New hedgie owner(needs advice)

[Toxic Melodies]

Alright, so a month ago I got my first hedgehog, Vincent. All he ever does is sleep all day and about from 1am to about 7am he's up, running on his wheel, eating, and so on.. I bought him from an exotic animal pet store, they told me hes 6 months old and has been socialized and stuff, but whenever i go to pick him up(or even go near his cage), he gets extremely huffy and when i am able to pick him up, he tries to run out of my hands. Then whenever i put him on my bed to spend time with him, he tries running off the side of it in an attempt to get away it seems D: What should i do? Also, the people at the pet store told me to feed him this hedgehog complete food, which i already know is cr*p, so i switched him to Hill's Science Diet Senior Cat food, so hes ignoring the other food completely now, is this food suitable for him? But back to what i was saying before, is there anything i can do to encourage him to be comfortable around me, without trying to run away? Is this even normal behavior for a hedgehog..?

 

[smhufflepuff]

Sleeping all day and being active late at night/the wee hours of the morning is normal for a hedgie. So that's great!

Sounds like he needs more time to get used to you. I have one that huffs at me when I go to pick her up. She settles down with time. Vincent might just need more time with you. Or he might be an active little runner instead of a snuggler (could just be his personality). I'd get a snuggle bag/small blankie and allow him to go in/under it when he's out with you. Just sit with him and the bag/blankie on your lap when he's out and see what happens. He does sound like a normal hedgie

Good call on changing him to cat food. I'd go with a different brand though. Hill's isn't all it's cracked up to be. A few good ones are Solid Gold Katz-n-Flocken, Halo Spot's Stew, Innova, Blue Buffalo Indoor Cat, Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul - light, Natural Balance Green Pea and Duck or NB GP and Chicken, Fromm Mature Gold... that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[smhufflepuff]

...actually, was just re-thinking something... since he just changed foods recently, I might just go ahead and add a second quality kibble to the Hill's rather than outright replacing it for now. Then, when the Hill's is gone, keep feeding him the other kibble and replace just the Hill's. It's a good idea to have a mix of foods. For the short term, Hill's could be one of the two.