2020

Judith Bos

The HedgehogProgram

30-1-2020

Next-generation research, registry & education

Index

ARTIKEL I. INTRODUCTION 4

ARTIKEL II. THE WEBSITE 5

SECTIE 1.01 NEXT-GENERATION RESEARCH 6

SECTIE 1.02 THP REGISTRY 7

SECTIE 1.03 A SOCIAL COMMUNITY 7

(A) REGULAR MEMBERS 7

(B) REGISTRANTS 7

(C) PREMIUM MEMBERS 7

SECTIE 1.04 REGISTERING INFORMATION 7

(A) BECOMING A REGISTRANT 7

SECTIE 1.05 REGULATIONS 8

(A) HOUSEHOLD REGULATIONS 8

(B) ANIMAL WELFARE 8

(C) BREEDING STANDARDS 8

SECTIE 1.06 EMS CODES 8

SECTIE 1.07 GENETIC STATISTICS 8

(A) PC 9

(B) ECG 9

(C) COI 9

(D) AVK 9

SECTIE 1.08 THE REGISTRY DATABASE 10

(A) PEDIGREE PAGES 10

(B) REGISTRANT DATABASE 10

(C) WORLD INITIALS DATABASE (WID) 10

(D) CLUBS & REGISTRIES 10

SECTIE 1.09 PREMIUM CORNER 11

(A) SUBSCRIPTIONS 11

SECTIE 1.10 SUBMISSION FORMS 11

ARTIKEL II. HEDGEHOG WIKI 12

SECTIE 2.01 BREEDERS AROUND THE WORLD 12

ARTIKEL III. ONLINE COURSES 13

ARTIKEL IV. WEBSHOP 14

ARTIKEL V. COMMUNITY 15

ARTIKEL VI. BUSINESS INFORMATION 16

Artikel I. Introduction The Hedgehog Program is a proprietorship based in The Netherlands and run by Judith Bos.

Starting 2011, she got her first African Pygmy Hedgehog and very quickly came to realise

there was little to no information on these animals in her own language. She started to

research the basics to owning hedgehog in english and translate dit into little articles in

Dutch, to help other owners of this species to better their care. Soon after, she started her

first forum, called Witbuikegel Forum, through which she occasionally rescued African

Pygmy Hedgehogs which were being rehomed, neglected or otherwise not taken care of.

In 2012 she made her first website, Witbuikegel Wiki, which started a chainreaction of

replies from breeders outside of The Netherlands asking if she could translate her articles to

English and later on to 13 other languages. With this rapid growth, she decided in 2014 to

rename her website to The Hedgehog Program and worked towards setting up small

digitalised researches to see how colors inherit. The website and the researches started

growing rapidly and gained a great amount of interest from people worldwide. When she

published her Dutch book about African Pygmy Hedgehogs in 2016, she even made the

national media and gave a series of interviews with newspapers, radio channels and tv

channels.

Ever since those interviews, she decided she could make a fulltime job from this project and

make it her life goal to research hedgehogs. And so, on october 14 2019, she started her

project as a registered company underthe names of The Hedgehog Program and THP

Registry.

The goal of this project? Simply to gain more budget for scientific research, educate new

owners and breeders and create a platform to better the species healthwise.

Artikel II. The website The platform consists out of a total of five different websites, to create an interactive and flowy

structure. This way you have one menu that will lead you through all the content of The Hedgehog

Program and THP Registry. You do need to have different accounts for different content, but this also

secures you, due to other memebers not being able to see your personal information on any other

platform than THP Registry, which is the only platform you can choose just how much of your

personal information is visible for other members.

The Hedgehog Program

The main website is The Hedgehog Program, which is our main business name. The link towards this

website is https://hedgehogprogram.com. This website holds all the neccesary information about the

research & education center. From our history and our partners to online courses and the hedgehog

wiki.

Research database

The research database website is the website where you will find information about our researches

as well as tables of endless data that we have collected throughout the years. This is where you can

help us conduct our research through surveys and submission forms, but can also see rough

analysations of our data. You can find it by clicking either of the four subjects in the menu under

“Research”.

Registry

THP Registry is our secundary business name and not without reason. This website is bigger than all

four others combined! The registry is where you can sign up as a member and view pedigrees from

breeders. Or you can become a registrant by applying for an affix and register your hedgehogs and

edit their information. You can fin dit through clicking “Registry” in the menu or by visitng

https://thpregistry.com.

Webshop

The webshop is where you find our books, our downloadable content and other products. You can

find it by clicking “Shop” in the menu.

Forum

The forum is where you as our community can contact eachother, discuss subjects around hedgehogs

and tenrecs and post cute pictures of your animals! You can fin dit by clicking “Forum” in the menu.

https://hedgehogprogram.com/https://thpregistry.com/

Sectie 1.01 Next-generation research The Hedgehog Program conducts non-scientific research through anonimised digital data collected

through THP Registry and through pedigrees, health issues and weights send in by people all over the

world. These people are owners or breeders or even rescue centers who care for hedgehogs and

tenrecs on a daily basis. Due to this digital information, we can conduct research on animals without

the need to actually harm them, which is the main reason most people are against scientific animal

research.

Even the microscopic research is done without touching an actual hedgehog or tenrec in order to

conduct research. Hedgehogs and tenrecs naturally shed fur and quills almost every day. Owners of

these animals can donate these hairs and quills to us to do research upon. These hairs and quills are

being researched in order to observe pigmentation between different colors, but also to observe

structural difference between colors and between species. Giving us a bit more information about

their functions and why they are build the way they are.

Sectie 1.02 THP Registry THP Registry is our secundary business name, because the registry on its own is even bigger than The

Hedgehog Program itself! The registry is focussed on registering pedigrees for breeders, but hold a

lot more then meets the eye.

Sectie 1.03 A social community Using a social media based plug-in, the registry has a very unique method of creating groups and

seperate communities whilst also being an open platform available for everyone. Registering an

account is free, but becoming a registrant and registering your pedigrees is a low-fee paid service.

(a) Regular members

Regular members can sign up for free, creating their own account which opens up the profile page

and the options of having friends, sending private messages and maintaining a blog wall. Regular

members can also view pedigree pages of breeders who prefer an open database, but can’t see

closed off databases, which varies per breeder and their preferences.

(b) Registrants

A registrant is a breeder or rescue that registers pedigrees and information on their hedgehogs. They

can get their own group if they want a closed database, but they can also choose an open database

which is visible for anyone with a members account. Registering hedgehogs is a paid service, but

editing already existing information is free.

Owners of hedgehogs from a registrant, can also edit the inforamtion after they’ve bought a

hedgehog. These services are free. This way you can keep your breeder updated on their hedgehogs,

even after purchase, creating a lot more insight on lineages as well as providing additional data for

our researches!

(c) Premium members

This group is especially made for registrants who buy more hedgehogs due to having larger herds.

The subscription costs €30 and includes a database set-up and registering hedgehogs fora n entire

year, without additional costs. Only registrants can apply for this group.

Sectie 1.04 Registering information If you’re looking for information on how to register, what policies and regulations there are or what

certain terms mean, read this thouroughly.

(a) Becoming a registrant

To become a registrant, there’s an easy to follow, step-by-step guide on our website, found here. It

describes the exact steps you need to take in order to become a registrant and every step is clickable

and will lead you to the right page. But you can also see the most important steps down below.

Become a member on THP Registry

Apply for an affix or get a yearly subscription

Register your hedgehogs

Check your pedigrees online when they’ve been added

Edit their information through the submission forms

https://thpregistry.com/registering/

Cheer on your customers to edit information after their purchase

You can also enjoy the perks of being a registrant if you register your hedgehogs with a collaborating

registry or club. You can’t register hedgehogs with THPR, but you can see the breeder pages and join

in on the discussions there (planned for january 2020). In that case, please contact us through the

contact form and give us your affix and the club you register with so we can verify this information

and add you to the right group called “Spectators”. You do need to be a regular member to be part of

this group, but you don’t need to apply for an affix or have a database.

Sectie 1.05 Regulations Although we are not responsible for the way you care for your animals, we do have some regulations

to protect animals and give us the right to delete your account as a registrar in case you breach any

of these regulations. Please ,read them carefully!

(a) Household regulations

The Household regulations are mainly about use of words and general politeness to maintain a

friendly atmosphere on the registry and its interactive social media platform. Any breach to this

regulation can cause a permanent deletion of your account and every personal information related

to it. If you have a database on the registry, this will mean the database will remain present, but your

personal information will be filtered out. The pedigree pages will also have a not in the verification

tab that the account is permanently banned from the registry.

(b) Animal welfare

Animal welfare is very important to us. Very try our hardest to be as animal-friendly as possible in

our researches and we expect nothing less from our community. Any breach to this regulation might

result in a ban as described in the Household regulations and in severe cases we might need to notify

authorities.

(c) Breeding standards

The breeding standards are a mere guideline. Not much is known about these animals and setting up

a strict set of regulations on how to breed is not realistic. Also, because of the fact we are a global

platform and every country has different values for breeding animals, it is impossible to guide

everyone through this. The breeding standards therefore are merely a guideline for beginning

breeders on when to start breeding females, when to pull hedgehogs out of breeding, at which age

its best to seperate them from their mother and so on. This regulation therefore holds no

consequences if you breach it, but it is wise to read it through.

Sectie 1.06 EMS Codes The Easy Mind System or EMS for short, is a tool to limit the lenghts of colors and pattens on animals

on a pedigree. How it works and what colors codes there are is all on the EMS codes page.

Sectie 1.07 Genetic statistics Genetic statistics are the PC, ECG, COI and AVK percentages on the pedigree pages. These indicate

how much inbreeding is done in the lineage and over how many generations it’s calculated for

accuracy. A lot of people use LOI for this, but as a single indicater it is not very useful and therefore

not used in our registry.

https://thpregistry.com/registering/regulations/https://thpregistry.com/registering/ems-codes/https://thpregistry.com/registering/genetic-statistics/

(a) PC

Pedigree completeness (PC) shows how many generations on the pedigree are complete. For

example if only the parents are known, the PC of an animal is 1. And when both parents are known,

but one of the grandparents is missing, the PC will still be 1, due to only the first generation being

fully known. The larger the number, the more accurate the inbreeding percentages will be.

(b) ECG

Equivalent Complete Generations (ECG) is the number that indicates how many generations are

known. Each ancestor that’s known within the pedigree get a fixed set of points, which are all added

up to create a number to indicate how long the pedigree is. Each parent for example is 0,5 point, for

a total of 1 point. Each grandparent is 0,250 point, in which case all four known grandparents also

adds up to 1 point, and so on.

If we take this for a pedigree, for example, we see the two parents being known, but only the

ancestors on the mothers side are known and the father’s are missing. For the PC this animal would

have 1 point as only both parents are known, but not all grandparents are known. For the ECG, this

animal would have 1 point for the parents, 0,5 point for the grandparents (0,250 + 0,250), 0,5 points

for the great grandparents (4x 0,125) and 0,5 points for the great great grandparents (8x 0,0625),

adding up to an ECG of 2,500 ((3x0,5) + 1).

(c) COI

The COI is a well-known indicator for inbreeding, but this indicator solely gives you the inbreeding

percentage if the inbreeding comes from both sides of a pedigree. When an inbred animal is paired

up with an unrelated hedgehog, the COI will be back to 0%. On it’s own, it’s not a very good indicator

for this very reason.

(d) AVK

The AVK is the abbreviation of the German term “AhnenVerlust-Koeffizient” which translates to

ancestor loss coefficient. This indicator check show many double ancestors there are within a

pedigree rather than calculating inbreeding like coi does. If the animal has all unique names within a

pedigree, the AVK will show as 100%. But if there are double names present in the pedigree, the

number will get a lot lower. In a single inbred hedgehog, this might lie between 75-99%, but the most

inbreeding tehre has been done in the past, the lower the AVK number will get. Due to this, it is

adviced not to breed with hedgehogs that have an AVK of 80% and lower, which is well over the

usual 2-5% COI most countries hold don to.

Sectie 1.08 The registry database The database in the menu is where you will find all the breeder databases that hold the pedigrees.

This is where you go to check information on animals from various breeders. But the database is also

a lot more.

(a) Pedigree pages

The pedigree pages hold photo’s, general information, owners, genetic statistics, pedigrees, relatives

and verification stamps on each an every hedgehog that’s registered through THP Registry. That’s a

lot of information on a hedgehog!

(b) Registrant database

We also have a seperate page where you can see which breeders in which area of the world register

their hedgehogs with THP Registry. Through this database you’ll be able to get to a promotional page

which holds information on the breeders like their emailaddress, website , the link to their pedigree

database and a link to their memebers profile where you can contact them directly through the

website.

(i) World map

The world map shows where breeders are based. We don’t show full addresses, but we do link

breeders to the city they live in. If you find a breeder near you, you can click the link in their

description and it leeads you to the same promotional page as in the registrant database.

(c) World Initials Database (WID)

There are thousands of breeders around the world and that makes it harder to ge tan affix applied

sometimes. With the WID we try to avoid double affixes at least per continent. In collaboration with

other databases that maintain a list of affixes in their areas, we try to maintain a list of affixes

globally. This makes it easierto identify breeders on pedigrees, but also helps with registering a new

affix to a breeder who hasn’t been using this method on their pedigrees yet.

(i) Apply for an affix

To apply for an affix, you can visit the underlying page on the WID. Simply fill out either of the two

forms and click submit! After that you’ll be sent to a Paypal payment which run automatically and

sends you straight back to the website.

(d) Clubs & Registries

This page holds the collaborating clubs and registries. People on these collaborating pages, can

become a member of the “spectators” group on THP Registry and enjoy the perks of breeder pages

without registering their hedgehogs on THP Registry. It’s free! Breeder pages are planned for january

2020!

https://thpregistry.com/database/https://thpregistry.com/database/worldwide-initials-database/https://thpregistry.com/database/worldwide-initials-database/apply-for-an-affix/https://thpregistry.com/database/clubs-registries/

Sectie 1.09 Premium corner The premium corner is for registrants who buy a yearly subscription. This option includes a fully set

database and as many registered hedgehogs and litters as you want for an entire year. On this page

you can find the submission forms that can be used for members in this group, which is submission

forms that don’t require payment upon submission.

(a) Subscriptions

Subscriptions to the premium corner & premium members group & related pages in the future, can

be bought through this page. It costs €30 per year and you will get a notification if your subscription

is ending soon. You can pay again for the next year through Paypal, bank transfer or other payment

options in the near future. But if you want to end your Premium account , you can also leave it be

and you will be automatically transferred to the registrant group which doesn’t require a yearly fee

but a pay-per-submission. Subscriptions might be usefull for bigger breeders who have a lot more

hedgehogs to register, for example USDA breeders living in America.

Sectie 1.10 Submission forms Regular subscription forms to register hedgehogs or litters and edit or request information, can be

found on this page. Each tab contains a different submission form. Registering a hedgehog or a litter

requires a fee that needs to be paid right after submission through Paypal (other payment menthods

will be implemented later). All other submission forms are free.

https://thpregistry.com/premium-corner/https://thpregistry.com/registering/subscription/https://thpregistry.com/submission-forms/

Artikel II. Hedgehog wiki The Hedgehog Wiki used to be its own website and is the core of why The Hedgehog Program was

created. Providing usefull and educational articles about hedgehogs and tenrecs, educating owners

and breeders about their care, health and other subjects. Nowadays the Hedgehog Wiki is part of the

project and if found in the menu under the same name.

The Hedgehog wiki displays articles for breeders, about dietary needs, about housing options and

even a lot of information about genetics, colors and other inhertiable subjects. In the future we will

write a lot more on this wiki, also articles abased upon our own researches!

Sectie 2.01 Breeders around the world This page hold a Google Map with breeders all over the world and you can submit yourself to the

map as well! A nice feature to give breeders a bit of promotion whilst also have a direct source to go

to for people searching for information and a good breeder.

Artikel III. Online courses We love interactive education and so we decided to also design online courses in a later stadium.

This way we can create quizzes and certified courses for owners and breeders of hedgehogs and

learn them more about their animals through fun, educative courses directly from our website.

Online courses are planned for summer 2020!

Artikel IV. Webshop The webshop is where you find educative books, fun downloadable items as well as caresheets in

different languages and other things you might need. In the future we might also sell other items

specialising our website for hedgehogs and tenrecs, but for now we’ll enjoy selling a few books and

downloadable freebies.

Artikel V. Community The forum is not entirely ready yet, but will become a new platform to discuss hedgehogs and

tenrecs and post pictures. Also we do allow selling on this forum, for whenever other platforms

might ban posts about selling animals. There’s a lot of work to do here, but you can become a

member and start discussing already!

Artikel VI. Business information

Business names

Commercial form

Start date business

Activities

Chamber of Commerce number

VAT number

Address

Emailaddresses

The Hedgehog Program

THP Registry

Proprietorship

14-10-2019

SBI-code 9606

SBI-code 47913

SBI-code 85599

76060764

NL003035639B51

The Hedgehog Program

Baarlelaan 23

7906GB Hoogeveen

The Netherlands

info@hedgehogprogram.com

info@thpregistry.com

Please bear in mind this is our home address. Any misuse of this address will be notified to the legal

authourities.