Jill Warnick is a long-time animal breeder. At age 10 she discovered that her pair of golden hamsters had given birth to a litter of babies. All of her friends came over to watch the mother hamster feeding and caring for her young. This was so exciting to Warnick that she started to collect and breed hamsters with more interesting colors, as well as ones with longer fur (called teddy bear hamsters). The rest, as they say, is history.
As an adult, Warnick has bred many exotic animals, from bushy-tailed jirds to fat-tailed duprasis, and she has kept other exotics from flying squirrels to degus. For the past 16 years, African pygmy hedgehogs have been her passion.
Before the arrival of the Internet, Warnick wrote The Odd Pet Directory to inform other pet lovers where to locate hard-to-find exotic pets, as well as how to care for them. Warnick has published several other works, including a featured article on hedgehogs for Critters USA magazine. She is also the hedgehog expert on the SmallAnimalChannel.
Warnick strives to educate people about proper hedgehog care. She has produced and directed the video, Hedgehogs Unleashed: The Care and Maintenance of the African Pygmy Hedgehog, which is sold in pet wholesale and retail markets.
Warnick and her hedgehogs have been seen locally and nationally on such TV shows as Animal Planet and Boston’s Chronicle.
Warnick lives in Boston with her menagerie of pets that includes her hedgehogs, Bourke’s parakeets, Jack the papillon and her Serama indoor chicken named Solo.
Ask Jill Warnick a question about your hedgehogs now!
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