# When should you turn your hedgehogs light on and off?



## Desperodo

Hedgehogs need light 12-14 hours a day. So when should/do you turn the light on and off?

I read somewhere that they wake their hedgehog up at 4:00 PM. But I think that's too early. However, what do I know! I go to school at 8:30 AM and work, so I don't get home until 9:30 PM. 

K, so, at night, while I'm sleeping his light should be off? Because they're awake at night. And when I go to school in the morning, I should turn his light on, and he will go back to bed? I'm so confused! Haha. If I turned it on in the morning and turned it off at night, he'd have 13 hours of light. So he'd sleep all day while I had the light on? Then wake up when I turned the light off?

As you can see, I'm confused. I'm getting my hedgie in February, and I NEED to be prepared.


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## Sarahg

Desperodo said:


> K, so, at night, while I'm sleeping his light should be off? Because they're awake at night. And when I go to school in the morning, I should turn his light on, and he will go back to bed? I'm so confused! Haha. If I turned it on in the morning and turned it off at night, he'd have 13 hours of light. So he'd sleep all day while I had the light on? Then wake up when I turned the light off?


Exactly! On during the day and off at night.


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## Puffers315

Best way I like to put it is hedgehogs are like vampires. When the "sun" (aka their light) is out, they're asleep in their hide house (coffin), then when the sun goes away, they come out.

Now understand there's "bonding time" and then they have their own time. Most owners will grab their hedgehog and take them out in the early to mid evening hours, say 5pm and on. Some hedgehogs will become active for a little while, others may just snooze on you. Then the hedgie goes back in their cage and again, I think most will grab a quick bite to eat and then go back to bed for awhile.

Then at some point during the night, they'll come out into their cage on their own time, this is when they wheel, fully eat, drink, use the bathroom, possibly play with toys and basically be active.

So if you're going to school at 8:30am and coming home at 9:30pm, they would actually be fine for a light schedule. 12 to 14 is a good range of hours of light for them. My hogs schedule is lights on @ 8am and off at 10pm. If I get them out of their cage, its usually about 9pm. If I don't wake them up, then they wake up on their own around 10:30pm (30 minutes after the lights go off, sometimes sooner).

Now I'm not sure if its just how my guys react to the time, but typically they come out at 10:30, both eat, drink and do a little wheeling, usually for about an hour, and then both go back to bed in some manor (my boy Loki goes into his house, my girl Hester naps out in the open air). 2am rolls around, Hester gets back up and does some more wheeling for 30 minutes to an hour and again goes back to sleep. Wakes up again at 4am and does some more wheeling and back to sleep. And again at 6am. Loki on the other hand will snooze until 4am and then is up until 7am. Each hog is different, some owners have hogs that'll be up for 4 to 6 hours straight, my guys seem to act kind of lazy.

Hope that helps, in my own long winded kind a way.


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## Hedgieonboard

I've been turning mine on 8am to 9pm


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## PJM

I turn my light on at 5 am when I get up & off at 6 pm. Then I get Zoey @ 7 pm for cuddle time & Cholla at 8 pm. 
Basically, you have some flexibility.


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## MissC

I have a plain ol' lamp on a timer: on from 8:00 to 9:30am, then natural light (our l-room is very small and bright); then the lamp is on from 4:00 to 9:30pm. It gets quite dark here at 5, so I bumped up the time to 4 during our 'dark' season. :roll:


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