It's been a bit since I gave you an update on the ol hedgies.
What I've learned thus far in my 6 months of hedgehog ownership...or cohabitation. They are prone to grumpiness. As nocturnal animals they do their cruising after dark Most of our waking ours the hedgehogs are cuddled up inside their toasty little plush pineapple nests. Yes the live in plush pineapples kind of like SpongeBob SquarePants.
Sometimes we haven't gotten upstairs to turn the light on so it's already dark when we head up. We'll flip the switch and catch them out and about eating. Speaking of eating, it's as adorable as you might think. Tiny little crunch, crunch, crunches. Drinking from their water bowls, dang cute. Rare occurrence to catch these events, but adorbs when we do. They poo in their running wheel every night, so every morning I put those bad boys in to soak. The bedding isn't too stinky though. So that's great. Mostly clean water, food and clean the bins every ten days or so. I totally recommend the big plastic bins. So easy to clean! Because hedgies aren't naturally social as in they'd love to have a servant provide food and water, keep the wheel clean, and then leave them the beep alone, we humans have to put the majority of the work into the relationship. Hence the cuddle bag. I made little hidey bags they can curl up in and hang out with me in.
If they are running loose on a lap they will 1) just go and if that means fall on the floor, so be it. They have no fear of falling. 2) poop and pee indiscriminately on me or whatever else 3) climb and with the pooping and peeing, uhhhh, I've had a few unpleasant moments. The good news is that when they are first real active and running around they get most of the potty out of their system and once it's cleaned up its good to go and the risk of a caca covered shirt diminishes. My girls also have a tell and since it's both of them I'm assuming this is a hedgie trait. If their little tail pops up they are going to be peeing real soon like. So towels are a surface they get to run on.
But the bags are mostly sleeping bags so the ewww is way less. Plus they are getting handled, I may be able to do a few things while hanging with them, and they are reinforcing our scent with love and care. Or something like that.
But the grumpies are just still there. Daffodil presents the most obvious of grump stances. The forehead grump. The quills kind of mohawk while the nose disappears. When the forehead is fully mohawked then the stabbing commences. Yes. Stabbing. They head butt with their sharp little quills. This is probably why you might hear about people's pet hedgehogs being jerks.
But we love them anyway and fortunately think it's kind of funny that they try to stab us to death every night when we pick them up. Hmmm. Maybe hedgehogs are kind of like perpetual teenagers.
