Local breeder's herd of hedgehogs is in high demand

Sarah Roberts lifted a little hut covering Bailey and her offspring and plucked the protective mother off her babies, four tiny hedgehogs that looked like a clump of cactus.

"She has two girls and two boys," said Roberts, who has made a business of raising and selling the playful, trendy and trouble-free African pygmy hedgehogs. She also shelters hedgehogs who have run into trouble in other homes where owners no longer want them, often because they've grown old or become sick.

"I figure I'm putting babies out there, so I think it's only fair," Roberts said.

A University of Illinois animal science graduate, Roberts finally realized her childhood dream of owning a hedgehog when her roommate, Jacqueline Butler, talked about getting a pet. Their apartment building banned dogs and cats, so Roberts, after researching the subject, convinced Butler a hedgehog would be perfect. Three years later, Roberts has 60 of them; Butler, who graduates from the UI today, has none.

Roberts and her husband, Scott, bought their Mansfield home a year ago because it has a heated garage where she could house her herd, which is what a group of hedgehogs is called, and expand her business.

She said it wasn't easy to learn to successfully breed the spiky little creatures, insectivores closely related to shrews and Asian moon rats but not at all to porcupines.

"I did a lot of research online and contacted breeders," Roberts said. "The first two litters went well. The third was a disaster."

She learned the hard way that nervous females sometimes cannibalize their litters. But Roberts, who has volunteered at the UI Small Animal Clinic since she was in seventh grade, took the setback in stride and focused on breeding laid-back, gently handled animals that will make good mothers and pets.

"It's not something an amateur can deal with," she said of the breeding stresses. "The gestation period is five weeks. We put the females with the males 10 days, then move them to a big cage for two weeks. Then we move them to a smaller cage so they'll stay close to their babies to keep them warm because they're born naked. In 18 days, they'll have their eyes open and quills."

"We also breed in cycles so we can foster babies to other mothers if their mother doesn't take care of them."

Newborn hedgehogs, which are called hoglets, are the size of a thumb. Full-grown pygmies are the size of a guinea pig. European hedgehogs can grow to the size of a small dog.

Roberts now has the longest waiting list for her hoglets she's had in three years in business. She said enthusiasm about hedgehogs as pets waxes and wanes, but they're popular in England and the trend is filtering back to the United States. She sells online and only to individuals, not commercial buyers like pet stores. She and her husband travel to deliver the animals to buyers, or buyers come to her home to pick them up.

Hedgehogs come in 15 colors, from albino to dark brown, and Roberts charges about $150 for one. Her three current rescues aren't for sale – she'll keep them until they die.

"Kids like hedgehogs," she said. "They don't bite or chew or climb. Some like to cuddle, and some beg for worms. Each personality is very different. Females do well together, although I try to keep sisters or animals of the same age together. They've been socialized since they were babies."

"You have curious ones and shy ones," said Tony Brewer, who met Roberts through hedgehog breeder circles and recently moved from Iowa to Illinois to merge his herd with hers and focus on his long-time Pomeranian dog-breeding business.

"They're good pets for classrooms," Brewer said. "They're also good for anyone with allergies."

Hedgehogs, which are somewhat nocturnal, really love to run on wheels.

"They do it all night long," Roberts said. "I wonder what the neighbors think. It sounds like a factory in here."

Life expectancy ranges from three to six years.

"They're prone to cancer," Roberts said. "They also get wobbly hedgehog syndrome, which is ... something like mad cow disease. But a lot of them just die of old age."

Litter sizes range from about three to seven hoglets, but the average is four to five.

Roberts said their diet is uncomplicated.

"They eat cat food and dried mealies and fruit and vegetables – although you don't feed them anything acidic," she said.

Roberts' business is growing. She and Brewer want to expand the herd size to 90, and they're about to start another breeding project with greater Madagascar hedgehog tenrecs, which are slightly larger and much rarer and more valuable than the African pygmy variety.

Grub, a male Madagascar, has joined the group at Mansfield, and two females are due to arrive soon to start that project.

"We have two zoos on hold when we get their babies," Brewer said.

Roberts takes her best animals to two hedgehog association shows each year, and she has a wall full of ribbons to show for it.

"We try to breed to standard," she said. "Judges want a teardrop shape, a pug snout, a thick quill coat and an animal that weighs about 500 grams, but 60 percent of it is personality and that's in the breeding and handling. You can figure that if the mother's pretty easy going, the babies will be too."

Expansion plans also include Roberts' turtles – red ear sliders, cooter turtles and Russian tortoises occupying appropriate habitats she has created in the same building. She started raising them because they present different challenges than the hedgehogs.

But she's banking on hedgehogs to make the business work.

"We've had 85 to 100 litters and sold more than 300 babies so far," she said. "The first year I made $6,000. This year we're making $15,000. There's definitely growth potential."

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