# Housing hedgehogs together?



## DanielleB (Jan 9, 2009)

I only have one right now, but I have taken care of others at zoos and I am wondering your opinion of keeping hedgehogs together.

At the zoo I worked at, there were two adult albino males kept together with no problems. They were unrelated, and put together at a little under a year old and are now 3-4 yrs.

There was another group with a male and a female (normal colored). The female had two young, one died and the other she refused to take care of. The baby (male) was nursed to health by the zoo owner, and once it was on solid foods, returned in with the adult male and female for the remainer of the summer tourist season. All three got along fine, and would curl up by each other. 
Actually, in both sets, they would always sleep by each other, or if removed, crawl back in by the other one, so it seems like they liked the companionship, instead of sleeping in different areas, as they would if they were completely antisocial.
Of the albino group, only one was very tame, and of the other group, only the baby was very tame, so I don't think socialization by humans played a factor in these cases.

I can see not putting together males and females unless you want babies, but what about male male pairings or female female?

Anyone else have any observations/thoughts to add?


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## Nancy (Aug 22, 2008)

Depending on the girls, often they will be fine together. It all depends on the personalities of the girls. It's not a guaranteed thing.

On rare occasion, boys will get along but not usually and they can fight to the death and fighting happens in the middle of the night when you are not around to see it. 

So this zoo owner put a baby boy back to live with his father and mother. The poor girl. Both those boys would be constantly trying to breed her and if the baby got her, then the babies would be inbred. If they were together for the summer then she would have had babies and they all probably enjoyed a meal. Poor girl. This doesn't sound like a very responsible zoo.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

> At the zoo I worked at, there were two adult albino males kept together with no problems. They were unrelated, and put together at a little under a year old and are now 3-4 yrs.
> 
> There was another group with a male and a female (normal colored). The female had two young, one died and the other she refused to take care of. The baby (male) was nursed to health by the zoo owner, and once it was on solid foods, returned in with the adult male and female for the remainer of the summer tourist season. All three got along fine, and would curl up by each other.
> Actually, in both sets, they would always sleep by each other, or if removed, crawl back in by the other one, so it seems like they liked the companionship, instead of sleeping in different areas, as they would if they were completely antisocial.
> Of the albino group, only one was very tame, and of the other group, only the baby was very tame, so I don't think socialization by humans played a factor in these cases.


No offense, but what this zoo is doing disgusts me. I can't believe that they would be so ill-advised as to house them like this. The poor hedgies. 

As to housing _pet _hedgehogs together, I would only recommend 2 females. Even then, as Nancy said, they may not get along. You need to have separate cages and supplies ready in case they need to be separated.


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## PixiesExoticHedgies (Sep 4, 2008)

LizardGirl said:


> No offense, but what this zoo is doing disgusts me. I can't believe that they would be so ill-advised as to house them like this. The poor hedgies.


Yep, I was thinking the same thing as I was reading the original posting. I even went back and re-read it, thinking maybe I misunderstood it at first glance. If this is already happening with the hedgehogs, imagine how many OTHER animals this could be happening with...at a ZOO. :roll:


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## DanielleB (Jan 9, 2009)

Nancy said:


> Depending on the girls, often they will be fine together. It all depends on the personalities of the girls. It's not a guaranteed thing.
> 
> On rare occasion, boys will get along but not usually and they can fight to the death and fighting happens in the middle of the night when you are not around to see it.
> 
> So this zoo owner put a baby boy back to live with his father and mother. The poor girl. Both those boys would be constantly trying to breed her and if the baby got her, then the babies would be inbred. If they were together for the summer then she would have had babies and they all probably enjoyed a meal. Poor girl. This doesn't sound like a very responsible zoo.


My question had nothing to do with the breeding responsibility of the zoo (the baby was about 3 months at the end of summer and removed afterwards, and they never put just one hedgehog out because this was a hands on/close up zoo, and didn't want to lay the stress on just one animal.) The female did not get pregnant over that time, she only got pregnant the one time in the year that she was part of the zoo. She ballooned up a lot, so it was obvious when she was pregnant, and did not eat the baby that died in the litter with the one that survived. EDIT: Since the dead baby was still in the cage, the male did not cannabalize it either.

Anyways, my question was just about keeping hedgehogs together, and I used it as a example of hedgehogs that got along well. They were brought inside at night so they didn't get cold, and my room (I slept at the zoo) was adjacent to the animal room. Whenever the sugar gliders or birds would get active, it would wake me up. I was never woken up by the hedgehogs moving around, and with the toys in their cage, they would have made a lot of noises with bells if they were fighting, instead of just a jingle now and then when they hit it roaming around


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## sagesmommy (Sep 25, 2008)

i would just say simply two females you can try it and see how it goes and two males i wouldn't even try it.


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