Breeding

Initially, I thought of breeding hedgehogs to make some simple income to cover my expenses in rearing hedgehogs.

After my first batch of hoglets I realized that mathematically, I'm actually not making any profit considering the additional expenses I had to fork out to take care of several more hedgehogs in the house.

It was not easy to breed hedgehogs, as a few quality breeders would point out, and most of them would tell you that they are hobbyist breeders. Yes, they breed hedgehogs as a hobby.

Funny? Well, I thought so too, back then.

After going through months of research (before I finally got my first hedgehog), I realized that breeding hedgehogs doesn't really make you a lot of money, but it brings a lot of satisfaction, and in a way, you can consider it an experiment as well!

Hedgehog colours are inherited to offsprings. Most of the time, if you breed between hedgehogs with different colours, offsprings will usually take either one of the parents' colour. But there are also chances that the hoglet will carry a colour which is in between the colours of the two parents! That's how cinnicot came into hedgehog's colour chart (offspring from cinnamon and apricot parents).

Besides that, it's also a tedious selection procedure to find the suitable hedgehogs for breeding. Temper, in some books, are also inherited. Although I do not believe this without scientific proves, I do notice that some hedgehogs have better tempers compared to others, and usually identical to their parent. Perhaps it's just the bonding procedure by the parent hedgehogs which differs, but it's still something that bugs me until today!

There are other aspects to look into when breeding hedgehogs, such as the facial shape of the hedgehog and body shape. Many hobbyist breeders are looking to produce the 'perfect' hedgehog offspring, which I believe is a good resolution for all responsible breeders.

But the best thing is, from my personal point of view, looking at the hoglets growing up day by day, from the size of your thumb until adult. How the baby quills develope and slowly replaced by adult quills. How the hoglets lick and nibble your fingers when you put them on your palm. How they crawl and climb and stumble.

It's the most beautiful thing to witness them growing up.

And that's the greatest thing in breeding hedgehogs.

:)