, 8 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
Do you eat raw cookie dough?

Cool, wash your hands after you snuggle a hedgehog.

CDC warns against both* actions, but if you practice basic hygiene & aren’t immunocompromised, your salmonella risk is small.

* I still wouldn’t kiss hawgs as quills are pointy & lips sensitive. Human offering a hedgehog a flower to sniff
Domestic hedgehogs (hybrids of several species) carry zoonotic diseases, primarily salmonella.

If you steal a wild hedgehog (NO.), which are ecologically rats, you risk nasties like ringworm & plague. Karmic retribution for hassling wildlife.

Details: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… Human holding a hedgehog
Hedgehogs aren’t the only exotic pet to potentially carry salmonella — frogs, lizards, snakes, parrots, chickens, rats, goats. & horses can all be carriers.

So can cats.
So can dogs.
Yeah.

Gonna give up snuggling kitties?

Or just wash your hands? Person looking at camera from behind a hedgehog climbing over her arm
If you DON’T snuggle your pet hedgehog, you won’t build up familiarity & trust.

Untrusting hedgehogs are spikeballs of doom. No trust? No ability to provide basic care (trimming nails, dosing medication, or treating ear infections) without extreme trauma. That’s animal abuse. Human trimming nails of a relaxed hedgehog
The CDC & public health authorities warn about everything. It’s their job.

The dangers of cookie dough!
cdc.gov/features/no-ra…

Salmonella lurking in every pet (except fish & spiders)! cdc.gov/healthypets/di…

So many PSAs about everything from sex to lettuce.

Pick your risks Hedgehog from above
Hedgehogs are exotics. They are NOT easy pets with a lot of special requirements to treat them well. They’ve got a lot of attitude & not everyone has the patience for winning over prickly prey. That’s cool, you do you

But if “I have to wash my hands!” is too much? Fuck right off Human spotting a hedgehog while he clambers over her
Want to learn more about hedgehogs?

I ran a thread when i was hosting @realscientists on Election Day (ahhhhhhhh): twitter.com/i/moments/7962…

I also wrote an article for @goodhousemag: goodhousekeeping.com/life/pets/g207…

This is the best pet care guide I've found: westcoasthedgehogs.com/files/hedgehog… Hedgehog nestled in a towel
My little hedgehog died just over a year ago, a month shy of his 5th birthday. He was a marathoning curmudgeon who kept me company on late nights, and I don't regret a single prickly snuggle.
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