# Holiday Travel



## librariangretch (Sep 17, 2014)

So I know the holiday season is still a ways off, but I wanted to get prepared now so I'm not frantically doing so when the holidays do get here.

I want to know what people do when they go away for a few days and take their hedgies with them. My hedgie, Violet, and I moved out of my parents' house a little over a month ago, but will be returning at Thanksgiving and Christmas for 4 days (each holiday). All of Violet's things are (obviously) at my apartment, so I'm curious as to what people do for (relatively) short visits with their hedgies. Violet is used to my parents' house and she would be staying in my bedroom (as she had done for the past year). What type of travel setup should I create?

I won't leave her alone in my apartment, I've heard horror stories about boarding animals and have had bad experiences myself, and anyone I trust with my animals is going out of town for the holidays, like me (I don't trust strangers to come into my place to take care of things - I'm sure I sound paranoid, but I accept that). So taking her with me is my only option...but I want to make sure I keep her safe, happy, and WARM.

Any insight, suggestions, or recommendations would be appreciated.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

I'm glad you're not planning to leave her alone! It's a much better idea to take her along.

As far as a travel set up, you can either use a store-bought cage, which tend to be pretty easy to fold up & pack, or you can use a large plastic tote. They make great travel cages since you can put hedgie's supplies in them for the car trip, then get things set up once you get there. Make sure you still use a lid - hedgehogs, even ones that have never tried, can be good escape artists if they feel like climbing. But you will want ventilation. A good way to do both is to cut out the middle of the tote lid and if you want, you can put window screen over the opening.

What kind of heating do you use for her now? You could use either a space heater or a CHE set up with the tote. Space heater will heat the whole room she's in, which may not be a good option if you're sharing rooms & don't like heat or if she'll be in a large, open room or space. CHE will heat just her tote & you shouldn't need a heavy strength bulb for a tote. Make sure you have a thermostat to the lamp as well. Even for short times, it's not a good idea to use a CHE lamp without one. 

We really need to create a better travel sticky. I need to add that to my list of projects, not that I need more. :lol: But other tips & such for traveling...

- Take extra bedding, in case she's especially messy, or her water gets spilled, or your trip unexpectedly extends by a day or two.

- Take extra bedding in the car as well, for her carrier, in case she poops or gets car sick. Also take a plastic trash bag or something so you can seal away the dirty bedding & not smell it for the whole trip. No need to have food for the actual trip, but if it's long (more than a few hours), you can offer her water when you stop on breaks. She'll likely sleep for the whole ride anyway.

- Mentioned in the previous one, but make sure you have a hard sided cat/dog carrier for her to ride in in the car. It's the only safe way to transport a hedgehog, especially if you do get in an accident. Emergency personnel are trained to look for hard-sided carriers & get them out if they can after the humans are safe, but they may not recognize a carrier that looks like a purse or think to grab a cardboard box or something like that.

- Take extra food as well. I usually took a day or two of extra food, just in case something unexpected happened.

- If your parents' house is out of your area so that you wouldn't be able to access your usual vet during the time you're there, check for both a vet that sees hedgehogs and an emergency clinic (if at all possible) that are around your parents' house. Make sure you have the names & numbers written down in case you need them. It's unlikely anything will happen, but better to be prepared than to be frantically searching during an emergency!

- Make sure you have back up heating planned, both for the car ride & your parents' house. Hand/foot warmers are good for travel heating & emergency heating. Those are the kind that you open the package & once they're exposed to air, they begin to heat up. Make sure you wrap them in fleece or put them in a sock or something before putting near your hedgie, as they do get very hot to touch without something insulating them.

- If your parents' house is out of your area, it might be worth taking some of your water from home in some plastic bottles or a gallon jug or something. Some hedgies get upset stomachs from sudden water changes, or they'll refuse to drink as much because of the taste being different.

- While you're at your parents, if there's going to be a lot of people around due to family celebrations or anything, make sure there will be a secluded room for you to put your hedgehog in where no one will disturb her, especially kids. Not everyone is good about asking about holding first, and you don't want someone to take her out & drop her or accidentally hurt her. Also make sure that no one tries to feed her anything without you knowing - it could be something that isn't good for hedgies (toxic, heavily seasoned, etc.). People mean well, but that can still sometimes mean bad things for animals, so best to be safe. 

I think that's all I can think of for now...I hope that helps! Hopefully I didn't give you more things to worry about. :lol: Just wanted to cover the bases!


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## Navina (Oct 28, 2015)

I read this post and really liked it and would like to share this with my friends and colleagues. By the way i am also a traveler and love to makes tours on my holidays. So i think i can spend nice time with this community.


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## MissFionaQuillington (Oct 19, 2015)

I just went through this whole mess myself. I went to Florida for Thanksgiving, and did not trust anyone to take care of Miss Fiona Quillington besides my one friend who was also traveling out of state. Fiona lives in a Sterile container so my friend was able to ingeniously load everything into that container (her food, her heat lamp, her wheel, her extra blankets, her hut, the hedgehog herself in a travel case). Another thing is that with all of the people who want to hold her, don't forget to bring hand sanitizer that she is use to. Fiona bites at any hand sanitizer that she is not accustom to and at Thanksgiving everyone tasted amazing so it was great to have on hand to make sure no one got accidentally nipped


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## librariangretch (Sep 17, 2014)

Okay, so we made it through Thanksgiving pretty well, but I want to create a better setup for Christmas than I had. I've seen that people use Sterilite bins for travel cages...if I were to use one of those, what is the minimum size it should be?

As for heating, I use 



. Would using this possibly melt the container? Violet ended up staying in my old bathroom; it has a built-in heater (to the wall), but it doesn't let me set it for a specific temperature (so it's really only good for additional heat).

Just want to get everything straight for a less stressful time at Christmas; Thanksgiving wasn't that bad, but I found myself going to check on her temperature every 45 minutes just because I worried her temperature would get too low.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

If you use a storage tote, I would make sure it's still at least 3 feet long & 18 inches wide. A lot of people in the reptile circle on Tumblr have been mentioning recently that Christmas tree totes are being sold right now, so that might be something to look into if it's not too big for you.

CHEs won't melt the plastic unless the lamp or bulb is touching it and they're safe to use with plastic totes as long as you're careful. Rather than using the lid that comes with the tote, you can use a length of wire shelving (which can be found at stores like Home Depot, and I believe you can also get it cut to a certain length there) so that you can just set the lamp right on the shelving. Alternatively, you can use the tote lid, cut out the middle & replace it with window screening or a C&C cube, etc.


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