Some things you never get used to...

You know, we've been doing this for eight years now, breeding hedgehogs. I still get asked frequently either "do you make a lot of money breeding hedgehogs?" (Answer: "I wish! I'll be happy if we start breaking even one of these years!") or "it must be a lot of fun to breed hedgehogs, isn't it?" (Answer: "Some of the time, yes. Sometimes it utterly sucks.")

One of the worst parts of breeding hedgehogs is "the smell". I can see other experienced breeders already nodding their heads. If you've been at it a while, you know "the smell". That faint odor that has you disturbing nests, moving boxes, and otherwise doing things you wouldn't because you KNOW that something (ie a baby) in that cage is dead. Even when it makes no sense, like when the babies are almost four weeks old, you just KNOW. Ninane, for no reason _I_ can comprehend, eviscerated and ate the face off of one of her four week old babies sometime in the last 24 hours. I discovered this when we were downstairs taking pictures of babies tonight. It was not a pleasant sight to say the least.

So, to summarize this breeding round: Orenda, who was bred to Maram and very obviously pregnant with what should have been OMG dark and very nice tempered babies, miscarried at three weeks. For bonus points Morgan was with me when I found the results. Cynda started picking hers off at two weeks, so I pulled the last two (of five) and gave them to Magena. Pritika started picking HERS off the next week, and I pulled the remaining three (of five) and gave them to Jade. She killed the smallest and weakest of them, but raised the other two beautifully. (It wasn't in the best of shape when I gave it to her, so may have died on its own, I think Pritika had stopped feeding them) Next, Magena's milk dried up and she stopped feeding all SEVEN of her little ones (five of her own plus her two fosters) so I got to bring them all upstairs and handfeed them. Fortunately they've all been doing great at going over to dish feeding, so I've been able to get a little sleep at least. Now Ninane killed one of her two boys, and her remaining two are in with the seven upstairs. Admittedly, this is a worse run than average, but its definitely a really good example of why many long time owners/breeders are convinced that hedgehogs have a plot to drive their humans completely barking mad.

So why do we keep doing it? I'm not always entirely sure. Years ago, when we had our first hedgie, we also had sugar gliders we were breeding. After the second time I found them playing at pulling taffy with the remains of a deceased baby, I was perfectly happy to sell them to a good friend who had more experience with them than I did. So why was it so easy to bail on them but not on hedgehogs? I really don't know, I just know there would be a big hole in my life without them. Not to mention, after all these years of breeding, we're finally really seeing what we've been working on so long come to fruition. I can finally breed more for color, because almost all the animals I have to choose from have good to excellent temperaments and family histories of healthy animals. Does that mean we've reached where we want to be? In some ways I guess it does. That just means that now I have to set my goals higher. :)