New hoglet joining the family!

Tonight will be the night I pick up a female Cinnamon hoglet from a breeder friend.

At the moment, the only information I have about this hedgehog is that she's born on the 18th April 2009, which makes her approximately 6 weeks old right now and just ready to leave the mother hedgehog.

I will be dusting up a cabinet and improvising it to be a multiple-storey boxes as homes for my expanding number of hedgehogs.

And I am considering naming the two young hedgehogs (the other one is an Albino from Quills' second litter) after bringing the Cinnamon home.

Hmm, this will take some thinking.

Cinnamon

After over a year of keeping hedgehogs as pets, I've only came across the common Salt & Pepper and Albino colours. I've seen plenty of pictures of Apricots, Cinnamons, Champagnes and even combinations like Cinnicots, but sadly there weren't many breeders who are truly experimenting on hedgehog colours.

Picture courtesy of www.hedgehogclub.com

I mentioned previously that Quills gave birth to 5 hoglets about 2 months ago, and right now I'm left with a Salt & Pepper and an Albino. I've decided to keep the Albino male for future colour breedings, and I should probably thank my lucky stars that yesterday a fellow breeder sent me a message saying that his friend would like to get a Salt & Pepper but he only has Cinnamons.

You can't possibly NOT see what's coming up next, can you?

Yes, we agreed to trade our hoglets, a male S&P with a female Cinnamon. Although the Cinnamon is only about a month old and I'll need to wait until next month before I can pick it up.

If the trade's successful I will officially be keeping a male S&P, a unique white female S&P snowflake (which I have yet to be able to breed the colour), a male Albino and a female Cinnamon.

Four hedgehogs with different colour genes, although three of the hedgehogs will have same bloodlines which limits my colour experimentations, but that will be a good start for my hobby.

Apricots and Champagnes are a little more difficult to obtain, especially since keepers of these rare colours aren't breeders and the breeders who has these colours have retired from the hobby.

But this will be a start of something.

7 weeks and leaving

Today marks the 7th week since the hoglets were born, and how much have they grown.

And also means that they are actually ready to leave the mother hedgehog.

This time around, there are a lot more people who are interested in getting hedgehogs as a pet, and considering the number of enquiries that flooded in even before I make any notices of my intention to sell, I get to slowly screen through the interested buyers and make sure that they will be able to provide proper care to the hoglets in the future.

I will be meeting up with two prospects tomorrow and another two this Sunday, and if all are ready to commit, they will be bringing my hoglets back to their home. Let's hope that the hoglets will be showered with all the love from their new owners.