Thinking about a small pet. Need info.

[phosfate]

Hedgehogs? Discuss.

Comments

[snacky]

I fully support a hedgehog as a pet. Get one, get one!

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Don't know anything about them, but I like the idea 'cos they're adorable.

[fictionbya.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about them. This is what I do know:

Pros
- Cute
- Small

Cons
- Spikey

I've had mice before and they make nice small pets. I really enjoyed having mice. This is what I know about mice:

Pros
- Cute
- Small

Cons
- Pee on your hand

It could be that hedgehogs might pee on your hand too though.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this site?

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

And this one. It's the cute spikey craze sweeping the nation.

[theodicy.livejournal.com]

Awwww, wee Tiggy!

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

Rats are actually very nice, too. They're small, smart, personable, are least likely to bite of all pet rodents in my experience, and they're fairly inexpensive to keep.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I have heard many good things about rats.

Do they like being carried around in snuggy bags? Do they travel well at all?

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I wonder if St Tiggywinkle's in the UK is still going. If you found an injured hedgehog, you could give it to the local train station, and they'd make sure it got to St Tiggywinkle's for medical care.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I worry that they're too tiny. I had a bad experience as a child where I fell on an escaped gerbil, and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the whole can I keep it alive and happy thing... (see also sugar glider, those weird little domestic fox things, etc.).

[fictionbya.livejournal.com]

They are very tiny. (omg tiny little hands and little whiskers so cute!) I don't think you would want to fall on a mouse or a hedgehog or really any sort of rodent (though I am not really sure if hedgehogs are rodents... they look like they are so in my head they are at least honorary rodents).

I've also had hamsters, rabbits, and guinea pigs. The hamsters were the smelliest and didn't have the nicest personalities, but they stuffed things in their cheeks. Very cute. Rabbits are fluffy but they dig and chew and my mom made me give mine away when I was little. Guinea pigs are great. I dressed them in doll clothes and gave them baths. They are bigger than mice though.

Of the rodents I've had, guinea pigs and mice have been the best.

Hedgehogs look neat though! I just couldn't get past the spikes, personally. Ouch.

Hedgehogs

[danakate.livejournal.com]

I've never had one myself, but the SO, three_d, has.

He says they're easy to care for, however for them to be cute and cuddly they require a lot of interaction. They're very solitary by nature. Their cages must be kept really clean as they can apparently get depressed if it's not. Looks like they're very clean little creatures (his hated using the bathroom in her cage and would often wait until he took her out of the cage to do her business). And, you have to vacuum around them because their spines do fall out from time to time.

Also, buy a nice pair of thick leather gloves. If they're outside their cage and they get into a bad mood, you have to handle an angry spiky ball. Literally a ball. When they get that way, it probably means "I'm scared of everything today" so they should go back into their cage quickly.

So, definitely not a kid pet, but if you're willing to be patient and spend time with them, they are amusing and fun and omg they're so cute!

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

Depends on the rat. Females are /very/ lively and curious; males, once they grow up a bit, tend to be very languid and floppy and would no doubt love to snooze in a bag while you wandered around.

[theodicy.livejournal.com]

You're...you're kidding.

Wow.

WHY didn't my birth mother go back to England so's I coulda been born there? :sigh:

[a-hollow-year.livejournal.com]

On the downside, they're spiky on top. On the upside, they have soft little tummies. I love 'em - go for it.

[cocoajava.livejournal.com]

Dinsdale!!!!!

Hmmm. I'd rather have an ickle fuzzbutted rabbit, to be honest.

[versaphile.livejournal.com]

Yup! http://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/

[tacohime.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Hedgehogs are great! Christian has had two of them as pets, but sadly didn't have good luck. The thing you gotta remember is to keep them warm, give them lots of room to run around, keep them away from weird smells, and give 'em fun snacks like veggies and hamburger meat. They're very, very sweet.

His first hedge had to be put down after it was discovered that he had hedgehog MS (which of course made me ask if I was going to get put to sleep like Rocky when I found out: I was assured it was not so). His second hedgehog suffered some trauma/shock after Christian moved and had to put him in a smaller space (he's still feeling crappy about that, but I think he might've been sick, as he came from a shady pet store).

Look for a reliable breeder, too. Pet stores are shady and you, too, could have a hedge with gimpy MS.

[ramalama.livejournal.com]

Aw, c'mon, just lookit the icon! Squee!

[ex-sporknin.livejournal.com]

I just bought my boyfriend a guinea pig because he has been a very good boy. He is the cutest thing ever. The guinea pig. The boyfriends excitement was rather adorable too.

The only reason I wouldnt get a hedgehog is they are too spindly for proper cuddling, and cuddling is important. If you're looking for cuddles, you need sugar gliders. Their favorite thing in the world is cuddling, and its recommended to get a pair, so that while you are off being a human, they wont go without their precious cuddles. Their diet can be a bit of a hassle, but that's true with any small mammal that isnt a hamster or gerbil or rat.

[kamiki-seto.livejournal.com]

Shelby and I have just spent twenty minutes squeeing over the Tiggywinkles website - VERY cool.

My brother and sister-in-law had a hedgehog for a while, but it didn't work out - she stepped on a quill on the floor one night, got it stuck in her foot, and eventually ended up with an infection and on antibiotics. And she was -very- careful about where she let the hedgehog out and picking up after him. So they returned it to the breeder, who was very understanding.

They do have a number of other animals - they keep turtles, and also do turtle rescue. I never realized turtles had such personalities, but they tell all kinds of stories about them. They've also kept chinchillas with good success.

I've heard very good things about rats as pets - very smart, and if raised right very personable. (Makes me think of 'The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents'.)

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

I vote yes. Then you just need some flamingos, and you can play croquet.

[finabair.livejournal.com]

I'd think a hedgehog would be nifty, provided you avoided the pitfalls I found on this site (http://exoticpets.about.com/library/howto/hthh1.htm), particularly "Do not grab your hedgehog from above (ouch) or hold it in such a way that a finger could get trapped by the hedgehog rolling into a ball (big ouch!)"

I can speak to rats, as one of my brothers brought Zhivago and Beowulf home after experimenting on them in a class (sadly, Godzilla could not join them in their bid for freedom.) They were pretty friendly and curious, at least up until one of his friends (I'm SURE it was a friend) decided they should be given their freedom in a nearby restaurant. Or so I was told. You never entirely know when my brothers are pulling my leg, of course, but the rats did go away at that point. I mostly remember it was fun that you could handle them by the tail (not as much fun as possums are, because possums have a really firm tailshake, but fun nonetheless) and that if we brought them outside on the lawn they would seek shelter in my pantsleg, by preference. (They just about fit up to the knee, then they'd wiggle and that was VERY ticklish of them.)

I can also speak to guinea pigs, as another brother had one of THOSE (Smurfette) until we had to give it away because Dad developed an allergy. She was a lovely shorthair, and very friendly, although also inclined to scurry for cover if brought out and set in the middle of the lawn (she went for the prickly bushes, though, rather than my pants, FWIW.) She made the most amazing range of sounds from an alarmed squeak to a purr of about 3 on the richter scale to a squeal that said, "I KNOW there's lettuce inside that refrigerator you just opened!) The purr appeared if she liked you petting her, if you fed her lettuce, or if you fed her grass.

Fish are not much fun to pet, and are really easy to kill, although Fonzie and Pinky lasted pretty long in our household. Monarch butterflies (Alice and George) tend to get lost in any brownish furnishings you might have, and eventually disappear mysteriously with no explanation. And that would be the sum total of my experience with pets of any type.

So now that you've got the contents of my head, I need to go add more stuffing. ;-)

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

Hey, Ann? Next time I see you, remind me to tell you about the library's turtle. I think your kind of story. Or maybe not.