# Natural pygmy hedgehog set up - Substrate



## MrJsk (Jul 29, 2012)

Not having owned hedgehogs for awhile I am looking to get back into it, this time with something a little different in mind. I will be aiming for a natural/wild set up. 

Yes, you can argue about the hybrid/they are not wild and all of that business but think about it.. NO animal is "designed" to live on fleece.

I need a little bit of advice regarding substrate. I will want a substrate that will allow them to dig their own little burrow to sleep, scratch and forage. Not too sure how suitable a sand/soil mix (like you would use for lizards) would be. I have discovered repti clay which will give the look I am going going for but again, not sure how compatible it is with small exotic mammals.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Going for this kind of terrain..


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## Moley165 (Sep 27, 2010)

the main issue with this is maintaining the consistency in the substrate to it doesn’t collapse on them. what with the heating of the tank and stuff it can be difficult to keep the humidity right to hit the right levels. also the mixing of substrates and excess substrates does leave you open to the forming and build-up of fungus and bacteria. in the wild the fungus and the bacteria’s will have natural predators to keep in check this in captivity can cause serious repertory issues especially to small mammals. 

if you want to create burrows I would suggest using plumbing pipes to create your hog a little system of tunnels, its safe and can be cleaned. this also means that in these burrows you’re not going to get any build ups or moister or dangerous fungus/bacteria. 

i love the idea of creating natural environments for our animals but sometimes in the pursuit of this we can cause more harm than good due to the difficulty of copying mother nature herself!


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## Fargle (Aug 8, 2013)

Our little hog has a "semi natural" environment. Half the viv is taken up with artificial grass. We had to hunt around for one not made of loops and then buy enough to have 2 or 3 sets so we can take out to hose clean.

The other half is a sand soil mix. The soil is eco earth stuff that is compressed into bricks and expands when you put it in water. I've put it about 70:30 with sand. In the dry heat of a viv there's no way the hog can make a burrow but emptying a pot of morio worms keeps her entertained for days!

I've used the repticlay stuff from ZooMed in my beardy set ups. It works wonders for making realistic backdrops but it sets really hard, unless the hog got into it and built the entire burrow in a few hours it would probably be too tough to dig through.


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## MrJsk (Jul 29, 2012)

Moley165 said:


> the main issue with this is maintaining the consistency in the substrate to it doesn’t collapse on them. what with the heating of the tank and stuff it can be difficult to keep the humidity right to hit the right levels. also the mixing of substrates and excess substrates does leave you open to the forming and build-up of fungus and bacteria. in the wild the fungus and the bacteria’s will have natural predators to keep in check this in captivity can cause serious repertory issues especially to small mammals.
> 
> if you want to create burrows I would suggest using plumbing pipes to create your hog a little system of tunnels, its safe and can be cleaned. this also means that in these burrows you’re not going to get any build ups or moister or dangerous fungus/bacteria.
> 
> i love the idea of creating natural environments for our animals but sometimes in the pursuit of this we can cause more harm than good due to the difficulty of copying mother nature herself!


Yeah, I guess you are right. Hmm.. the plumbing pipes might be worth considering! 



Fargle said:


> Our little hog has a "semi natural" environment. Half the viv is taken up with artificial grass. We had to hunt around for one not made of loops and then buy enough to have 2 or 3 sets so we can take out to hose clean.
> 
> The other half is a sand soil mix. The soil is eco earth stuff that is compressed into bricks and expands when you put it in water. I've put it about 70:30 with sand. In the dry heat of a viv there's no way the hog can make a burrow but emptying a pot of morio worms keeps her entertained for days!
> 
> I've used the repticlay stuff from ZooMed in my beardy set ups. It works wonders for making realistic backdrops but it sets really hard, unless the hog got into it and built the entire burrow in a few hours it would probably be too tough to dig through.


Oh wow, sounds awesome. Do you have any pictures of the set up?

Not sure how well the clay with burrows, crevices moulding into it would work??


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

Nice to see someone sane that isn't going to keep them in stupid pink fluffy boxes :2thumb::2thumb::2thumb: I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.


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## Athravan (Dec 28, 2006)

It's not really "natural" in the way that a bioactive setup would be but you could consider herbifloor which is alfalfa pellets which gives some digging medium, I don't like it myself though since it smells quite strong and I'm not sure the advantages are that high over wood based litter.

You could also consider excavator clay if you're willing to mould it in advance - you could lay down large plumbers pipes and then build the clay up on top of it to shape it, which would create stable tunnels - although you may then have to break it up if you want to get them out (it can be remoulded again after).

I know a breeder in the USA who keeps Pygmy hedgehogs outside (in Florida, lucky devil!) and he keeps them on soil and grass, but in that case the soil is fully compacted and not the loose dusty stuff, it's too hard for them to dig through and he provides underground hides with hinged lids, I'll have to ask him for some photos sometime because it's pretty awesome! Unfortunately hard to replicate in indoor enclosures the same, grass matting could be an option?

I keep all of mine on deep (2+ inches) of wood based cat litter and I hide mealworms in amongst it, they love to dig and forage for it.


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## Fargle (Aug 8, 2013)

It's changed a little from this now due to moving house and then buying 3 individual vivs so we can split and work on each separately. You can see the ZooMed clay in the top 2 vivs making up the background and selves. It sets rock hard and I even varnished it to make it tougher.......it certainly was when I had to break the viv apart to move house!!

The ratio of grass to soil in the hogs viv has changes slightly to around 30% grass 70% soil/sand. The leaves were plastic ones hot glued to the back.....they lasted about 2 hours before we saw her trying to eat one and had to rip them all out!



I did a photo journal thing of the original build if you want more info/pix. Again, it's not this stack anymore but the principle I used with the new vivs is the same.

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/habitat/1007999-my-custom-build-pic-heavy.html


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## MrJsk (Jul 29, 2012)

mrcriss said:


> Nice to see someone sane that isn't going to keep them in stupid pink fluffy boxes :2thumb::2thumb::2thumb: I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.


I know that the fleece and stuff seems to be the standard way of keeping them but when you sit and think about it.. it is kind of ridiculous, no? 



Athravan said:


> It's not really "natural" in the way that a bioactive setup would be but you could consider herbifloor which is alfalfa pellets which gives some digging medium, I don't like it myself though since it smells quite strong and I'm not sure the advantages are that high over wood based litter.
> 
> You could also consider excavator clay if you're willing to mould it in advance - you could lay down large plumbers pipes and then build the clay up on top of it to shape it, which would create stable tunnels - although you may then have to break it up if you want to get them out (it can be remoulded again after).
> 
> ...


That doesn't sound like a bad idea. I guess a depth of substrate to forage and rummage around in would be more practical than trying to create a substrate to allow them burrow. Which wouldn't be so bad if they had "tunnels" pipes moulded into clay.

Oh wow, lucky guy! He's outdoor setups sound really cool, shame we have such crappy weather in the UK, especially in Yorkshire! lmao Would love to see some pictures if you are able to get hold of them!

Thank you  





Fargle said:


> [URL=http://i759.photobucket.com/albums/xx235/fargle2nd/DSC_0054_zpsd85faa9d.jpg]image[/URL]
> 
> It's changed a little from this now due to moving house and then buying 3 individual vivs so we can split and work on each separately. You can see the ZooMed clay in the top 2 vivs making up the background and selves. It sets rock hard and I even varnished it to make it tougher.......it certainly was when I had to break the viv apart to move house!!
> 
> ...


That looks so cool :2thumb: I think that is by far my favourite set up I have seen.. other than a mario wallpapered vivarium which did look really good. It had mario themed cuddly toys, pretty much a kids bedroom but in a viv! lol, wtf??


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## MissRedhead (Aug 22, 2015)

Is use finacard, you can make mountains to burrow into, it stays quite plump, very absorbent and doesn't smell


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## Jippers (Jul 30, 2015)

Fargle, 

How have you stopped your APH from trying to eat the astroturf?

We put a sample in his enclosure to see how he would get on with it and he started to try to eat it, the same when we tried an incredibly short pile sample.

At present from today we are trialling a 70 percent megazorb coverage (his normal substrate) and 30 percent sand/soil/coco fibre mix.

He's taken to the new side, been quite happy with it too, a bit of foraging, completely relaxed and went on his wheel..never done this before whilst we're looking. He may have gotten a little happy with the new substrate too...


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## DONTLOOKATME (Apr 5, 2013)

Jippers said:


> Fargle,
> 
> How have you stopped your APH from trying to eat the astroturf?
> 
> ...


It's been ages since I had mine but are you sure he wasn't just anointing it? Mine would always chew on anything new/food/smells and then lick his back


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## Fargle (Aug 8, 2013)

We never had an issue with her (I say had, she developed wobbly hedgehog syndrome and had to be put to sleep!), she never tried to eat the grass. We did originally glue plastic leaves to the back and sides but she tried to eat those within the hour.


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