QuestionQUESTION: hi the mother of the baby hoglets has gotten so stressed that she hasent lookad after her new borns, her cage had fallen over and she was verry upset about it and we tried to leave her alone for quite some time but she jus dident calm down, laiter that mroning we had discovered all of her new born babies were spread arround her cage and they had been starved to deth ( she had them befor the cage fell over )we then found one surviver! she was a little cold and shaken but after we sowly warmed her up she was fine and hungry we had tried to put the mother back with her baby but she tried to eat the baby! so we immedietly took the baby away from the mom and the mom dident even care she just went back to sleep. she is also an experenced mother she has had babies before. today this morning we flipped mommy over (shes verry trusting with us and dosent ball up) and we let the baby succle for a few minutes until she looked proper in her stomic. the mother dident mind this she was completely relaxed. what should i feed her??? she is only 2 days old do u have a clue in hat i should do?
ANSWER: If there is any way you can convince the mother to take the baby back, that is the best thing to do, otherwise you are in for a long haul. Sometimes moms just refuse to consider taking a baby back, but sometimes if you give mom a couple of options of places to hide feeling like she is finding a safe place for her baby will soothe her.
If you are quite sure she is not going to reclaim her baby you will need to set up the equivalent of an incubator. You will have to keep the baby warm (we use a heating pad on low), feed it with a dropper or syrenge, and make sure it is using the bathroom regularly. A new baby needs to be fed and pottied roughly every two hours for the first two weeks. Any time I have to hand raise I use Esbilac puppy formula mixed about 1/4 weaker than the directions on the can. I also try to add a tiny bit of yogurt or acidophillus to the mixture to help the baby build the natural flora its digestive tract needs. Use a tiny syringe or dropper to feed it. You have to be very careful to only give it a tiny bit at a time or it will inhale it and if that happens much it will be fatal.
After you feed the baby you will need to stroke it's privates with a Qtip or your finger until it uses the restroom. Babies are not able to do this themselves until they are several weeks old, so this is vitally important. Sometimes it takes a little while to get the baby to go, but it absolutely MUST void or it will get backed up and bloat is the #1 killer of hand raised babies.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions, I am happy to help. Also, please keep in mind that while baby hedgehogs CAN be hand raised, it is a huge challenge, and even as someone with extensive experience doing so, some of them I lose. I wish you all the best!
Laura T.
Keeper of the Chaos
PogStar Hedgehogs and
PrairieStar Farm
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QUESTION: would goats milk also work??? we baught a small heating pad that sticks onto the bottom of the fishtank (on the outside) and it seems to be keeping him keep warm. i was just wondering if goats milk would work for feeding? do i need to add anything extra to it? should i thin it out? we baught a syrange and a kitten handfeeding kit with the verry small nipples and we streched the smallest nipple over the top of the syrange and he seems to really enjoy it ( he dident like the hard syrange tip befor lol). my question was would goats milk work?
there is also no way we can re-introduce mother and baby because when i tried to do introduce one of the babies( there were 2 left alive ) and she grabbed him by the head and bit down :( we tried to save him but he died in a few seconds and we really dont want the same thing to happen to this baby. were going to try to keep him alive.
ANSWER: Watch the undertank heater, they get pretty warm and you don't want to cook the little guy. :) Some moms just won't take them back no matter what, I was just hoping with you being able to get her to let him nurse for a few that it might work. If you're talking fresh goat milk, YES, I did use that once (we had baby goats nursing at the time, so I had ready access) and the babies I raised on it grew closer to normal schedule. If it's processed I"m not sure, as I know that the processing can take many things out of the milk. Watch for bloat, don't be afraid to take half of forever making sure he/she potties, and you might pick up some infant mylecon (anti gas) if you get a chance. I have had it fix bloat well enough to get a little one back on the right track before. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Laura T.
Keeper of the Chaos
PogStar Hedgehogs and
PrairieStar Farm
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: we have the fresh non powdered goats milk that says theres nothing taken away(we naught it in pets mart). he really likes it he is now 4 days old and he did feed off of his mother for the first 24 hr but then she went crazy, hes doing great theres no bloating and we have a incubator set up for him. the heating pad we have for him is perfect for him and we have laired the inside with pillow cases. we feed him every 2-3 hours and he really likes the milk loll he freaks out when i but the tiny nipple into his mouth ( in a good way) he suckles like crazy!
is it true that after about 2-3 weeks everything has been known to go downhill for the baby? have some died? do U need to add stuff to the milk to keep them going? how can i keep this from happening to my baby hedgehog? i really don't want to loose him after 3 weeks right after he begins to open his eyes. will he be alot friendlier if he survives? will he think I'm his mom for the rest of his life? if he lives I'm thinking about breeding him in the future will there be problems with trying to breed him? will he know hes a hedgehog? how much do i feed him? i have been giving him 2-3 mouth fulls is that enough?how do i start to wean him?? i know U cant switch foods just like that it can hurt his tummy so how do i wean him off of the formula? I'm sorry for all of the questions but this is my first time hand feeding a baby hedgie and I'm a bit nervous. thanks your really helping me along with feeding this baby :P:P
AnswerUsually once you reach two weeks old you're in the clear. Most babies that I have lost have died between the end of week one and the end of week two. Its hard to know how much to feed them when they're tiny. I have had the best luck with feeding them just a few mouthfuls as often as they want, going so far as to spend part of my day just playing on the computer or reading and feeding them whenever they cry. They have tiny tummies and fairly fast metabolisms, so that few mouthfuls doesn't last long. As he gets bigger you will be able to feed him more and stretch the time between feedings longer. At around four weeks you should be able to start encouraging him to eat his formula from a shallow dish and put some ground up food out for him to start experimenting with. As he gets around five weeks you can put down a dish of water for him to learn about. Then as he gets towards six weeks (assuming he's fairly on track developmentally, you'll need to let him call the shots on this by making sure that he's making good use of what you're giving him !) you can start giving him less formula less often and continue that way until he is eating only the hedgehog food.
As for his personality, babies that have been hand raised are more familiar with humans, but don't necessarily have better personalities. Just like with humans, personality in hedgehogs is a combination of nature and nurture. He will view your hands as givers of food and be a little more likely to nip or be mouthy, but otherwise he should be a fairly typical hedgehog, and his temperament both the result of the parents who created him and the loving care you are giving him. I have used both male and female hand raised babies for breeding, and while the females are a little more likely to have issues with caring for their babies, I haven't even noticed a huge difference in that aspect as many of them do just fine.
Feel free to ask me any other questions you have and definitely let me know how the two of you do!
Laura T.
Keeper of the Chaos
PogStar Hedgehogs and
PrairieStar Farm
