Exotic Pets – Hedgehogs

Owning an exotic pet is exiting. You get to interact with an animal that you usually won’t see in every household, unlike a cat or a dog. You also get to learn a lot about them and how they behave around people. Exotic pets come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, and can be covered with scales, feathers and even spikes.

One of the most common exotic pet that’s really picking up a lot of popularity is a hedgehog. These little critters basically resemble a ball of spikes, but they’re actually not related to the porcupine. They’re in the same family as the shrew, in fact their snouts and faces looks very close to one, and they’re nocturnal as well.

There are around 15 different hedgehog species in Africa, Asia, and Europe. They’ve also been taken to nontraditional areas like New Zealand where they now strive in some areas. They were named after their preferred foraging method. Hedgehogs root through undergrowth and hedges when hunting small animals that make the most of their natural diet, like small insects, centipedes, worms, snails, and even small snakes. As they make their way underground, they give off piglike grunts, hence the name.

A few people take care of them as pets because they love to pray on common garden pests. Hedgehogs actually have very bad eye sight, so they rely more on their sense of smell and hearing to hunt down food and to get used to the environment. Another thing that makes them great as pets is that they rarely ever attack or bite, instead they just curl into a ball to defend themselves.