Nobody Likes New Mexico

So you know how we began, we brought home a beautiful salt and pepper pinto girl from the pet store. The next step was slightly more difficult than driving the couple of miles between our house and Clarks Pet Emporium. 

Genetics. All of your breeders out there, and a lot of other people, know that you do not want to mate siblings or first cousins, the further each others family trees are from each other the better. Unfortunately our first hedgehog came from a pet store. We saw her there, held her, and decided that she would be ours. If you intend to breed hedgehogs, this isn't the best method, but we worked with what we had, which was no idea of her genetic history. If you buy a hedgehog with the intent of breeding them, buy from a breeder who can give you the pedigrees of the parents. That way you can be certain that you aren't potentially inbreeding hedgehogs.

Merlin in Meghan's Lap last week

We knew Sushi was a New Mexico hedgehog and we couldn't get another pet store hedgehog without risking them being related. We researched breeders outside of New Mexico. What we found was that there were no breeders in New Mexico at least no one online. There have to be some other breeders in green chili country or where do all of these pet store hedgehogs come from? Colorado seemed our best bet as there were at that time three or so breeders, we looked at them all and finally chose First Harmony Farms. They were lovely people who let us look at their breeding room and gave us some ideas for our own. They also let us meet his parents, and of all the hedgehogs I have met, his father Caesar is still the mellowest hedgehog I've held.

We brought home Merlin, a chocolate chip snowflake. He was so tiny compared to our then five month old female. He's still small when compared to Sushi but back then there was no way he would mate her. We fed him up for three months and finally bred them. Five weeks later Sushi gave birth to a beautiful litter of three.

Sushi and her current litter

I don't think anything can really compare to your first litter. You've never seen anything so tiny and it's spiky and round. My partner Meghan has a theory about waist to hip ratio and cuteness basically meaning that round things are freaking adorable, and she's right. I don't have any human babies yet, but I imagine it might feel similar to this. You got to see life created. First there were two hedgies and then there were five, and I was a part of that. Very exciting stuff.

We went into that litter intending to only breed once. We were going to have that experience with helping create life, raising tiny creatures, and sending them on their way. After doing it we decided that we would indeed only breed twice. After that second litter we actually found another home for Merlin. He didn't like it there and always bit his owner, and was kind of aggressive with us when he came back, but when we bred him again he went back to being his usual sweet self. Merlin apparently needs a regular diet of sex with his cat food.

Their first time together!

Since then we have gotten two more females and another male and are currently in the process of getting USDA certified so that we can expand even more. You see we are still the only breeder in New Mexico online and you guys deserve to have a licensed breeder and lots more hedgehogs.