When I posted this video of me giving my hedgehog a bath I got a bit of guff from the YouTube nuts. A few non-hedgehog owners insisted that hedgehogs are naturally clean and don’t need baths and that bathing a hedgehog is abuse. Any hedgehog owner’s reaction to that would be: “I wish!”
Hedgehogs are so far from being naturally clean. Their favorite hobbies are running, pooping and digging. Hedgehogs can get really dirty really fast and you should bathe them every few weeks using ‘no tears’ baby shampoo to keep them healthy and happy. Otherwise they’ll be susceptible to bacteria that can make them sick. They also really enjoy baths–it’s the least spiky you’ll ever see them. Sometimes I’ll give Max a quick rinse in the water just to calm him down.
Max has been a bit not-so-energetic lately with the seasons changing. African pygmy hedgehogs are not fans of winter, so I’ve been making sure he gets all the rest he needs. Not that he doesn’t sleep 90% of the time anyway (the other 10% is spent running a marathon on his wheel every night at 6 am and then going back to bed) but he’s been especially pooped lately.
So I’m going to give Max a break this week and instead focus on other adorable exotic animals. Some of them can be owned as pets, but most of them are more fun to just admire on the Internet. Here we go!
Species: Tasmanian Devil Can I own one? Nope, they’re non-domesticable and endangered!
Tasmanian devils are adorable but they’re not really pet material. A lot of times you’ll hear that animals are nothing like how they appear on TV, but the Looney Toons character Taz is a pretty good representation of Tasmanian devils. They’ll eat pretty much any animal including cats, dogs, fish, birds, and even sheep.
They’re cute, but they’re endangered! Unfortunately, as of the mid-1990s, tasmanian devils have been slowly going extinct due to a rare form of transmissible cancer. You can’t own them as pets, but you could help save them! (via OMG Blog)
Species: Giant African land snails Can I own one? They’re illegal in the US but they’re popular pets in the UK.
Giant African land snails make great pets! They’re super smart and affectionate to people. They don’t leave slime trails (at least not all the time) and grow about the size of a kitten. You can see more pictures and videos of pet snails on this older Snuzzy post.
Species: Anteater Can I own one? Though legal in some areas US, you probably shouldn’t!
Anteaters are surprisingly adorable. Apparently they’re totally different from ‘aardvarks‘, the kings of jokes about the dictionary, and the idea that ‘aardvark’ is a synonym for ‘anteater’ is a common misconception. They’re related to sloths and armadillos, and have weird sloth-like arms. They’ll sometimes stand on their hind legs and wave their arms around for attention. They make for weird pets, in fact, Salvador Dali owned one, and he’s super weird:
The above picture of the anteater in a sweater is of Pua, a rescued anteater living in Oregon (via Telegraph). The sweater keeps her warm, as she’s used to living in a tropical climate. Her owner says she smells badly and eats weird things and releases weird odors and fluids. But she’s so cute! Here’s a video of Pua begging for treats in her own weird anteater way:
Creepy! And adorable! Exotic animals can sometimes make fun pets, but they’re exotic for a reason. They usually have special needs like being out of commission most of the time (Max) but they’re often adorable! Do any Snuzzy readers have weird pets, or a favorite weird animal?
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Usually at our house whenever we watch certain girly reality shows like Top Model or Project Runway, we invite a lot of people over because it sort of eases the embarrassment? Anyway, we typically end up ordering chicken, and we also usually ended up bringing Max out and giving him a box to sit in, and feed him little bits of chicken. (It may seem cruel to put him in a box, but he’s a mole, and he loves dark places, if you put him on the table with a box, he’ll willingly crawl into it). Though he’s a total lap-hedgehog, and sometimes he’ll just sit with us. Like this:
Anyway, girly reality show chicken is sort of a tradition we used to do with him when we lived in New York, as you can see here with him, as you can see in these videos:
We’re getting settled into our new place, but we finally decided to take Max out for a test drive (currently our coffee table is a box of CDs) putting in him a shelf from a jewelry box he used to sleep in when he was little. Here’s his reaction to the chicken:
After the generally positive response to the first Max Cuteness: Introduction, we decided to do Max Cuteness again! This week I’m going to show some videos of when Max was a baby (which was only a few months ago) to catch you up on his cuteness. I’ll film new videos soon!
Hi, Snuzzy readers! From now on I’m going to be doing posts every Friday about my hedgehog, Max. Unless you hate him, then I’ll stop! It’s called “Max Cuteness” and it’s going to be a lot of fun!
Let me start off by telling you a little about Max. He was born in late 2008 and we got him in early 2009 at a pet store in Long Island. He was the only hedgehog they had there that would actually open up and play with people, and wasn’t just a spiky hissy ball. Having owned several spiky hissy balls in the past, I thought this was pretty unique.
In nature hedgehogs eat insects, in captivity they can eat “insectivore food” or you can order hedgehog food specifically made by breeders. You can also feed them low fat catfood or store-bought hedgehog food, but it’s not the best for them. Grains are less nutritious for hedgehogs but cheaper to produce, and are often slipped into store-bought hedgehog food in disproportionately large quantities. Max likes to eat, but he likes to exercise more. While moving, Max had to stay in a smaller cage for a while, and he couldn’t use his wheel. Since then he’s gotten kind of fat.
But we got him a bigger cage and a new wheel and he’s working on shedding the pounds ounces!
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