u/Anything-ThatWorks

Was going through camera roll/old text messages to get pictures for Poppy's upcoming birthday post, and figured I would gather these as well to make a post. She sadly ended up dying to what we believe was WHS, but at least got to enjoy life before then after being born on accident to people who didnt plan on having baby hedgies.

The next to last picture is a screenshot from a video with a filter applied, all the others are unedited I believe.

Here's a booty pic of Poppy after bath time and drying off for a little bit. This is how she likes to be carried, if I keep her legs up or try to hold her anywhere but her stomach she tries to squirm around - carried like this she sits still and sniffs around. She also only likes tummy pets, and hates being pet or touched on her quills, so that could have something to do with it too.

She turns 7 in less than two weeks and started going bald around her butt a little bit before turning 6. She still grows new quills everywhere (including her butt just very rarely), and has a little bit of a dry skin problem in the winter when it gets extremely cold - but the other option is being cold enough to false hibernate so I just use flaxseed oil and a humidifier to try and mitigate the dry skin as best as possible when necessary.

The next pic was taken right after and you can see she still has almost all her quills everywhere else, but she has started to get a tiny bit balder around the very top of her head starting a couple months ago.

Will try to do my best to explain everything image by image, but if you have any other questions feel free to ask! Took these a couple days ago after doing a full deep clean.

1: This is the very bottom base layer, with the gray fleece blanket being what she uses as a floor. Under it, there is another fleece blanket, and under that fleece blanket is a layer of unscented pee pads. The area on the floor this gray blanket takes up is about 8.5ft long x 2.75ft wide. In the back you can see the pink blanket on the ground where her digging area is, that adds a little more than a foot of width in that back right corner. Here you can also see the windows are covered, which still lets some natural light through. This is only done during the winter, since it can get extremely cold for a few weeks and makes it easier to control the temperature without drying the air out even more.

2. A more side on view of the 8.5x2.75ft main lower level of the enclosure area. We got these vertical bar walls when we had our first hedgie, as she would climb up anything with horizontal bars. Poppy doesn't climb though and never has, so we felt comfortable adding back one of the grids with horizontal bars to add some more space, and kept the door closed for a year or two when we werent in the bedroom just in case. But she never tried.

3. Adding some of the toys and the two igloos (one has a fleece blanket inside just in case, although she prefers to sleep in the upper floor 99.999% of the time), the main thing not included in this picture is she also almost always has an empty toilet paper roll. That along with the baseball cap are her two favorite toys, if she isnt playing with those she's usually either running (jogging now that she's so old) in her wheel (which I believe is 13' but not sure, just know its enough where she doesnt have to bend her back) or digging in the dig box. There used to be like 4 or 5 more toys but they were never played with and essentially just treated as obstacles so we took them out. She almost exclusively uses the bathroom in the corner behind the blue igloo, which is nice because it means she doesnt run in it very often but as you'll soon see, its kind of annoying because its hard to reach and spot clean. I have to use my phone to take a video with flash sometimes just to make sure I got it all out when I reach back there with toilet paper in the morning.

4. Adding the upper layer cage on top of the igloos (which have pieces that the cage can interlock with and sturdily balance on), and a second heat lamp when it was still cold. The cage is about 3ftx2ft. I just took the second heat lamp out today as it finally warmed up where Im at and I can keep the entire area above 77F with just one now. This upper layer wouldnt have really worked with our first hedgie, as she would have climbed the bars of the cage and tried to be spiderman from the ceiling, so she only got the bottom layer and it was arranged much differently. Poppy doesnt and hasnt even climbed the bars (or the bars used to set up the temporary second lamp), so she gets this extra space. The upper layer cage has one large fleece folded in half to act as the floor, with the lower folded layer pulled tight but the top layer loose for her to dig around in. There are also usually two fleece blankets up top messily crumpled up for her to tunnel through and burrow in to sleep, but theres only one in the picture because she was sleeping in the other one when the pictures were being taken. I like to put them in there almost as if they were upside down fish bowls, which she likes because she can use her nose and front paws to push under and then up into the blankets to make a burrow. Sometimes when I go to get her out at night, shes so wrapped up inside the blanket its like someone swaddled her. Then I cover it completely with the big green blanket to trap extra heat in when needed.

5. A better picture of the ramp she uses to go up and down. Guess this is where the most controversial part of her enclosure probably comes in, but my dad built it up all like this for her when she was around 2, I started being her majority caretaker when she was around 4.5, and shes going to be 7 in like two weeks (we dont know her exact birthday but know its sometime between the 24th-26th) and shes never had any problems going up or down it. It uses binder clips to hold down a soft grippy material (I think its like soft rubber or silicon or something, it looks kind of like what comes up when you google silicone foam with holes) and has a wall on either side just in case, but she has never really come close to needing any help or been close to the edge when we've seen her. Theres also evidence she went down and moved the baseball hat or dig box or wheel + pooped every single night, and she always makes it back up to go to sleep. I guess it might not be a great idea for every hog, but from what we can tell it seems to work completely fine with her even as shes almost turning 7. If anything my current worry is that she hurts her foot on one of the binder clips somehow, but its never seemed to be a problem from what I can tell. The main CHE is also pushed down a bit in this picture, its usually angled up more like the picture before this one or the final one.

6. The added dig area. Its got a bunch of pom poms and a couple of her other toys, she likes to go and mess around in it 1-2 nights a week but it isnt something she likes to mess with as often as her other things. Just another fleece blanket to try and contain them all and give her more slack to burrow in with the pink blanket from the first pictures underneath.

7. If you noticed the pvc pipes going up the walls of the actual room, this is what it was for. They hold up a big tarp with a zipper we use during the colder months again, as by now you probably know with the window it gets pretty cold during the winter months. This is just another way we tried to keep it up closer to 80F without drying the air adding even more heat lamps. You can also see the third heat lamp we do have just for when it does get extremely cold and is needed, along with the humidifier we run when there are 3 lamps because it can get below 20% humidity in the tarp. The third lamp and humidifier are only as needed though. This big tarp along with the blankets on the window come down first (have already come down), and then the second heat lamp comes down later once its hotter in the summer (which is seemingly happening pretty much today).

8. Bonus pic of her drinking from her chicken nipple water bottle right after I put her back. The second fleece blanket inside the cage is added but not in the picture, as it goes farther toward the back on top of the black and white one.

First time posting Poppy (Poopy) here, was planning on making her first post a 7th birthday post with a lot of pictures later this month, but found out apparently my comments arent showing up on this sub a majority of the time (I think due to something weird with automod idk) so I made a test post for that, figured this should hopefully even it out a little with that post in the sub not really being hedgehog related. Maybe it'll help the hedgehog automod to not hate me too, who knows.

Kinda old video, would have been a little bit after she turned 6. Also sorry, not that great of a video, just what I had readily available.

So I guess also I wont really be able to reply to any of your comments here until the commenting issue is (hopefully?) fixed, sorry!