Day 49

Good morning! It's time for an update. :) I think ProDiet is a pretty good cat food to give to Mandark because his stool gives both a healthy colour as well as the right firmness where you can pick them up with ease and without any mess. Apparently, the only place where I found it being sold is in Berakas. Have yet to find a nearer place. Also. This morning, I decided to cut his hind feet nails. He was well-behaved THANK GOODNESS!!! Done grooming him. Until next time.

Day ... uh... I forgot. 37.

Day 37

I introduced him to ProDiet, Royal Canin and Friskies to him recently. Just to mix it up.

Out of all the three, he likes ProDiet the best, which is amazing considering how cheap it is. Quality of the food is good. It's way better than unhealthy Friskies' Purina. Hurr... dunno why I bought that in the first place. Friskies' Purina made him poop green, which isn't so good.

Let's see how his poop looks like ProDiet-style tomorrow. ;D

Day 29 and 31

Day 29

Prior to this day, I was scouting for a huge plastic container in random general stores so that I could put Mandark inside a new home. I found a few which cost at least $20 for a decent one. But then, I was like, "I wonder if I could find anything inside my house."

I scavenged for boxes, containers, cages from under the stairs, outside the house, but none to fit my criteria. I was eyeing the toy boxes Ilyaas has for his Legos and toy cars, but my mom warned me not to touch them. So I was like, "OK. :("

I woke up one morning, sat up on my bed and rubbed my eyes and in front of me all along was a huge ass container filled with files of past school works.

"CONTAINER!" I shouted. Soon after, I cleared the stuff out from the plastic container which had Nickelodeon stickers and a name label where my sister's name was written across it. Well, it was in my room, so I'm guessing I can use it. LOL.

I began spreading out new bedding for the home and tore up newspaper articles for the base. I laid out his big wheel, which sat perfectly inside the container, his igloo and a pink ball where he can roll that shit around whenever he wants to. What was missing was a cover for it. I was afraid that those annoying house lizards might have a holiday inside the container whenever they feel like it, so I'm like, NO.

I asked my mom if we had any wire-mesh strewn around the house. Mom relayed it to dad and daddykins saved the day and made one for me. Bless. <3 Perfect. Now, the new humble abode is all nicely spruced up and Mandark can have a partay in it. OWH YEAH.

Here we are without the wire-mesh. Look at him all curiousss.

With wire-mesh. Dohohoho.

Day 31

Usual routine! Clean wheel, play time! Also, he's slightly getting bigger.

Early morning play-time!

Pooping on my books.

Dunno what he was trying to do under that mesh.

Inside the container! I hope yer happy lil one.

D'awwwww.

Day 22

It's been a long time since I updated, because it's been a routine. Clean wheel and feed and play. Pretty good progress, he's still as social as ever.

However, another problem persists as the aquarium is a tad too small for him now. Green wheel is definitely not gonna fit him anymore. So I'm using the big huge wheel and it cramps up his style.

So I'm gonna need to buy him a bigger cage. Can't do that this month because apparently I blew my money on a Nintendo 3DS L M A O.

I changed the bedding for the third time since I got him (I think) because it was becoming smelly and he smelled too... I'm thinking he literally did roll in his own piss. So I bathed him and gave him baby shampoo and he smells NICE. Refilled his water bottle and I'm gonna cut back on giving him mealworms, been giving Mandark those on alternate days. Not good. Hahaha. Needs more exercise.

Anyhow, please endure 3 weeks getting stuck in that aquarium, little one. Or I'll try to scrounge up some make-shift bigger place for you to stay. :D

Day 13

I got a little worried this morning. I switched out the big wheel for the smaller one, but I saw only 2 poopies. Also last night, I gave his dinner late because I was out with the TESL peeps.

So anyways, this morning, I made him run around in the big wheel and satisfactorily he did his business.

Yeah, I'm gonna get him a ball soon. Or not. LOL. Biar tia. Run around the house nekkid with no protection. (I just saw the forums whether or not hamster balls are good for them). I'll let him play in the playpen then.

I just got back from tuition, which I fed him before I left. Saw that he ate half of his dish and ran in his wheel, cuz of his big ass poop stuck on it (I'm guessing that's what's left of the mealworms HAHA, ew).

And now he's back to sleeping mode. Lazy ass.

Extra tidbits

Oh, Michielle visited lil Mandark on Saturday. He was huffing for a while, but his defenses were down afterwards. Even when there are people around, I am glad he's still as curious as a cat -- hedgehog. :p

Day 11 & 12

Day 11

I was supposed to write an entry yesterday, but I was a little tired and I forgot.

Yesterday, I purchased a container-ful of mealworms from an aquarium fish shop in Batu Besurat (they ran out in Petlink in Kiulap).

I went home and cleaned the wheel and woke the hedgehog up for some mealworm time. I didn't get to play with him in the morning because I had to leave for work at 7:30am.

I set loose 3 mealworms and he devoured them all. Hahaha. It was the first time I saw Mandark being so aggressive!!! It was amazing!

At night, I chose to switch out the smaller wheel for the bigger one. It cramped up the aquarium, but I wanted to see how he fared with it. I had to sacrifice on leaving out his igloo though.


Day 12


So in the morning, I saw that he did use the big wheel, though I'm not sure what happened to his poop, they were flat as shiet. I guess he kept stepping on them last night. In the end, he squeezed himself behind the wheel for his sleep time... was what I conjured that morning because he slept behind it.

I woke him up for the usual play time. And cleaned his bedding while I was at it.

Day 10.1

I gave Mandark a bath! His quills were dirty a little, with dirt and his nasties, so that was why. He didn't seem to mind the water, though he was curious enough to want to get out??? Thank goodness for slippery sink. HA!

He's cleaner now, though I didn't use shampoo, I only cleaned the dirt off his quills.

I warmed and dried him with a towel afterwards and now he's back in his dream world. OK, now back to work. Hur hur.

Day 10

Good morning. Just a quick update.

Eeto... Just checked his aquarium this morning to find his wheel fell over. Er, I guess he's getting a wee bit big for that, so it's time to switch to the bigger one. ^_^;

I do hope he wasn't hurt during that time when it fell over. D:

Alrighty, standard morning procedure commence!

Clean wheel, clean poop, clean dish, play with Mandark!

Day 9

Allo.

The journal entries are getting sparse. Huhu. But anyways.

I'm not sure when I realised it, I think it was either yesterday or today. I realised that Mandark is bigger than usual. I thought he was fat, because when he sleeps, he curls up, then if I wake him up for food, he would not take up so much space under the igloo. Now, he does. Not to a point where he can't fit into his igloo. He can still sleep in there, nice and comfortable, it's just that he takes up more space than usual.

He's not fat either. I tested it out while I was playing with him this morning. He could still curl up into a ball, thank goodness. Rofl. In other words, he's just growing bigger. Still, it worries me, because I'm still letting him use the green wheel. I'll let him use the big wheel soon.

He's getting into the habit of waking up in the morning and playing with me. :)

Day 7

Daily routine, clean the cage, clean his food bowl, refill water. Actually today was the first time I refilled his water. In other words, it takes him one week to drink the whole water bottle set aside for the M to the A to the N... D A R K.

After that I played with him again and used the cardboard box to limit his movements. The cardboard box is pretty wide spaced, as I've mentioned before, but the fence around it is only 3-inches high or so and after much exploration, Mandark could easily go over it and roam the room. The only reason why I provided a cardboard box is because I want to let him shit out all his shit before attempting to go and have a journey around the house.

True enough, it worked. As he travelled the perimeter of the room (filled with spiderwebs and tahi cacak), he successfully did it without his crap messing up the floor. Ho ho ho.

Righty, release the krakken of the pictures! (Though there're only four pieces...)

Here's the mess he makes every morning. Easy to clean, but goodness me, stepping on poop over and over again still weirds me out.

Good morning, Mandark!

Er, good evening, Mandark! I had to wake him up for dinner last night.

Lastly, in his play pen.

He's wonderful! :)

Day 6

I didn't get to post anything yesterday. There's nothing much going on yesterday anyway. Little Mandark pooped all over the wheel and made an even bigger mess than before, most probably because he was on the wheel longer than before so he stepped on more of his own crap. LOL. Haihhh.

I'll take that as a positive thing since he does his exercise.

I didn't get to interact with him much yesterday because I was a little busy.

However, this morning I decided to do a little experiment, awww yeahhh!

Now, we all know that it's a poop machine after it wakes up, so I came well prepared and set up a wide-space box with fences around it so that it won't stray far (like going and sniffing at lizard poop on the wall, or hide under chairs in the computer room, there're like a lot of hiding places in this room!). I padded them with a layer of newspaper so it's easy to clean any uh 'gifts' from him.

I let him roam around and he pooped about 5 times in the frame of 5 minutes. Well done. He also pissed once. But anyhow, he tried to find me and he did and tried to climb onto my lap. Alas, my little adorable nephew wanted my attention, so I had to set Mandark back into his aquarium. :(

Will do this again tomorrow. Or later, after class. :D

Day 4

Allo and good morning. Well, it's afternoon already, but my morning got zapped by morning classes. :( So somehow I still think it's morning and I'm being delusional in order to make it seem so. HAHA. Right.

So, this morning I woke up early around 7am to check up on Mandark and I am pleased to see poop everywhere on the wheel. Poop.

EVERYWHERE. On the wheel.

Yeah, I'm quite pleased with that, it just means he's having his little exercise when I'm not around. A little worried about the green tint that some of the poop have, but then I see the cat food that I'm giving it and it's all sorts of colours; green, brown, red. So I'm just going to assume the colouring came from them.

After I was done with my morning classes, I came home to clean up the poopie pies in the wheel. Thank goodness for scour brushes, I think I need to use an old toofbrush next time, it's easier to reach into those nooks and crannies.

Then I managed to have some time to play with him... then... something magical happened.

HE POOPED ON ME. Thanks for the gift, Mandark, really. Good thing, I had a towel over my lap, you little-!

A-anyway, yay for towels.

I'll try to weigh him later and have a brief update whether he poops on me again.

Ja na!

Day 3.2

Hmm, let's see. It's pretty obvious that he doesn't huff as much as yesterday or the day before. Big plus.

Mandark wasn't hostile to my sister or Ilyaas too, which was again, another good sign!

I let him roam for quite a while (around 15-20 minutes) and tried to get him on the blue big wheel. He managed to do two rounds before he stopped and tried to take a comfortable nap. Like, wha-? I put him back.

I should monitor his weight too. *ding!*

That was the sound of an idea that popped up, by the way. Hohoho. I made a slight mess in the computer room where it's being kept. There're wood shavings all over the carpet which I will vacuum, soon. Tomorrow, probably.

I wanna potty train him too. .-.

Alright. Time to feed him and go to tuition. I'm tired. :(

Day 3.1

I got him a bigger wheel, the blue one. He chose the green one instead, WTF. Well, alright. I'll let him grow into that wheel, so I can toss that away (uh, no, I won't) and let him use the blue one once he's huge-y.

Saturday is poop day for him. Apparently he likes to poop on the wheel. -_- Watching him step on his own poo is like... um... not the nicest way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I'm sorry that I have to do this, but I'm gonna talk about his shit, yo! His shiznitsss. Shizzits. Shiatz.

So his poopie is healthy-looking enough. Medium brown with the consistency of toothpaste. Checked it up on the internet and that's how it's supposed to look like. It's a little, sliiiiightly, wee bit runny, but it's nothing to be worried about.

All in all, he's getting very familiar with how I handle him and he doesn't seem to mind now. I call that good progress!!! Although I feel guilty in waking him up to play with me.

Going to feed him before I go to tuition later. :)

Day 3

I readjusted the wheel (actually my dad did) and the opening is bigger. I let him run on it for a while and he pooped like... a lot. Hahahaha. Apparently, it's normal for hedgies to do that. Well, that's cool, I guess.

The wheel's too small, I need to get a bigger one.

Crap, man. Look how small that thing is. Yes, I think I'll get the blue one. Will update later.

Day 2

Ah... Day 2.

I was quite busy on the second day since I had work to do.

In the morning I gave him a little bit of food, like 5 tiny pieces of catfood in his empty blue bowl. I felt around the cage for any signs of poop. I couldn't see any, well, only because the bedding camouflaged the crap out of them (pun intended, rofl).

I went to the pet shop afterwards and bought him a wheel. There were two that I wanted, one was a huge ass 27cm in diameter (blue in colour). Then there was the teeny one which was 18cm in diameter (green in colour). In the end, I opted for the smaller one (big mistake, really, well depends on how you want to see it). I only chose that because it could fit inside the aquarium. If I had chosen the blue one, it would definitely break the cage.

After I was done with work, I don't know why, but my courage to pick him up kind of dropped since yesterday. He scares me if he huffs and puffs. I conquered my fear at around 8:30pm (LOL) and picked him up whether he liked it or not. Oh, the suspense! He decided to be friendly with me right after I picked him up. Nice, Mandark, nice. I let him roam around the carpeted floor as well as on this table where I placed the cage. Curiouser and curiouser. Though he freezes whenever new people enter the room. Like, my nephew, or mom, or dad. When they leave, he relaxes.

I decided to check whether he could actually fit inside the wheel. BARELY. SHIT. D: The holes were a little too small for him to get inside the wheel. I decided to solve that on another day. Also, I introduced him to new food which were tiny bits of banana. Erm, he didn't seem to like it. Not sure if he actually ate it, I couldn't find any traces of it the next morning.

Played with him for half an hour until I returned him to the cage.

He cool.

Day 1

Day 1

The day I got my hedgehog was 2 days ago on the 26th April, 2012. :D
It wasn't until 4:30pm that I could take it home and get it used to me. My hedgehog, nameless then (though I had a couple of names brewing in my head already), was not a shy hedgehog. It's quite active if you let him be active. I played with him for quite a while, until I let him back into the aquarium cage and get used to his new home.

I placed an igloo for his home and a small bowl for his hungry stomach (theme colour: BLUE). I did not change the bedding yet... it didn't smell.

My whole family decided to greet the little stranger and they were kiiiinda sorta incredulous that I decided to get a hedgehog. Really though, how many people in Brunei owns one? :D And they're cute. And spikey, but cute. A perfect tsundere animal LOL.

I also decided to name the hedgie; Mandark. You know, from Dexter's Laboratory. The previous little critter that I owned was an old hamster named Dexter, so I followed it from that. This one's like a hamster, only 'evil' with spikes, hence Mandark.

The other name that I strongly considered to call him was Edgeworth... from Miles Edgeworth, a public prosecutor from Phoenix Wright. Ahahahaaaa. Get it? 'Edge'worth? D: Nevermind. I didn't choose it in the end, because it was hard to pronounce. Edgewarrrthhhh.

Alright, so enough of that, the little guy is two months old as of now. Quite social and friendly. Aim is to let him familiarize with the human smell that is myself.

I let him sleep and kept myself downstairs until 10pm-ish. I gave him food around 6:30pm in the evening and he ate half of the portion I gave him. He was moving around quite a bit around 9:30pm. At that time, I was pretty worried about temperature. Too cold, too hot? It didn't seem to be the case, since he wasn't splayed out. Guess that was a good thing.

Once lights were out, that was when he decided to be active. I could hear him making a ruckus in the cage, drinking and eating and ruffling around the bedding.

Not bad for the first day.

Introduction

Hello! I started this blog for the purpose of following the daily life on a hedgehog and what he does, which to me, isn't very much, unless I take him out of the cage. This is just a test post, will do a more serious one later, with pictures! w00h00!