Hedgehogs

I grew up in the 70s with a mother who was far ahead of her time. We had an organic garden, raised sheep, goats, chickens, composted, conserved water and fuel. She taught us to be survivalists—my sister lived in a tent one whole summer, coming in only to use the bathroom.

When I moved to the city after college, I couldn’t stand the lack of animals. I had my dog Cissy and cat Buford, but really, I was only getting started. When I moved in with the man who is now my ex-husband, we had a total of 3 cats and a dog. After the kids were born and articulate, I added two guinea pigs and a rabbit. When my oldest, Jackson, was 8, he had read all the Redwall books published at that point and longed for a hedgehog (an African pygmy, not European), so his father said no and I bought one anyway.

Over the years, we added a Siberian Hamster, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a mandarin salamander, a tomato frog, more hedgehogs, a chinchilla, two cockatiels, five more dogs, six cats (as the original animals reached the end of their life spans).

So with that introduction, here’s the story of our hedgehogs IN the floor and ceiling.
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We have hedgehogs living in our house. Before I go any further, let me explain that we are not talking about the endangered European hedgehogs that are the size of American ground hogs—our hedgehogs are African pygmy hedgehogs that are bred in captivity as pets. They are usually the size of your hand, covered in tiny bendable spines (not quills, like porcupines, although if you step straight down on one of those tiny bendable spines, they certainly feel like a porcupine quill) with shiny obsidian eyes and nose. Their underbellies are soft. Hedgehogs are notoriously solitary in nature, although you can teach them to be somewhat social. And they do roll into a tight ball when frightened or threatened.

So we have hedgehogs in our house, and when I say in our house, I mean literally in the house, between the first floor ceiling and the second story floor. Someone (that would be me) had conceived of the bright idea to make the knee-wall closet in my son’s bedroom into a space for hedgehogs. It was hedgehog heaven, with tunnels, carpet, soft places to sleep. And because we had two males, I thought that it would provide enough room for the two of them to avoid each other.

Conversation at breakfast:
Son: Cogs is chasing Ferdie.
Mother: Well, do they seem like they’re hurting each other?
Son: Ferdie is squeaking.
Mother: Perhaps they have to work out a dominant/submissive thing like dogs. (Like I would know)
Son: No one is bleeding.
Mother: Then don’t worry about it.

Two weeks later:
Son: I can’t find the hedgehogs.
Mother: What do you mean, you can’t find the hedgehogs?
Son: They aren’t in their space.
Mother: Where did they go?
Son: I don’t know.
Daughter (from the living room): Hey, there’s a hedgehog in here!

So, at this point, we knew that Cogs was able to squeeze through tiny spaces next to the heating conduit and waltz down the stairs, although I prefer to think that he just rolled in a ball and went for it. But we still didn’t know about Ferdie…until my son found the hole in the wall. There was absolutely no way to retrieve the hedgehogs after that. You wouldn’t think that something so, well, ball-like could move that fast, but like crocodiles, they are very deceptive: when need be, they stand up on those skinny little legs and do the 100-yd dash. Even when they came for food and water, they moved too fast for us to get to them before they scurried back into the hole.

Fast forward one month. My partner and I were admiring her office that we had repainted and set up.
Partner: Baby hedgehog!
Me: Huh?

It seems that the breeder had been incorrect on Ferdie’s sex and he was a she and that chasing was actually hedgehog foreplay. So now we had two adult hedgehogs between the ceiling and floor and possibly up to 3 more baby hedgehogs. In truth, only one more baby appeared (in the downstairs bathroom), and thank goodness we were able to catch Ferdie (hedgehogs can reproduce at a rate approaching rabbits), but we have misplace Cogs again. We knew he was scheming when we caught him doing some sort of free climb across the ceiling of his cage heading towards the opening in the middle. On the bright side, we have no bugs in the house. Handy little insectivores.

From senua