Buying a pet hedgehog: legality, the breeder questions, and the health check before you pay

Quick answer

The ear margins and the skin between the quills are where a hedgehog's health shows first. Look at both before any money changes hands. Nothing goes into the ear canal, then or later.

Two questions decide most of what happens to a pet hedgehog over the next five years, and both are answered before you own it. Is it legal where you live, and where did this particular animal come from.

Every other species in this library has a pre-purchase guide because the same pattern repeats: the problems that dominate an animal's life are usually built in at the source. For hedgehogs the stakes are unusually high, because the pet population descends from a narrow founder group and carries a heavy load of heart disease, cancer and a progressive neurological disease with no treatment.

• Check legality at the local level, not the national one. Rules commonly differ by state, province or city.
• Meet the animal awake and moving. A hedgehog asleep in a ball tells you nothing.
• Ask what happened to the grandparents. A breeder who cannot answer is not tracking the diseases that matter.
• Look at the ear margins, the skin between the quills, all twenty toes, and the way it walks.
• Book the first vet appointment before you collect, not after.

Decide in 60 seconds

Legality, which is not optional and not uniform

Rules on keeping African pygmy hedgehogs vary enormously and rarely follow national borders neatly.

In the United States they are prohibited in California, Hawaii and Georgia, and within New York City, while being ordinary pets in most other states. Several other jurisdictions require a permit. Some Canadian municipalities ban them while the province does not.

They are legal to keep without a licence in the United Kingdom. They are prohibited in Australia and New Zealand, where the concern is establishment in the wild. Several European countries restrict exotic mammals through positive lists that change periodically.

Two practical rules follow. Check with the authority that would actually enforce it, meaning your city or county as well as your state or country. And check again before you move house, because a legal pet becomes an illegal one by crossing a line on a map.

The reason behind most bans is the risk of a feral population establishing in a warm climate, which is also why the rules are strictest in places with mild winters.

Where the animal comes from, and why it decides so much

The gene pool is small.

Pet hedgehogs worldwide descend from a limited number of imported animals. That history shows up as a high burden of cardiomyopathy, a high rate of tumours, and wobbly hedgehog syndrome, a progressive degeneration of the nervous system that has no treatment and is suspected to run in lines.

Nobody can test for these before purchase. The only available screen is a breeder who keeps records across generations and will tell you what happened to the relatives.

The questions worth asking.

A breeder who weighs daily has a chart to show you. That chart is the single most useful document you can take home.

Ask each of these out loud and listen to how readily they are answered:

How many generations of pedigree do you hold, and can I see them. Has wobbly hedgehog syndrome ever appeared in an animal related to this one, and what did you do afterwards. What age did the grandparents reach and what did they die of. Do you weigh daily, and may I see this hedgehog's weight chart. At what age do you separate litters and at what age do you sell. Are both parents here. What exactly is it eating today, and can I take some home. Has a vet seen this litter, and has a faecal sample been examined.

The content of the answers matters less than whether the person has the information at all. A breeder tracking this is a breeder who will also tell you when something goes wrong later.

Red flags.

No visits allowed. Photographs only. Hedgehogs sold below normal weaning age, or with no date of birth. Animals housed in groups beyond weaning. Sold unsexed. Cold rooms. No wheels anywhere. Irritation at questions about wobbly hedgehog syndrome. Retail sale with no traceable origin.

Rescue animals.

Adopting is a good thing to do, and the trade-off is honest: you get an animal of uncertain age and unknown family history, sometimes with a habit or a health problem already established. Ask the rescue what is known about the surrender, whether it has been examined and by whom, what it weighs and what that has been doing, and whether it has ever been housed with another hedgehog.

The right question to a rescue is not whether the animal is perfect. It is what they already know and are willing to tell you.

Two hedgehogs is not kindness.

African pygmy hedgehogs are solitary in the wild and remain so in captivity. Housing two together produces fighting, stress, suppressed feeding in the subordinate animal, and, if the sexes were guessed wrong, a litter you did not plan for. Each hedgehog needs its own enclosure.

The health check before you hand over money

Ask to see it walk across a flat surface. Posture, gait and the way it carries its hind legs cannot be assessed in a curled ball.

Ask to see the hedgehog awake, out, and moving. Expect huffing and balling from a young animal meeting a stranger; that is normal and healthy. What is not normal is an animal that stays flat, unresponsive and slow to react.

Feel the temperature first.

A hedgehog that feels cool and moves sluggishly is attempting to shut down. Whatever else is true, this animal needs warmth now, and the room it came from is too cold.

Eyes.

Round, bright, prominent and equal. Cloudiness, discharge, crusting, or eyes that look sunken into the head are all reasons to stop. Sunken eyes usually mean dehydration.

Nose.

Slightly damp, clean, no crust and no bubbles. Bubbling at the nostrils is a respiratory infection, and in a young hedgehog it is a serious one.

Ears.

Look along the outer margin. It should be a smooth curve. Ragged, scalloped, thickened or crusty edges point to ringworm, mites or severe dry skin, and are usually present across the whole collection rather than in one animal. This is the single most commonly excused abnormality at point of sale.

Quills and skin.

Coverage should be even. A juvenile in the middle of quilling loses quills evenly across the back, and the skin underneath looks normal. Patchy bald areas, flaking at the quill base, scabs, redness, or quills that come away with the lightest touch are all different from quilling.

Lift a few quills gently and look at the skin between them in good light. Flakes that move are mites.

Feet and legs.

Four feet, five toes on each front foot and four on each hind foot. Check for swelling, missing toes, nails grown into the pad, and any thread wrapped around a toe. Fleece threads cut off circulation and cost hedgehogs digits routinely.

Back end.

Clean and dry, no staining, no swelling, no tissue protruding. In a male, no discharge or swelling around the preputial opening.

Movement.

Put it on a flat, non-slip surface and watch it walk away from you. It should move in a straight line with the body clear of the ground and the hind legs tracking under it. Wobble, a wide splayed stance, dragging, or falling to one side is a reason to stop, even though wobbly hedgehog syndrome more often appears later.

Breathing.

Watch the flank at rest. Effort, clicking, or open mouth breathing is abnormal.

Weight.

Ask for the chart, and weigh the animal yourself if you can. A flat or falling line in a growing hedgehog is more informative than any single number.

What to take home with you

The first fortnight, which is where most problems appear

Quarantine strictly from any other hedgehog in the house, for weeks rather than days, with separate hands, separate equipment and separate laundry. Ringworm and mites both travel this way, and ringworm travels to people.

Do not change the food. A settling animal eating a familiar food is doing one difficult thing. Change the diet later, gradually, once everything else is stable.

Weigh daily and write it down. A new hedgehog often eats less for a few days while it settles. It should not stop eating, and the weight should not fall day after day.

Keep the temperature stable and warm from the first hour. Cold is the commonest cause of a new hedgehog going quiet, and it is frequently mistaken for shyness.

Expect huffing, balling and a period of not wanting to be handled. That is a normal prey species meeting a new environment, not a sign that the animal is unwell or badly bred.

What never to do

Do not buy a hedgehog you have not seen awake and walking.

Do not buy from someone who cannot state a date of birth, or who will not let you visit.

Do not buy the sick one out of pity. It rarely ends well, it funds the same practice again, and it exposes any other animal you own.

Do not accept ragged ears, flaky skin or a bubbling nose as normal for the species. None of them are.

Do not buy two to keep each other company.

Do not move to a new city, state or country with a hedgehog without checking the rules there first. Legality does not travel with the animal.

When to get help

A settled hedgehog in its own space, eating the food it arrived on, gaining weight steadily. That is what a good first month looks like.

Book the first appointment for within a week of collection, whatever the animal looks like. Ask for:

• A general examination, with the caveat that a conscious hedgehog cannot be fully examined and a proper oral and skin assessment may need sedation
• A faecal examination, particularly in a young or recently moved animal
• A skin assessment if there is any flaking, crusting or ear margin change
• A baseline weight recorded on the practice's own scales

Contact the vet sooner, on the day, if the new hedgehog is cool to the touch, is not eating at all, has bubbling or noisy breathing, has diarrhoea, or is unsteady on its feet.

Bring the weight chart, the date of birth, the food, the photographs you took at collection, and the seller's description of anything already treated. In a new animal the history from the source is often more diagnostically useful than the examination itself, because it tells the vet what the rest of the group was carrying.