# Hedgehog Registry and Questions



## Tree (Apr 30, 2013)

Greetings! I recently registered Krampus with the Hedgehog registry (http://www.hedgehogregistry.org/) with two purposes:

1. He's really ill tempered and is susceptible to really bad cases of mites.
2. I was hoping I could use it to get information on his parents.

I haven't really figured out how to use it, so I'm looking for a little guidance.
I understand the purpose of registering hedgies is so that lineage can be traced and diseases/temperament is reviewed. In the grand scheme, do breeders actually look into this to make sure they are not breeding ill tempered, immunocompromised hedgehogs?

How can I look up my pet's parents, or is there a way to look into a breeder's herds to see if others are reporting similar issues?

Please note: the research is for my own curiosity and possibly to help figure out how best to help my little crankster.

Thanks!


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

The only way to use the IHA to find out if there are issues in a hedgehog's lineage is if the breeder is registering their hedgehogs and you get that information from them. The IHA can't find out the parents of a specific hedgehog unless the litter was registered and you have that number for your hedgehog.


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## Erizo (Jul 25, 2012)

The IHA can be kind of a sensitive subject (politics and personalities), but I have no established relationships / ties that constrain relating my experience. As a prospective new hedgehog owner, I found them to be no help at all. The ONLY resource of high value that I found was this forum. (It isn't a great place to ask about choosing breeders, though, at least not publicly.)

My breeder keeps excellent lineage records; which is super-easy to do for anyone halfway organized. Lots of genealogical software will work, Excel spreadsheets are easily customized for the task, and most breeders use Tenset Breeder's Assistant or similar; animal specific software genealogical software which are basically just customized spreadsheets created this specific task. Simple stuff.

My breeder registers all of her hedgehogs and provides all customers with a printout of the lineage going back five generations and the hedgehog's registration number.

A lot of breeders do not register any of their hedgehogs, or only register some of them (for a variety of reasons; some understandable, some considerably less so).

Getting Sophie's official registration completed was a nightmare, but that was an IHA problem. My breeder was 100% helpful, though I finally had to resort to semi-public complaints to get things done. I hated to go down that road, but that's what it took to finally get taken seriously.

Truthfully, having the lineage is probably not going to be helpful to you for the situation described; though you may find having the information to be very interesting. I certainly do.

You will have to rely on having an honest, ethical breeder that will be truthful. It's as simple as that. They know the background of their animals and their lines, and the breeder's specific knowledge and experience is what counts. Some breeders can and will be totally open with their experience with any of their breeding lines. Others choose to be opaque, which is ethically dubious, IMO (to be charitable in my wording).

Related to your question of having the hedgehog officially registered is having a complete copy of the lineage for five or six generations. You can have complete lineage information without the animal being registered. Those are two separate things (though both ought be done as a minimum standard and provided to the new owner, IMO).

Complete data ought exist for all generations of all breeding lines (that's the point of keeping it), but complete information for five generations is what most breeders will provide and that seems reasonable. Data presentation becomes unwieldy for most people when the number of animals included explodes into large numbers. Having the information is interesting because if it is complete you can clearly see how they breed their lines and how breeders 'swap' breeding animals / lines among one another so that everyone can maintain healthy lines. You really need like 8 or 9 generations of data for that part of things to become obvious; it becomes like a map, really. (You probably won't be given that much data, but breeding selection is a very interesting subject on its own. Serious breeders take the subject very seriously because of the high risks of not doing so.

*I would not buy an animal that doesn't come with at least 5 generations of lineage data.* As big a deal as some breeders like to make about vetting potential buyers, the greater risk is just the opposite. *Establishing whether a breeder is ethical and honest is extremely difficult.* I had a terrible time settling on a breeder because of how difficult this is. Insiders know who's who. Outsiders, new to hedgehogs, are in a tough spot. Truthful assessments can be very hard to come by. Nobody wants to light the fuse of suggesting that this breeder or that breeder is maybe not a good choice. If people will actually say that a breeder is bad - they are probably running mills and are truly horrible people.

Some breeders will not provide lineage information for their animals. The usual reasoning is that they are selling pets and they do not want to provide lineage information to someone that might then turn around and begin breeding - people that would be totally unqualified to be involved in breeding, which requires a lot of specialized experience.

That is, on the face of it, a valid reason for not providing lineage. *However, as a buyer, I am looking for reasons to trust that I have selected a good breeder and if they won't provide complete lineage information for 5 generations, I would not buy an animal from them.* The breeder that I am considering working with - I want to get a look at what breeders they are working with. Lineage data will tell you this if you have enough of it.

That's just one piece of choosing a breeder, but it's not negotiable for me. *Too many breeders don't understand that buyers need ways to know they can trust them and most breeders, in my experience, do a terrible job of that.*

*Selecting a breeder is the most important decision in choosing a hedgehog and it is the decision for which you will likely have the least information. * It took me a couple of months to choose Sophie's breeder and a lot of correspondence with people 'on the inside' of the hedgehog world to feel like my decision was reasonably well informed. Truthfully, most people can't / won't do the research that I did and are rolling the dice.

There is no place to go for reliable, trustworthy 'breeder reviews'. There should be, but it's a small world, so things get political and personal in a big hurry if something even slightly negative gets said, so honest recommendations (and independent confirmations) are really hard to get.

I'm not a 100% happy with the way my breeder presents herself or documents her qualifications - more like 65% happy - but she got some very strong recommendations from multiple sources that I don't think know each other (or at least didn't know that what they said was being compared to what other people were saying). I was lucky to have made what I think is a good choice. (She has a horrible website, and does a terrible job of documenting animal conditions, but I believe her to be a very good breeder that is weak on documenting how good she is.)

Choosing a breeder is the most important decision of all. And it suckity-suck-sucks.

My answer has gone beyond your question, but this a rant that I put out there from time to time. Potential owners need to know this stuff.

.


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## CoffeeKat (Jan 15, 2014)

In a perfect world, we all would do exhaustive research on everything hedgehog before ever bringing one home. I commend you for doing due diligence in selecting a breeder...how far did you have to travel to get Sophie? You see, that's one of the problems: most of us purchase hedgehogs as pets with no intention of breeding, and find it unrealistic to travel great distances to get one. I live in Kansas and there's no way I would travel to Oregon or Florida or Canada to buy a pet regardless of how impressive a breeder may be. I was fortunate to find what I consider a good breeder and a healthy, social hedgehog about 25 miles from my home and consider myself extremely fortunate for having found her. I couldn't even tell you exactly why I trust that she is a good breeder, I guess instinct plays a part in that too. 

I would hope that anyone who is considering the purchase of breeding stock and seeking a mentor would put as much time and effort into research as you have, because it's truly impressive.


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## Draenog (Feb 27, 2012)

I think it's great something like the hedgehog registry actually exists in the US. There's no such thing as pedigrees here.


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## gracefulchaos01 (Mar 19, 2014)

General registration with IHA for bred hogs would be super helpful. I discovered Titans breeder, found him on their website, and sent over a message asking about his lineage, what his parents are like, exactly when he was born... just general questions. I would like to know his history. And danged if I have heard a peep back from them. In fact of all the breeders I have made an attempt to contact over this entire hedgehog oddessy of mine, only 1 has been responsive. It's really quite frustrating. A registry would at least answer general questions. 
~grumble soapbox irritation~ 
Guess who is making a multi state drive when it's time to buy her next hedgehog.


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## Erizo (Jul 25, 2012)

Shockingly, the breeder that I wound up with is less than three hours away. I could not believe it!

It was certainly a pretty full day all told, but I'd been expecting and planning for a two-day scenario. One day out, motel for a night, and one day back.

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> and find it unrealistic to travel great distances to get one


I didn't want to have a hedgehog flown, and a two-day trip was my limit, so I was willing to travel five or six hours one-way; maybe a touch farther if things felt really good. That put Charlotte, Greenville, Atlanta, and Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Winston-Salem in play as longish trips, but within my parameters. Nashville and Roanoke, and Raleigh were outer limit options; those would have been long days. (Raleigh for whatever reason, has a pretty good number of breeders. It would have been a pretty brutal two-day trip, though.)

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> most of us purchase hedgehogs as pets with no intention of breeding,


I may have given the wrong impression. Sophie will never be bred. That falls outside what I want and I am not qualified. Well, actually I am probably well on my way to qualified at this point. With a mentor I could certainly breed with a reasonable level of confidence, but that isn't something that I have an interest in doing, not at all. It takes a special person that can devote the proper time to every animal. Those people are hard to come by, which is why good breeders are so hard to find.

Sophie was always intended to be a pet only, but I aimed to find a breeder that lives by high standards and takes great care in producing animals. In that respect, I was looking for 'breeding quality', but from the perspective of professionalism in the breeder, not from the perspective of buying an animal with top breeding qualities.

Note: One of my personal 'guidelines' was to find a breeder that usually has a waiting list. I wanted to avoid a breeder that almost always has hedgehogs immediately available. My reasoning for this guideline is that a breeder that often has at least a few people on a wait list is exceptionally careful not to overproduce animals; that in fact, they are almost breeding an animal just for you.

Breeders that always have animals available may be just fine, but the word 'mill' starts floating in the back of my mind. I also think it unfair to the animals for them to be six months old or more before they get a forever home. It's a personal distinction, but seeing that happen really bothers me.

After I settled on my breeder, I had to wait about two months for Sophie and that was just lucky. I had expected about a six month wait. I wanted a female; with classic, solid coloring, black or the darkest grey possible. I am not a fan of selective breeding for pintos, which seem to be especially popular these days.

When I got my first chance at a pick, there was only one hedgehog that I wanted. She was still there when my turn came. Yay for me. It would have been at least a couple months more otherwise, possibly longer.

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> I guess instinct plays a part in that too.


My job is researcher / freelance writer, so I just naturally want to know everything about everything. It's what I do, which helps. That also means that I avoid 'gut decisions' wherever possible. In the end, even with solid research, this choice was, in fact, a gut decision. No decision is ever made with truly complete information.

You are right about instinct. Sometimes you just have a feeling; you just know whether something is likely to be a good choice or a poor choice.

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> I discovered Titans breeder, found him on their website, and sent over a message asking about his lineage, what his parents are like, exactly when he was born... just general questions. I would like to know his history. And danged if I have heard a peep back from them. In fact of all the breeders I have made an attempt to contact over this entire hedgehog oddessy of mine, only 1 has been responsive. It's really quite frustrating.


*

Choosing a breeder was a horrible experience for me*, and I am better qualified than most to pursue the research. So many breeders do themselves no favors; horrible websites; poor communication . . . .

I think the IHA is a good idea and well intentioned, but suffers from what many small groups face: a limited number of active members (who are possibly all volunteers); and a lack of fresh blood (nobody in these types of organizations should ever hold the same job for years and years, but that is often what happens because they lack the resources to run the organization properly; i.e. professionally).

I'm only knocking the IHA here because they are the subject at hand, but we've all seen the same dynamics in other small groups that aim to do more than they can do well. When the mission is larger than the resources of the organization, there's gonna be problems. I truly feel for the people that are doing their best in a situation that isn't well positioned to set a solid standard. As on outsider, I can only gauge what they do by what their website indicates they are aiming for. They were no help to me at all and I made personal, professionally prepared inquiries. As a total n00b, it was these forums that tipped me from thinking about a hedgehog to deciding to get one.

Breeders seem to have their own cliques, so I wonder if "We're all in this together" is sometimes absent. Fractions and factions poison the well. Small groups have to rise above that.

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I don't mean to knock good people doing their best, but these were my experiences at the time, and I have had others privately relate extremely similar experiences of frustration. Choosing a breeder, the most important of all decisions, suckity-suck-sucks.

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## Tree (Apr 30, 2013)

Wow, thank you for all of the information! Krampus is my first hedgehog and I really did like the breeder I brought him home from...but when he started biting and causing grief I had reached out to her and she basically said that her hedgehogs do not bite because she spends plenty of time socializing with each of her hogs...

I have no reason to not believe her, but was curious if his parents had similar issues (I'm guessing she wouldn't know, because if she did she wouldn't have bred them).

I like the idea of getting a lineage though, and next time I will remember to ask for that, at least. 

Thanks again, it was great to hear other points of view,

Tree


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