Hedgehog Habitat

It's been a while since we've had a good project.  My son was dying to have an "exotic pet".  We made him research quite a bit prior to allowing our new spiky friend to come home.  He thought he wanted a bearded dragon, then it was a guinea pig....after those were ruled out for various reasons, he got down to 2.  A chameleon or an hedgehog.  Well, the hedgehog won out, meet Theodore, Teddy for short.

 

 

Before we get started on the build, here are some interesting facts we learned about hedgehogs:

• Their quills make them float in water
• They are nocturnal and run up to 12 miles a night
• They need bonding time with their owner
• Their habitat needs to be around 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit
• They are perhaps the cutest creatures

You may recognize this piece of furniture from a prior restoration.  We still use this to hold a tv, but don't have anything inside the drawers.  We figured we could spend $100 on a really tiny cage or use that money to renovate this dresser.  We drew up the plans, originally we wanted to keep the 2 upper drawers to store supplies, but we quickly realized there wouldn't be enough space for 2 levels and his 12" wheel.

Here is what we started with...

We took all the drawers out and gutted the inside.

We cut out new flooring (for the upper level and lower level) out of 3/4" plywood that we already had in the garage.  The top level had an extra cut because we wanted to make a ramp that led down to the lower floor.  Originally we wanted 2 openings, 1 for a ramp and the other for tubing....but again, the size of this dresser didn't allow us enough room to do both.

He purchased linoleum at the Home Depot.  This was an important step because we wanted something that would be easy to clean and prevent the hedgehogs potty and poo poo's from seeping into the wood.  Here he is tracing out the flooring.  We used an adhesive for the vinyl (that we had from a previous project) to attach it to the wood.

We used some wood scraps I had from a prior project to frame out the dresser.  Unfortunately, this dresser isn't square, so the cuts differ from piece to piece.  You can see the new additions, as they are not stained.  We secured all the flooring and new framing with screws.

We had more wood scraps that we used for the doors.  We made them a "picture frame" style and cut out plexiglass that we got at Home Depot.  We ended up getting 2 sheets of this.

With some of the left over pieces of plexiglass, we hot glued them on to the opening for the ramp.  We left 1 side open so Teddy can actually go down the ramp.  These were added for safety reasons, so Teddy wouldn't fall into a hole and hurt himself.

We also installed the ramp, which looked to be a little steeper than I originally planned.  We ended up buying this really cool tape from Amazon so Teddy could have traction when he climbs up and down the ramp.  It feels a lot like sandpaper.

Then, he began staining all of the new wood.

I thought this video would be fun for him to look back on.  Hard work pays off.

Now we are in a waiting game.  We are letting the fumes air out and everything gets time to dry.

Teddy was kept in a temporary cage in a different part of the house so he wasn't around the fumes.  My son told me that hedgehogs don't like a lot of extra space....I'm not sure I believe that.  I think he's going to love his 2 story home.

The last little bits of work include: mounting the heaters, lights, installing the plexiglass, knobs, hinges and magnetic closures.

Something special we learned about hedgehogs is, they need light during the day (so we got a couple of push lights, 1 for each level) so they know when to sleep.  Then you get to have bonding time for a little bit prior to turning their lights off for the night.  When the lights go out, these little creatures run a marathon on their wheels.  

Ok back on topic, the heater is simply that.  It looks like a heat lamp (the kind with a light inside) but it's called a ceramic heat emitter and it actually produces zero light, it's sole purpose is to create heat.  We found a 2 pack on Amazon.  

Teddy in his new home.

The boys enjoying their hard work.

A message from Benton, don't mind the cute little monster that interrupts the video.  He's sweet and really loves Teddy.

UPDATE: After Teddy went inside his new home, we realized there are a few fixes we need to make.  We have to make the heat lamps a little safer and block off the area so Teddy can't get back to the lamp.  He hasn't done it yet but I would hate for him to get burned, those ceramic heat emitters get REALLY hot!  We also are going to make a longer ramp so it's not as steep for Teddy to get up and down.  You can't see it in the pictures, but we ended up adding the bedding inside the home so it was cozier for Teddy.

So we are waiting on new lamps, thermostats and looking for some sort of screen.  We'll update again soon.

Update:

Another update (we laughed so hard because of the Night at the Roxbury reference):

Recent photos:

Last order of business is cutting strips of fleece to go in his igloo so he can burrow in it, but other than that we are officially done.  I'm happy to say the ceramic heat emitters (CHE) are working great!  I'm so glad we went to a lower wattage.  We started out with 150 watts and went down to 75 watts.  The 75 watt bulb is smaller than the 150 in size which worked out nicely too.  I'll take a photo of the size comparison soon.  I've read everywhere the recommended wattage for CHE is 100-150, well the 150 was beginning to burn the linoleum on the upper floor.  I think due to the dimensions of our enclosure and that it has doors (instead of an open top), that it keeps the heat in nicely.  Don't worry about Teddy, he can breathe just fine.  There's space between the doors and the frame and there are holes cut out of the back of the enclosure for cords.

Teddy is still sleeping in the back right corner of the enclosure instead of in his hut or his new dome hut (with the stars on it).   We didn't witness him playing in his ball pit yet either.  I think it will just take him time to adjust.  I think he's a big fan of the fleece flooring though, I'm really happy we aren't using paper bedding anymore.  It was really messy.  I think my son will really enjoy his hedgehog now that he doesn't have to vacuum every time he gets him out of his enclosure.

Hope you enjoyed this project.  I had the best time building this with my son.

As you can see in the video, we made some great updates. We installed some under the cabinet lights on each levels ceiling. The lights are now plugged into a timer so Teddy has some consistency about when the lights come on and when they turn off for the night. Lights were necessary for us to install because my son's room is always very dark unless he has his room lights on and it would be difficult for Teddy to tell day from night. Did you know that hedgehogs need both a heat source and day/night time or they could go into hibernation? We learned that hibernation can be lethal, so this is very important to keep an eye on everything working properly.

I even titled this video, hedgehog final update.... but it probably won't be the last update. The next thing we are going to work on for Teddy is a homemade wheel that's built in to the cage (instead of a wheel on a stand).  To view the homemade wheel project, click here.

I'm not sure if it's helpful but I wanted to put links for everything down in one spot.  Clearly, you can see throughout this post we changed multiple things, so I wanted to share the items we ended up using.

Cage Build Supplies:

• 3/4" plywood (1 for top level, 1 for the bottom)
• 1x2 boards (already hand on hand in various lengths, I would guess we used approximately (4) 12' long boards....that could be an overshot but it's my best guess.  This was used for the framing of the cage and the picture frame styled doors)
• 1x6x3 board (ramp)
• Ramp tape
• (4) 12" hinges 
• (4) knobs
• (4) magnetic closures
• (2) Plexiglass 18x24"
• Linoleum
• Vinyl adhesive (already had on hand, used to attach linoleum to the plywood flooring on both levels)
• Stain: Minwax Dark Walnut (already had on hand)
• Various screws, ranged between 1" and 3"

Inside Cage Supplies:

• (2) fleece blankets (the cheetah print inside our cage, we got these at Walmart for $5/each)
• (2) heat emitters 75 watts
• (2) heat lamp holders
• (2) under the cabinet lights, comes in a pack of 3 but I only used 2.
• (1) timer for the under the cabinet lights (we set ours to come on at 8:30am and turn off at 7:00pm), comes in a pack of 2 but we only used 1
• (2) thermostats, 1 for each level.  These are kind of expensive, but worth the peace of mind in my opinion
• Automatic waterer
• Food bowl
• Star hut (even though he doesn't use it, it's cute in his cage)
• Igloo (rarely uses, couldn't find the exact one we got but we did get it at Petco for around $7.00)
• Dig Bin (it's similar to this, only I got mine at Petco)
• Pom Poms for dig bin (get larger ones for safety)
• Paper litter (for under the wheel)
• Litter pan but will eventually replace with one of these on Amazon
• Small magnetic thermometer (similar to this but we got ours at Walmart for around $5)
• Magnet to attach the thermometer (we already had 1 on hand, we attached it to the ramp so it was easy to view)
• Picket fence (we used this as a railing for the ramp, simply hot glue it on)

Wheel Supplies:

• Wash Basin from Amazon
• (1) 5/16 x 3" hex bolt 
• (4) 5/16 x 18 hex nuts
• (1) 5/16 x 18 wing nut
• (3) 5/16 x 1-1/2" fender washers
• (3) 1/4 x 1" hex bolts
• (3) 1/4 x 20 hex nuts
• Fidget spinner
• You can get PVC pipe and fitting for a stand, but we decided to mount it directly to the cage, to see that project click here
  
  *All bolts, nuts and washers for the wheel project were bought at Sutherlands

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.