Ms James, 31, said she was completely taken aback when her two African pygmy hedgehogs produced an albino baby.
“I was totally surprised when he was born. Only one in ten thousand hedgehogs are born totally white with red eyes,” she said.
The little creature, who will be named in a competiton, could never be released because he would have no camoflauge in the wild.
A nocturnal animals, he is just over 11 weeks old and eats a diet of meal worms and cat biscuits.
The nature reserve, run by Melanie’s father Bill, also provides shelter for rare Natterjack toads, a red quirrel and Tikka, the Bengal Eagle Owl.
Mr James started the business as a small nursery about 15 years ago, but people kept bringing in unwanted animals and Melanie could not turn them away.
“I never meant for it to turn into a rescue centre, I just can’t say no.” Melanie said.
“My only limits are time and money!”
Oh my gosh! I never thought in a million years I would be able to see an albino hedgehog! I am super excited and can’t wait to share this site with my friends, I know they’ll just love it!!
Thanks for posting this, maccayla.
These hedgehogs are really common African pygmy hedgehogs have laods of pure white babies… i have a friend who breeds them if they are 1 in a million she is really lucky coz 50% of them are white
Help me please my female African Hedgehog has just had a baby.
I don’t know what to do as she keeps standing on it.
What do I do?
email: michelle.minkley@live.co.uk
What do you mean by standing on it?
If she’s sort of trying to get on top of the baby, it’s probably because she trying to get it to feed.