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	Othello is the first at - no onto - the breakfast table. For feeding hedgehogs use canned meat (for dogs or cats), dry cat food, and the special dry hedgehog food you can get at the pet shop. You can add a little of the vitamin-containing chalk and/or some droplets from a vitamin tincture (the little bottle at the table). Free hedgehogs eat snails, worms, insects, and sometimes little reptiles - like snakes or slow-worms - or even mammals - like mice. From snails and worms they can become infected with various parasites.
From left to right: Josefine, Napoleon and Nicky, one big hunger - one team - one great dinner. Until the age of about 8 weeks the young hedgies get on well together. Later they show a tendency to fight against the others for their own districts. So everyone must get it's own enclosure. A wild hedgehog is a lone hand and claims a big district, at least if there is no mating activities.
	Napoleon (the big guy), Josefine, and Elfi (the girl without spines), they love each other. Can you believe that? Sister and brother hedgehogs can be held in the same enclosure for a longer time (even more than 8 weeks). They'll even sleep in the same box. In the wilderness the young set lives with it's mother for 6 to 8 weeks.
Four foundlings right after bathing, ready for the photo session: Apollo, Aphrodite, Achilles, Adonis. Please, don't ask me who is who in that picture. Ask a veterinarian for medical care. A hedgehog mother gives birth to 4 to 5 young on average, 8 to 9 maximum.
	Nicky is leaving his sleeping box standing on edge. He can't wait until his enclosure gets cleaned. Use a cardboard box, e.g. a shoe box, to build a sleeping place. Cut a hole of proper size in one side and fill the box with straw, hay or paper. You should find a source to get many boxes, 'cause it needs to be changed frequently. Some hedgehogs foul their nest, others do not. A natural sleeping place of hedgehogs is a heap of leaves, a stack of wood or a cluster of branches and twigs in the underwood. Those are vanishing more and more from our environment.
Elfi proudly presents her sweety, Nicky. Hedgehogs become very easily domesticated. Unfortunately, trusting men can be fatal for wildlife.
	Nicky is jogging in our living room. His very first target is Cherry's (our cat) feeding dish. Hedgehogs love to move around. If you let your hedgehog wander in your house be sure that he can't escape and that there are no dangerous steps where he could fall down. A hedgehog can't see very well, it's main sense-organs are it's ears an nose.
Elfi is feeding baby Josefine. Seems that tastes like more! For a prescription of baby food see page 1. Don't forget: MILK does NOT agree with hedgehogs!!! It's important to keep an eye at the hedgehog's fecal matter. If it becomes greasy or green colored you should give some animal char-coal. It's true for all mammals: nothing can substitute mother's milk. So, we've to realize that many of our artificially fed hedgehog babies will die due to an infectious diarrhoea.