A thorough care sheet will always be provided with hoglets however here are some brief details to help you to decide whether an african pygmy hedgehog is for you
Please ensure any hoglet you purchase is UK club registered or registered with the hedgehog program (international) and comes carefully socialised with a care sheet and changeover food.
Housing Pygmy hedgehogs can be housed in a variety of enclosures. Below I have bullet pointed a few popular options and mentioned some which aren't so suitable. Suitable
Zoozone 2
Vivarium floor space minimum 3ft x 18 inches, 4ft is better
Critter cages with walls blocked off
Unsuitable
Wire cages (risk of broken limbs)
Glass tanks (humidity too high)
Flooring & bedding Suitable
Fleece liners
Vinyl flooring
Carefresh
Recycled cardboard
Bioactive soil
sand
tiles
Unsuitable
Sawdust
Hay
Straw
Cat litter (clumping litter can risk health, litter is also difficult to walk on)
Heating African pygmy hedgehogs do require additional heating because our UK climate is too cold for them, particularly in winter. I always advise ceramic heat emitters for vivariums. Attach the ceramic heat bulb to a ceramic heat bulb holder and connect this to a pulse proportional thermostat. I also always recommend buying a microwaveable heat pad such as a snugglesafe for use in emergencies or an instant hand-warmer in case of power cuts. If hedgehogs get too cold they will try to hibernate and although this is normal for our native wild hedgehogs, African pygmy hedgehogs cannot survive any hibernation.
Food & water I will have provided you with a small sample of the food I use, this is to make your hoglets' change as stress free as possible. Changing their food as well as moving home isn’t a good idea as it can cause added stress and upset stomachs. If you do decide to change to a different food brand then I recommend doing so slowly by adding small amounts of their new food to their existing food and gradually increasing the amount of new food whilst decreasing the amount of previous food.
Hedgehogs by nature are omnivores, they should be fed insects and a good quality cat biscuit that’s high in meat content and has good quality ingredients. Here at Watoki we use the following dry food brands:
Millies lionheart multi-meat
Eden holistic country cuisine
Eden holistic semi-moist boar & pheasant
Canagan free-range chicken
Lily's kitchen delicious chicken
Applaws chicken dry food
These foods are all high quality, have a good meat content of 65%+ and are free from cheap fillers. We use a few brands as hogs have individual preferences and we prefer to raise hoglets on a mix to allow new owners a choice of brands which may be dependent on local supply. On top of this we offer live insects, including:
meal worms
wax worms
butter worms
silk worms
buffalo worms
morio worms (beware, strong jaws)
calci worms
pachnoda grubs (beware, strong jaws)
crickets
locust
dubia roaches
As with anyone, hedgehogs enjoy an occasional treat, below is a list of foods that can be included in rotation.