Hi all, I am looking to find out when greater hedgehog tenrecs (setifer setosus) were last bred in a UK public collection? I know the last two were kept at Birmingham nature centre and have now moved on. However did they breed there and If not when was the last birth from greater hedgehog tenrecs in the UK? Thanks Stuart
There were some at Tropical Wings when I visited last year (they were offshow however). I presume they still have them. Ashby lists them as having bred at both Jersey, in the 70s, and London (DNS), in the 60s. I think the current crop are those imported and bred by Adrian Fowler (Dr Doolittle's Endangered Madagascar). I also see that pairs of the dark phase of this species are being advertised for sale at the moment. Nice.
I guess I should then confess that the reason for asking this question is to establish how long since greater hedgehog tenrecs were last born in the UK and this is because.... I am very happy to announce my pair of greater hedgehog tenrecs are proud parents!!! Only one baby has been born but it is now 3 days old, unfortunately she gave birth out in the open and so I have had to tape cardboard to the front of the vivarium to stop any disturbances. This morning she has taken the baby to a nest box and so it is now unfortunately out of view, however it was feeding well and when it was born it was around the same size as a week old lesser hedgehog tenrec! Fingers crossed all goes well but hopefully this is the first small step to establishing this species in the UK once again
Only 1 baby, that's interesting as GHT's in Wilhelma one time gave birth to 28 young in only 1 litter (the highest number of any mammal).
I think you are thinking of common tenrecs (tenrec ecaudatus), I also keep this species but haven't managed to breed them. The average litter size for setifer setosus is 3, so this is not bad for a first litter and what I would expect.
Is the picture that you attached on the first post one of your tenrecs? Well done on the breeding, and hope the baby survives and does well!
Thanks every body, that is a quick photo I took of the make whilst doing the evening feeds, they are a very dark natural colour phase. I have found in various books from the 60s and 70s. That various zoo had labeled subspecies depending on location in the wild and colour but now I believe they are all classed as the same species without splitting into subspecies, I will have too look into that further though !
