Tips on How to Care for a Hedgehog

"Hi I’m Daniel Keeper owner and operator of Zoo Keeper Exotic Pets in Austin, Texas and on behalf of Expert Village.com; today we will be talking about some exotic pets. In particular, the hedgehog. This is a pygmy hedgehog from Africa not to be confused with the large hedgehog from Europe. These guys get maybe a third again bigger than this. They are nocturnal creatures and of course, they are covered in these spikes. They are not related to porcupines like many people think. They are in their own little family. They have been known to walk through a pride of lions without any problem at all because once predators get poked in the nose by these quills, they usually back away. People ask me can they keep them with their dogs and their cats. Usually there is no problem at all. It would take a really aggressive dog or cat to want to mess with a hedgehog. They are insectivores so usually they eat bugs and things like that in the wild. In captivity, we feed them a hedgehog diet. Sometimes we will feed them a high quality cat food. They have been known to eat cottage cheese, apples and other little treats like that."