quite friendly and handleable, but they are also teething and tasting all the new stuff that comes into their zones. Anybody in Illinois who wants a hedgehog, send me an e-mail @
bryantbigfamily@wmconnect.com

2007-03-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

Well, the hedgehogs are almost ready to be taken from their mom. All except the pinto. Her eyes are just starting to open and she's starting to get fur. I really like the albino. I might end up keeping her if she doesn't sell right away. I really need to buy a champagne male. Then I could start cooking up some nice high-end champagne babies. That would be really cool. I separated Scrat and Eric's Champagne today, and I'm going to stick Tiggy-Winkle & Scrat together tomorrow.

I put together a rough breeding schedule for 2007 so that I could try to have babies available every month of the year. That would be really awesome. Then I would really have to get a table at one of the reptile shows. I think I would almost be better setting up at the Lake County Show, since I don't think there is a hedgehog dealer there yet. The baby with the light mask has a FULL set of teeth! She was chewing up my finger today. All of the babies were, but she's got the most teeth out of all of them.

2007-03-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

The baby's are 32 days old now! It's gone by really fast. They're at the stage where they are chewing on my fingers from the minute I pick them up. They're so much fun at this age! As you can kinda see from the 2 bottom pictures, they're venturing out of the nestbox on their own. That's always fun to see.

2007-03-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of the pinto. The babies are doing fine. The albino has some eye crusties in one eye, but I don't see any big issues ahead. I was hoping to have more than 5 babies to sell this spring, so I was planning on setting up a table at the reptile swap. I don't think I'll need to do that now that I only have 5 babies. Most will probably sell just by word of mouth, and I'll walk the neighborhood with some of them during our community garage sale and try to get some people interested that way. I'm going to breed Scrat and the champagnethatIgotfromEricthatdoesn'thaveanameyet in the very near future. I'm debating whether I want to breed Antic's & Bilbo at the same time as the above pair, or space them out a bit.

2007-03-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

Caramel's babies are now 22 days old, and the pinto baby is 11 days old. Caramel's babies eyes are almost all the way open. My EBCC was right, I have 3 Salt & Peppers, 1 Albino, and 1 Salt & Pepper Pinto. That's pretty cool, considering I've never had any colors besides Salt & Pepper. I probably will not keep any of these babies. They are all females except for 1 Salt & Pepper. I got 1 picture of each baby. More to come!

2007-03-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Here's pictures from the past two weeks. Towaco had 2 babies about a week ago, but she cannabalized one of them. I fostered the other one to Caramel, because I figured she'd have a better chance of survival. It's working out quite well. Caramel has accepted the baby, and it's turning out to be a nice looking pinto. Caramel's baby's are all doing great, and I'm dying to see what the white one will turn out to be. I'm putting my money on albino. Here's my EBCC (Estimated Baby Color Count) as of right now:
1 Albino
3 Salt & Pepper
1 Salt & Pepper Pinto

2007-02-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

Caramel's babies are doing great! I haven't any chance to hold the babies since the 2nd day, because Caramel has been hovering over them so much. I took a nap on the couch with Bilbo sleeping under my armpit today. Towaco is doing much better as far as being friendly. Tiggy-Winkle is due tomorrow. I'll try to take some pictures as soon as I can!

Caramel's Second Litter's Pictures

2007-02-17T18:21:00.000-08:00

How's that for a title? I'm getting tired of making titles, I may just turn them off. Anyway, I got some new pictures of the hedgehog babies. As you can see from the picture with all the babies, the one is bright pink!

4 Babies!

2007-02-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

Caramel had 4 babies while I was at work today. One looked like it had bright pink skin, so I wonder if it will be a different color. We'll see!

Due Date

2007-02-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

There hasn't been too much to write about recently. Caramel's babies are due on Valentine's Day. It's been really fun, because I can feel the babies through her stomach. That's just plain awesome! I am eagerly anticipating! Seems like it's gone by faster this time though.

New Hedgehogs, New Job, Potentially New Babies, etc!

2007-01-22T20:35:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! My slightly sincere apologies to all of the people who regularly check here. I've been really busy with my new job working at PetSmart. I've had a lot of fun with that so far, and I met a lot of fun people. I got to know one guy especially, and he ended up calling me and wanting to know if I was interested in a couple hedgehogs that a friend of his was trying to get rid of. She had a champagne female and a brown male. They're a little over a year and a half old. She was selling them for $50. After a few questions, I decided to buy them! This guy had told me that the champagne was incredibly friendly, which I soon found out, but he had also said that the brown was always spiked up. When I first saw him I picked him right up and he unrolled for me! He was and still is a bit shy, but I'm confident he'll turn around with lot's of handling.

Hedgehogs for sale

2006-12-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

I currently have 3 Salt & Pepper babies available for sale right now. There are 2 males and 1 female. They are $50 each. The female is possibly het for Champagne. Her father was a Salt & Pepper and her mother was a Champagne. For some reason it doesn't look like I spelled champagne right, but I'm too tired to look it up, LOL! Please e-mail me if you are interested in purchasing a hedgehog! I will post pictures of all of them very soon, so keep checking back

Kelly
bryanbigfamily@wmconnect.com

The babies are ready to go!

2006-12-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

I have 4 babies for sale right now. 3 of them have holds All of these babies are Salt & Pepper, with one of them being a possible het for champagne. I am pretty happy with the one-eyed hedgehog. I think she'll make a very nice addition to my herd, especially since she's possibly het for champagne. I think I'm going to name her "Patch," although that doesn't sound like a very good girl name. I'll post pictures of the babies for sale as soon as I know who's getting which one.

Sudden Tragedy

2006-12-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

Worked with the pinto for a little while, and she unrolled with her head spines down. Antic's is HUGE! I'm curious to see whether she will pass up her mom. Oh, that reminds me! I need to put an electronic kitchen scale on my Christmas list! I had an unfortunate event happen last Tuesday. One of Caramel's babies died. It was very sudden, as I had just been playing with them yesterday. It was not the one with the eye problem. I talked to Kelly at Hamor Hollow, and she said that there were a lot of possibilities as to the cause of death. It could even be a genetic clashing between Scrat & Caramel. I guess that's just one of those things that happens. I currently believe that almost all my herd is having mite issues. I ordered a product from Zoo Med called "Mite Off!," so I'll see how that works. It's supposed to disrupt the cellular functions of mites without harming pets.

Q-Tips & Vet Appointments

2006-11-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a very eventful couple of weeks. Tiggy's litter is almost over the eye goopies. I had to take one of Caramel's babies to the vet the day before Thanksgiving, because she was having an eye problem. One of her eyes was twice as big as the other and looked really nasty. So I talked to the people at HedgehogWorld, and they said that it would need the attention of a vet. So I took her in, and the vet said that it would be impossible to save the eye. She gave me some pain reliever, and said that if the hedgehog is in a lot of pain caused by the eye, they could remove it. Ouch! She thinks it could have been caused prenatally or it could have been an injury such as a spine poke. At the time I took her to the vet it was depressing because she wouldn't go out of the nesbox like her siblings. Wow, has that changed! My little brother woke me up this morning and told me that a hedgehog was loose. Guess which one? She had crawled up on top of the nestbox, over the side of the tank, jumped down, and started exploring. I think she do perfectly fine in life, even though she only has one good eye.

Solution For Eye Problem!

2006-11-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I talked to a couple people from the HedgehogWorld forums, and one of them said that I could get eye drops from my vet. The other person said to take cotton swaps soaked in warm water and work it off 2-3 times a day. So that's what I've been doing. It's been working pretty well too! Well, I got to get back to bible study!

Uh Oh!

2006-11-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to think about the baby's eye problem now, because it's in both eyes. And it looks like one of the other babies might be getting it in one eye too. I'm going to ask the people at HedgehogWorld what they think. I'm not posting as many pictures as I normally do because I only have access to a camera once a week. Check out my other blogs:

www.tcsleopards1.blogspot.com
www.crazyjf.blogspot.com

Update on Tiggy's Baby's Eye Problem

2006-11-14T11:18:00.000-08:00

Tiggy's baby is doing quite a bit better. There is only a little bit of crusty stuff in between his eyelids. The whole litter should open up their eyes this week, so we'll see what happens.

3 Weeks Old

2006-11-13T16:54:00.000-08:00

Caramel's babies are 3 weeks old. They're eyes are almost completely open.

Tiggy's Babies

2006-11-10T16:18:00.000-08:00

First of all, a big apology for all my incorrect spelling on the post before last. I got a chance to look at Tiggy-Winkle's babies yesterday. Unfortunately, I saw that one of them had a piece of bedding stuck by where the eye was forming. I very carefully removed it. The bedding was sticking to some pus that had formed over the eye. So I'm going to watch it and see what happens. I took a look at it today, and it was still coated with pus. I am accepting reservations for Caramel's babies at this time. They will be ready starting 12/5/06.

Tiggy-Winkle (A.K.A SuperProtectiveMom)

2006-11-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

Tiggy-Winkle is extremely protective of her babies! I can hardly get a look at them. I hardly ever see her out of her nestbox. And if she is out, she'll run right back when I walk over there. The picture is of one of Caramel's babies.

New Nickname

2006-11-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

Caramel's babies are beginning to open their eyes. They are sooo fun to play with! They lick and chew on me. I have officially given Cinnamon the nickname "Antics," because she never made it out of the toddler stage. She knocks over her water bowl, gets out of her cage, burrows through all her bedding, and many more antics! She's a lot of fun.

First Self Annointing!

2006-11-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

This is all 3 of Caramel's babies. When I picked them up today 2 of them started self-annointing. The one that is behind the other two is self-annointing. They have started licking me too! It feels really funny. They're eyes should open in another week or so.

2006-11-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of Tiggy-Winkles babies. I believe they were 3 days old at the time. I think the large one is in the middle. It seems to be more developed also. Hmmm...

Tiggy had babies

2006-11-04T19:05:00.000-08:00

Tiggy-Winkle had babies on Halloween, October 31st. She had 3 babies. Observing the litters from the Scrat x Tiggy-Winkle breeding has been interesting. Tiggy-Winkle is a very large hedgehog, and Scrat is a relatively small hedgehog. The last litter she had contained 2 large hedgehogs and 2 small ones. This litter contains 1 large one and 2 small ones. I believe this difference in size to have the ability to be passed down. I get a kick out of genetics. Pictures coming soon, for some reason they wouldn't upload today.

Monthly Record 10/31/06

2006-10-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

10/31/06
I added a new hedgehog this month, and I finally have some pictures. I bought a Salt & Pepper Pinto. She is still adjusting to her new surroundings, but I'm holding her a lot. Caramel and Tiggy both have litters, so I didn't record them this month.

Scrat:

Cinnamon:

The Pinto (I haven't found a name for her yet, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!) :

8 Days Old

2006-10-31T05:49:00.000-08:00

Wow, time really flys! A big apology to all of you who regularly check here, I've been really busy. The babies are getting huge! They're growing like weeds. It seems to me that they're growing even faster than Tiggy's last litter. But that would make sense, because Caramel has less babies. I am dying to see what colors they will turn out to be. Especially since Caramel is a champagne and her mate Scrat is a salt & pepper.

Caramel Had Babies!

2006-10-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

Caramel had babies last night! I opened up her nestbox this morning, and saw 3 little babies! I went back a couple hours later and found that one of the babies had strayed from the mom. Confident that she would not be bothered by my scent, I picked it up and moved it back under her. Of course, I took a photo of it while I had the chance. I looked back this afternoon and saw that they were all under mom still. Whew! I'm hoping they will all make it ok.

New Pinto

2006-10-17T06:07:00.000-07:00

I bought a pinto hedgehog at the reptile show on Saturday. She's coming along quite well as far as handling. She wouldn't unroll for pictures last night, so I'm going to try to get pictures once she gets a little more used to me. I'm going to make use of the t-shirt trick. That seemed to work really well with Caramel. I'm sure all the handling factored in too! I really like the pinto's color, and I can't wait to breed her.

Cinnamon's Cage

2006-10-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Cinnamon's new cage. She seemed to enjoy the concept of her food and water being on top of her nestbox!

New cage for Cinnamon

2006-10-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the store & got a new cage for Cinnamon. I got her a 56 quart Sterilite bin. I'm really happy with it. I still have to drill holes in the side, but I figured out how I'm going to set up the cage. At this point I've set her up with a nestbox, a water bowl, and a food dish. I put the food and water on top of the nestbox, and that leaves lots of open space for her to walk around. I may get a wheel for her eventually. I'm probably going to put most of my colony of hedgehogs in Sterilite bins, or at least the males & pregnant females. The other females I may house in multiple all-female enclosures.

Monthly Record 9/29/06

2006-10-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

As of 9/29/06, I have started keeping a photographic record of my animals. Every month I will take a picture of each animal, and record significant notes for that month when applicable. Hedgehog photos will consist of a head shot and a body shot with a water bottle for size comparison. Here's the record for September:

Scrat:

Cinnamon

Caramel

Tiggy-Winkle

Projected Litters:

2006-09-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

Offspring of Scrat & Cinnamon are estimated to arrive around the end of October, if all goes well.

Offspring of Scrat & Tiggy-Winkle are estimated to arrive around the first week of November, if all goes well.

These litters will then be available for sale when they are between 5 & 6 weeks old.

Scrat is a male salt & pepper.
Tiggy-Winkle is a female salt & pepper.
Cinnamon is a dark eyed cinnacot.
Pictures of these individuals are available on previous posts.

2006-09-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hedgehogs come in many colors ranging from very dark to albino to beige. There are also pinto hedgehogs in all colors. Pintos are a pattern that involves white spots on the normal color. Here is a picture of my female dark eyed cinnacot. I plan to breed her on September 22nd. Hopefully I will have babies about 35 days after that. She is not albino, because her quills are tan-orange, and her eyes are dark.

A couple weaning pics!

2006-08-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

I only have 2 hedgehogs left! I am going to keep one, the cinnamon, and sell the little male. Tell me what you think of my first litter!

A New Post From (LAZY) Kelly

2006-08-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

I have been really, really lazy lately! The pictures on this blog are really old! In fact, my hedgehogs are already weaned, and 2 of them are already sold. I do have pictures of them though. I am planning to keep the cinnamon, so I just need to sell the male. I haven't posted pictures yet because my internet connection is so slow. But, I just got a new laptop, so I'm probably going to go to a wireless hotspot and post there. Keep checking back!

The Eyes Are Opening

2006-08-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of new pictures of the hedgehogs. They are 19 days old now. Their eyes are almost all the way open. Some of them look kind of funny because one eye is still mostly closed, and one is mostly open. I think they are also teething, because whenever I pick them up, they start gnawing on me. I can feel their bottom teeth through the gums. They self-annoint all the time now.

They have a little bit of fur at this point, mostly on their sides. You can see it a little bit in some of the pictures. The babies are really starting to show their different colors now. One of them will probably turn out to be a cinnamon, one a salt & pepper, and two will probably be snowflakes. Scrat, the father, has a lot of genes for snowflake. Snowflake is basically a very light salt and pepper.

New Picture and Self Annointing

2006-07-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

The babies are now 13 days old. I have held them since they were 7 days old, and they are doing great. Their eyes have not opened yet, but they have a new set of quills. I held all four today, and one of them started to self-anoint. Self-annointing is where a hedgehog spits on itself. Hedgehogs will do this when new things are introduced to them. Scientists still do not know why they do they spit on themselves, though. There are 3 females and 1 male. One of the females is lighter than all the others, and the male is darker than the rest. The picture that I am posting is of these two.

Parents

2006-07-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

Thought everybody might like to see what the parents of these hedgehogs look like.

Name: Scrat
Gender: Male

Name: Tiggy-Winkle
Gender: Female

Now, as you can see, these are both dark colors. But Scrat's pedigree indicates a long line of snowflakes, dark eyed whites, albino's, etc. And there are definitely different color shades among the babies. I am very curious to see what colors they will turn out to be!

Finally! Pictures!

2006-07-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture that I took last night while Tiggy was trying to figure out who lifted up her nestbox.

All is well!

2006-07-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

I lifted up the nestbox this morning, and all four hedgehogs were doing fine. Tiggy walked out and tried to figure out who lifted up her house. She either didn't care, or knew it was me, because she walked right back to her babies and started nursing them. While she was making sure everything was alright, the babies started crawling all over each other. It was a lot of fun to watch. Their eyes have not opened yet, and they will not open untill the hoglets are 16-23 days old. The eyes are blue right now, just like a baby bird. It makes the hedgehog look kinda weird when you look at head on.

New Arrivals!

2006-07-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

1:10 PM July 14th: 5 African Pygmy Hedgehogs were born to Scrat and Tiggywinkle.
I accidentally found them when I heard Tiggywinkle eating something, which was strange because the food is on the other side of the tank. So I lifted up the nestbox, (where she happpened to be after tearing apart her cage around 8:00-9:00 this morning), and there she was eating one of the afterbirths! At this point there were 2 or 3 babies. I didn't look again for fear of scaring Tiggy. I risked a look at them the next morning, and found that she had 5 babies! After another day, one of the babies had wandered away from Tiggy and died. Tiggy then consumed the baby. She has now had the remaining 4 for 3 days, and they are doing very well. They crawl around and squeal all the time now. I haven't ventured to take pictures yet because I will need a flash. Hopefully I will be able to take pictures soon!