5 Things I WISH I Knew Before Getting A Hedgehog!

Hey guys it's Erin and welcome back to my channel. So today I'm going to be discussing five things that I wish I knew before getting my first hedgehog. I got my first hedgehog back in 2013 and yes of course I did lots and lots of research before getting him but no matter how much research you do there are certain things that you can only learn by actually owning the animal and having real life experience. So this is going to be like a list of things that research didn't teach me. Now I don't mean for this list to be sounding completely negative. I don't mean to like bag on hedgehogs or anything like that and maybe some of the things I say don't apply specifically to your hedgehog but I have owned four hedgehogs in the past. I got my very first one in 2013 and I've gained a lot more knowledge on hedgehogs since back then. So yeah I don't mean to be negative or anything like that but it's just how this list is probably going to end up sounding. Before I get started please don't forget to hit that subscribe button down below as well as hit that like button and the notification bell so that you know when I release new videos. So the first thing that I was not quite expecting is how grumpy hedgehogs are. I knew that they were like a little bit more of a grumpier animal but I was not prepared for how grumpy they truly are especially when you first wake them up. It takes hedgehogs quite a while to warm up to you once you have them out and even some hedgehogs if they aren't properly socialized will just constantly huff at you or spike up at you because they're scared. Hedgehogs are also very indifferent towards their humans. I'm sure there may be some who enjoy spending time with you but for the most part a lot of hedgehogs just kind of put up with you. They don't necessarily enjoy being handled or held or anything like that but they deal with it. A lot of hedgehogs don't necessarily like care about actually spending time with you they're more just there and so it's not going to be necessarily like a dog or a cat or sometimes like even a hamster where they'll come and seek out your affection. They're just kind of gonna put up with it and like I said before this might not this might not pertain to all hedgehogs. This is just my experience with the hedgehogs that I have owned. Most of them just put up with me. Number two they are messy messy messy messy. Honestly I think my hedgehogs are the messiest animals I own between my cats, my dog, my reptiles. My hedgehogs are by far the messiest and require the most maintenance. So as most of you know hedgehogs are nocturnal. Now I don't know exactly what they do at night but when I go and check on their cages the next morning they will have the pellets in their litter flung all over the place, their toys will be knocked in their food bowls, they sometimes have their fleece torn up or sometimes they go diving and they're underneath their fleece the next morning and I have to put it all back together. Another thing is hedgehogs like to pee and poop as they run on their wheel which is why I have the litter tray. If you watched my my bin cage video that I made of Ducky's cage I showed that I put the litter tray underneath the wheel and a lot of people had questions about that. The reason is hedgehogs tend to pee and poop as they run and so having that litter pan underneath basically catches all that runoff but as they run they are literally running through their own pee and poop and it gets all over their feet, they smear it all over the wheel, they get it all over the cage. They are just messy dirty animals. I'll actually I have a picture right here of one night this was one of my old hedgehogs his name was Miko. I had him a few years back but this is after one night of running on his wheel. I had the wheel perfectly clean the day before and this is how much poop got on the wheel after one night. So generally most people do have to clean the wheel at least every other day to every day to keep it nice and clean because hedgehogs are so messy. They also have a tendency to pee and poop when you try to hold them. So a lot of times people do if you hear the word footbath what people do is before they handle their hedgehog they put their hedgehog in like one inch deep of warm water that way the hedgehog kind of gets I guess motivated to go to the bathroom. A lot of times having them run around in warm water for a little bit can kind of get their digestive system moving and they go to the bathroom before you handle them. That way they don't pee and poop on you because otherwise most of the time they'll pee and poop on you every single time you get them out to hold. And number three kind of goes along with number two but number three is hedgehogs stink. This one's pretty self-explanatory but yes they stink. In my opinion they're the stinkiest animal that I own even more than my cat's litter box. I can clean out their cage and the very next day there's an odor that comes from it and I've tried different beddings and stuff like that but I haven't really found anything that truly fixes it. The only thing you can do is making sure you're staying on top of your daily maintenance and just keeping their cage as clean as possible is the best way to cut down that odor but no matter what that smell is still going to be there. Granted they're not as bad as like something like a ferret but they are definitely in my opinion worse than other small animals such as like rabbits and guinea pigs and stuff like that because with most small animals like I said the rabbits and guinea pigs their poop is just like a dry pellet and so that poop doesn't really have an odor just the pee does but with hedgehogs both of them stink. So like I said it is a lot of cleaning and maintenance that comes with it. Number four hedgehogs are loud. They are so loud. I actually don't keep my hedgehog in my bedroom at night because I am such a light sleeper so they're in the next room and even then I can still hear them through the walls. I know a lot of people keep hedgehogs in their bedroom. I don't know how you guys can stand it because I can hear them doing all kinds of crazy stuff at night like I can hear them digging through their litter box like all the pellets being pushed out. I've heard them slamming their water bottles, their food dishes against the side of the tub or clanking them together and the worst of it is their wheel. Their wheels are so loud. Granted I just have like a regular KT Critter wheel. I don't know what they're called. Oh the KT Comfort Wheel. That's what they're called. I have a KT Comfort Wheel and I think some of the wheels might be a little bit quieter than that. Even then I can hear their feet running on it. I can hear the wheels squealing. They are so loud. And number five is something that I actually didn't learn about until maybe like two-ish years ago which is called hedgy hives. I've always had issues when I hold my hedgehogs even with my very first hedgehog. I would have issues where I would hold my hedgehog and my hands would be burning afterwards so I would have to wash my hands all the time. But when I got Minnie if she would crawl into like the softer parts of my skin like if she would crawl like on my arm or anything like that I would actually break out in hives. I'm not allergic to any other animals. Not allergic to cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, nothing. And for whatever reason hedgehogs I am allergic to and I get so itchy and I get this burning sensation. And I thought that just it was just like you know a weird thing. But I learned that this is actually super common that a lot of people get these hedgy hives. Their quills can cause a lot of irritation to the skin which like I said can cause hives or a burning sensation. And so whenever I hold my hedgehog I always have to wash my hands immediately afterward. And like I said I've never had issues with any other animal except for hedgehogs. And apparently this is a super common thing with a lot of people having issues with it. So yeah my five things I wish I knew before getting my first hedgehog were the fact that they are grumpy, they're messy, they stink, they're loud, and they can cause the hedgy hives. Like I said I didn't want this list to be completely negative. I still love hedgehogs. I've owned four in my life and I own two right now. Minnie and Ducky. And honestly those five things don't deter me from wanting hedgehogs. I love my hedgehogs and I wouldn't own them if I didn't love hedgehogs. These are just things that I wish I would have been more prepared for or would have known more about in the beginning. So yeah I hope you enjoyed this video and if you are thinking of getting a hedgehog in the future I hope that this kind of educates you on maybe some of the downsides that you might not be thinking about when you look to get a hedgehog in the future. Like I said I still think they're amazing animals and I wouldn't trade my two hedgehogs for the world. I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you guys next time.